'Post Office Guy' is a Civilian Champion

(This article first appeared in the September-October 2015 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)

Sidney Moss is a semi-retired clinical social worker, but around town in Northampton, MA, he is known as “the post office guy.”

For the past year, Moss has been writing letters to the editor of his local paper about the need to keep post offices and processing plants open, because “it’s one of the few iconic forces in America that’s not completely taken over by the corporate world.”

Recently, he participated in the APWU’s postcard campaign, getting friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbors to sign the ‘I Stand with Postal Workers’ cards. He also has been handing out union brochures that dispel myths about the Postal Service.

Moss, who moved to Northampton last year, after living in Philadelphia most of his life, explained that he decided to ramp up his actions because he is an activist at heart – and didn’t like what he was seeing.

“Over the years, the post office has been systematically dismantled. There have been many attempts at privatization, like Staples using clerical workers to do a postal worker’s job,” Moss said.

“The post office is one of the few really important social government agencies left in the country and it’s been singled out. It’s worthy of the effort to try and save it,” he added.

 “$65 billion is an awful lot of money that the corporate world would love to take over,” Moss said, referring to the Postal Service’s annual revenue last year. “I am very unhappy with the attempt to privatize such especially good things.”

Moss has also been in touch with his U.S. Representative, Jim McGovern (D-MA), asking for support of House Resolutions 54 and 12, which would restore service standards and preserve six-day mail delivery.

Moss said by being a first-generation American, he developed a “sensitivity towards hardships, people just trying to make it in the world.

“Nobody is really speaking up for postal workers,” Moss said. “I do anything I can to support the good people that the union represents.”