Statement of APWU President Mark Dimondstein on Attacks to the Public Postal Service
February 20, 2025
The Washington Post has reported that the Trump Administration will soon issue an Executive Order firing the Postal Board of Governors, and placing the United States Postal Service under the control of the Commerce Department.
If this reporting is true, it would be an outrageous, unlawful attack on a storied national treasure, enshrined in the Constitution and created by Congress to serve every American home and business equally.
Any attack on the Postal Service would be part of the billionaire oligarch coup, directed not just at the postal workers our union represents, but the millions of Americans who rely on the critical public service our members provide every single day.
The public Postal Service is the low-cost anchor of a $1.2 trillion mail and shipping industry, which supports more than 7 million jobs in communities across the country.
Efforts to privatize the Postal Service, in whole or in part, or to strip it of its independence or public service mission, would be of no benefit to the American people. Instead, it would drive up postage rates and lead to reduced service, especially to rural America.
Postal workers struck in 1970 to win collective bargaining rights and to rid the Post Office Department of the political patronage that crippled the Agency at that time.
The Postal Reorganization Act, which created the modern Postal Service after the strike, begins by saying “The United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, created by Act of Congress, and supported by the people.”
The law created the Postal Service as an independent Agency, freed from the shifting political winds, and dedicated to serving the American public. The law created the Postal Board of Governors, and empowers it and it alone to hire and fire the Postmaster General. Any effort by the Administration to remove the Board or fire postal executives is clearly illegal.
The Washington Post also reported that the Board of Governors intends to fight this hostile takeover of the public Postal Service. The APWU supports their efforts to defend our national treasure.
The Postal Service is owned by the people, for the benefit of the people. Postal workers are dedicated to our mission to serve, no matter who sits in the White House or in Congress.
Postal workers and our unions will join with the public to fight for the vibrant, independent, and public Postal Service we all deserve.