The Militant - June 1, 2015 -- Postal workers rally to oppose job, service cutbacks

Vol. 79/No. 20 June 1, 2015

Postal workers rally to oppose
job, service cutbacks

BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
NEW YORK — On May 14, six days before their national contract expires, American Postal Workers Union members organized “I Stand With Postal Workers” pickets and rallies around the country to oppose U.S. Postal Service cutbacks in jobs and services. APWU locals held more than 130 events in 42 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, according to the union’s website.

The Postal Service plans to close or consolidate 82 mail processing facilities this year, in addition to the 140 processing plants closed or consolidated in 2012.

“Help Save Our Public Postal Service!” read a flyer being distributed to passersby at a picket line of some 50 APWU members and supporters at the Main Post Office here. Postal bosses are using the financial crisis to “cut service, privatize operations, and convert living-wage, union jobs into low-wage non-union jobs,” it stated. One such move includes transferring some postal operations over to Staples, where workers earn substantially less than postal union members.

Postal workers demand “extended hours at post offices to shorten customers’ wait time in line,” the union flyer said, “an end to the closure of mail sorting centers, restoration of prompt mail delivery, and the addition of postal banking.”

“I came out to support what I believe in — unions, workers’ rights and fair wages — all of which will be weakened by privatization,” Mary McQuillar, a window clerk at a post office in Berkeley, California, told the Militant. She was among the couple dozen workers who held an informational picket outside the main post office in Walnut Creek, California.

They were joined by United Steelworkers members who work at nearby oil refineries. “I’m here today because the Postal Workers union supported us on the picket line during our strike,” said Tracy Scott, staff representative for Tesoro refinery workers.

Patti Iiyama in Walnut Creek, California, contributed to this article.