Postal Workers' Unions, Workers' Groups, and Occupy Wall Street Rally to Save the Postal Service

Fighting against the sting of austerity, postal workers and unions have banded together to organize an astounding 492 rallies across the country today.  Held from 4pm to 5:30pm, the rallies aim to garner support for legislation that would stabilize the postal service but prevent mass closures and save 120,000 employees from layoffs.  The bill is an alternative to the Republican  plan moved forward last week, which would create a financial control board to overhaul the postal service's finances, ultimately with cuts and austerity. 

In an incredible display of solidarity, five major unions and worker groups — the American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers,National Postal Mailhandlers Union, the National Rural Letter Carriers Association and the National Association of Postal Supervisors — organized  rallies in every congressional district today.  New Yorkers demonstrating with Occupy Wall Street also joined the postal workers (watch the livestream), marching from Liberty Plaza to Varick St. to show their continued support for victims of the recession.

According to the Washington Post: 

The rallies are designed to build support for legislation that would overhaul the Postal Service's health and labor costs by cutting the amount of money it must pay annually to prefund the future retirements of its workers. The bill, backed by Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) and other Democrats, also would permit USPS to raise postage rates beyond the rate of inflation, open up new lines of business and require Congress to pay back about $7 billion that USPS has paid to a federal and postal worker health-care account. Lynch believes the funds could be used to offer buyouts or early retirement incentives to eligible postal workers.

The Postal Service is expected to post as much as $10 billion in losses when its fiscal year ends on Friday and has warned it will not be able to make about $5.5 billion in mandatory labor payments. The short-term spending bill passed Monday by the Senate would give USPS until Nov. 18 to pay those bills, but postal officials have warned that the additional six weeks won’t be enough time to earn the money necessary to make the payments.

Postal workers insist the payment plan is unfair and inefficient. From SaveAmericasPostalService.org:

This postal-only mandate costs the USPS $5.5 billion per year. It accounts for 100 percent of the Postal Service’s $20 billion in losses over the past four years.

It also accounts for 100 percent of the rise in the Postal Service’s debt in recent years.

Without the mandate, the USPS would have been profitable over the past four years, and rather than having to use up its $15 billion line of credit from the U.S. Treasury to cover the pre-funding obligation, the Postal Service would have had significant borrowing authority to ride out the bad economy it now faces.

The $47 billion the Postal Service has deposited so far into its retiree health fund over the past four years instead could have been spent on operating costs.

The Postal Service and its employees don’t want a taxpayer bailout. We have not received any taxpayer funds in nearly 30 years.

What we do want is the freedom to use our own surplus pension funds to pay down the pre-funding obligation.

Save America's Postal Service is asking supporters and satisfied customers to sign their petition and send letters to local representatives who sponsor the GOP plan.