Make a Difference and Save Your Postal Job on Election Day

(This article first appeared in the September/October 2020 issue of the American Postal Worker magazine)

Currently, we have a U.S. President and many Senators who want to impose enormous financial burdens on the USPS. We have a President who is willing to give corporations, banks, and Wall Street stimulus money, but not the Postal Service – the highest rated government agency that serves all Americans during this pandemic. We have a new Postmaster General (PMG) with a long history of financial donations to the President’s election campaign, along with many other prominent politicians.

COVID-19 has reminded America that our service is essential. We provide access to a democratic, safe and secure election through vote by mail. We are the last hope for America during a crisis: restoring communications, commerce, and helping displaced victims from natural disasters. We protect people from bio-medical and bio-hazard attacks, provide emergency medications, testing, and vaccines. We provide services that protect people and save lives.

We now have a PMG who is slowing down mail service, closing post offices and stations, reducing hours and Saturday delivery, and who wants to open doors for corporations, including Amazon. What about his own previous logistics transportation postal service business? Is he planning a transportation program that helps contractors get profitable pieces of the USPS while doing his best to end the universal services that have been promised to the public?

Over the years, we have had cuts. Did you know that 54,678 post offices have been closed? We have 31,322 post offices left. There are 10,678 zip codes that don’t have a post office. By 2013, we had 402 mail processing facilities consolidated; now we have 265. These closures have caused constant overtime and high transportation costs. Our PMG has plans to cut the Postal Service even further, compromising our national, public, and essential infrastructure. This will affect communities and jobs everywhere. The previous PMG slowed down first-class mail delivery by 3-5 days; now people are reporting firstclass delays of up to 14 days. This is frustrating postal consumers. We cannot let the Board of Governors and the new Postmaster General destroy the world’s finest postal system.

Vote Early!

If you want to save your Postal Service job, save your benefits, your retirement and the public Postal Service for your family, your friends, your young children, your community, and your country, you must vote early.

Find out about early state election rules now! Go to voteathome.org, click on voter center, click the box to request your mail-in ballot and learn about your state rules. You can also find help on voting by mail at vote411.org.

Apply for an absentee ballot as early as possible, and send back your ballot as early as possible. Track your ballot, and make sure it is delivered to the correct election office by the November 3, 2020 deadline. Vote early for a president, vice president, senators, and house representatives who can save your job and your country. Help as many people as possible to vote by mail, early!