President Dimondstein Speaks in Defense of the Public Postal Service at Global Trade Union Forum

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

As part of World Day for Decent Work on Oct. 7, the Global Union Federations (PSI, UNI, IndustriALL, ITF, BWI and EI) and the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA) hosted an international forum under the theme of “What’s Public Stays Public.” The forum featured speakers from around the globe, advocating for the protection of public services and decent work in the public sector. President Dimondstein was invited by UNI Global Union, which APWU is affiliated with, to speak on the ongoing struggle to protect the U.S. public Postal Service.

“We are public servants, committed to the mission of the public United States Postal Service – to bind the people together through affordable and universal mail service,” President Dimondstein said. “In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, frontline postal workers, along with all essential workers, have demonstrated once again that it is the working class that makes the world go round… For decades, right-wing forces, fueled by Wall Street interests and private delivery companies, have tried to defund and degrade the public Postal Service, all with the aim to dismantle and sell it to private interests, to maximize private profit.”

President Dimondstein also explained why protecting the public Postal Service is so vitally important not only for postal workers, but for all working people.

“Good family sustaining and community building union jobs will be destroyed if the Postal Service President Dimondstein Speaks in Defense of the Public Postal Service at Global Trade Union Forum is privatized…[and] the people would lose their democratic right to universal and low-cost postal services,” President Dimondstein said. “Winning our fight to save the public Postal Service is essential to advancing our movement’s broader struggles to empower workers and to expand our commitment to economic and social justice for workers everywhere.”

Following the event, a declaration was released outlining the principles of the Forum:

What is public should stay public for all citizens, with transparency and real participation of society in decision-making, and increasingly aimed at serving the people, especially women, girls, children, youth, the elderly, people with disabilities, people of African descent and indigenous peoples…

Public companies and universal public services, in addition to being basic human rights, are fundamental to the processes of economic development, social justice, income redistribution and to serve the most needy population…

TUCA and the International Trade Union Federations, together with our national trade union centrals and national unions, will continue to fight every day against privatization and for democracy, becoming stronger and uniting with more solidarity in the trade union movement, locally and globally. The declaration concluded with the Forum’s demands, including:

• A “New Social Contract, with decent work and universal access to public goods and services.”
• For the governments around the world to be democratic, with “a public budget at the service of society, and for tax justice.”
• Against “corporations assuming control of public companies.”

That “what is public remains public, because if it is public it belongs to all of us!” The full Forum can be viewed here. President Dimondstein’s remarks begin at 1:21:47.

President Dimondstein and Other Postal Workers Participate in Catholic Labor Network Virtual Event

On September 24, President Dimondstein also spoke on a panel hosted by the Catholic Labor Network (CLN). The panel, part of the CLN’s “Workers Speak Out” series, featured President Dimondstein, Western New York Area Local President Lori Cash, and Philadelphia Area Local Legislative & Political Director Cindy Heyward discussing the issues facing the Postal Service. The panel participants shared the challenges workers continue to face in delivering service to the people of the country during the pandemic.