Secret Trade Deal Would Dismantle Our Postal Service

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

A trade deal the U.S. is negotiating behind closed doors with 50 other countries would dismantle our public Postal Service as we know it.

Little is known about the Trade in Service Agreement (TISA), because talks have been taking place in secret between the United States, Australia, Canada, Chile, Taiwan, Columbia, Costa Rica, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, and 28 member states of the European Union since 2012.

Because TISA is shrouded in secrecy, the public has to rely on leaked documents for insight into its provisions. Based on the little information that is available, there is reason for serious concern. We do know this: TISA regulations would trump the laws of participating nations. That means, for example, that transnational corporations could challenge water quality standards in U.S. cities, municipal zoning laws, worker safety protections, requirements for permits to operate toxic waste disposal services, and regulations on the production and distribution of tobacco and alcohol. 

The TISA Annex on Competitive Delivery Services, leaked on June 3, contends that the USPS is nothing but a “postal monopoly,” and outlines steps to dismantle our national treasure.

According to an assessment by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), the trade deal aims to “break relationships between the [government], post delivery, and the unions that can hold the state to its greater social responsibilities within and through this sector.”

In other words, TISA is designed to rip apart the relationship that the U.S. Postal Service has with customers and postal unions, trouncing the Constitutional mandate of providing good postal service to every customer in every zip code.

“It goes without saying that it also depends on breaking the unions that exercise power in the sector and maintain the social and economic floor,” said the assessment.

On June 10, presidents of three postal unions, the National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Association and the APWU wrote a letter to House members, asking them to vote against legislation that would greenlight this agreement.

“Only Congress should make decisions about our invaluable postal system – not faceless, unaccountable trade negotiators and certainly not the corporate lobbyists who have been given insider access to these secret talks,” the letter said.