Hidden Agenda: When Doing Nothing Does Something

(This article appeared in the July/August 2013 edition of The American Postal Worker.)

Cliff Guffey, President 

Despite a flurry of legislative activity in June, it seems clear that some members of Congress aren’t at all interested in saving the Postal Service. They may talk about the USPS crisis; they may even introduce “postal reform” bills. But they’re content to fiddle while the USPS burns.

Why? Because the Postal Service’s manufactured financial crisis helps achieve their goals. As the Postal Service lurches toward insolvency, politicians who favor privatization see an opening — the chance to turn a great public institution into a private business opportunity for their cronies on Wall Street. The deeper the crisis, the greater their chance of success.

And with no Congressional relief in sight, the USPS is racing to take apart the mail processing network and cut service. Dismantling the network and degrading service also help those who want to carve up postal operations and turn them over to private businesses — such as Pitney-Bowes, UPS, FedEx and others. That’s why it is crucial that we intensify our demand for real postal reform — reform that would protect the USPS as a public postal service.

Doing Nothing, They Get What They Want

Unfortunately, congressional dysfunction isn’t limited to postal matters. It seems to affect every problem facing our country today. Whether it’s the budget, jobs or the economy, Congress seems to be unable to do anything about the pressing issues facing our country. And congressional inaction helps our adversaries get what they want.

We’ve seen that right-wing extremists are willing to repeatedly bring the nation to the brink of default in order to destabilize programs they oppose. Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, student loans and nutritional assistance for young children are all at risk.

Likewise, by stalling postal reform, the enemies of a public postal service achieve their objectives — deepeningthe crisis, inflicting massive cuts on the postal network, undermining service and paving the way for a private postal service.

In doing so, they are ignoring the will of the American people, who reject postal privatization and oppose significant cuts in postal service. (See Vice President Greg Bell’s article.)

Nonetheless, “think tanks” are issuing calls to contract out mail processing and retail operations. They are churning out proposals with sweet-sounding labels, such as a “public-private partnership” or a “hybrid model,” where the Postal Service would retain delivery but contract out everything else.

As we go to press, Britain’s Royal Mail is being sold off in a stock offering that is being managed by the Swiss megabank UBS and the Wall Street firm Goldman-Sachs. These are some of the same folks who want to get their hands on the U.S. Postal Service – minus the unionized workforce, of course.

Daunting Challenges

The challenges we face are daunting, but they aren’t just postal issues. They go to the core of our democracy.

We, the People, are being marginalized by corporate dominance of our economy, our mass media, and our political system. That’s why the 2014 elections will be crucial.

Unless we change the political forces in our society, the Postal Service — and many other great American institutions — will one day be quaint remembrances from a bygone era.

We cannot allow our adversaries to destroy the USPS. We must defend the great public postal service we have dedicated our working lives to. To do that, we must enlist support from our allies — the people and businesses who rely on the mail — and we must spread our message to lawmakers and the media.

And we must upend the political dynamic that is weakening the United States of America — beginning now as we prepare for the 2014 congressional elections. 

Need a Scorecard?

On Feb. 13, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) introduced the Postal Service Protection Act (S. 316 / H.R. 630), which the APWU supports. The bill would provide a real path to postal viability. Neither Sen. Sanders nor Rep. DeFazio serves on the relevant oversight committees, however, and the legislation hasn’t been brought up for consideration.

On June 13, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, released a “discussion draft” of a bill that would hasten the demise of the USPS. It would severely harm postal workers, privatize large portions of USPS operations, degrade service, and do virtually nothing to strengthen the Postal Service’s ability to serve the communications needs of our nation.

On June 20, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) introduced the Protect Overnight Delivery Act, (H.R. 2459), which would stop plant consolidations by preserving overnight delivery. Rep. DeLauro isn’t on the postal oversight committee, so her bill faces an uphill climb for consideration.

As we go to press, the Ranking Democrat on the House Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (MD), and the chair of Senate committee, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), plan to introduce postal reform bills, but haven’t done so yet.