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The USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee urges postal workers to organize now to prepare emergency action, up to and including a national strike, to save the United States Postal Service and defeat Trump’s attacks on the working class. We must organize this from below—we can’t wait for “permission” from corrupt union bureaucrats and Democratic Party officials who are working against us.
The postal service is an arm of the federal government that has served each and every home in America since the Revolutionary War 250 years ago. We have to fight to ensure that mail continues to be delivered to every mailbox in America, on time, six days a week, by federal employees.
What’s at stake
At stake is not just the future of USPS as a public entity, but the democratic and social rights of everyone. At stake is whether this country will become a dictatorship.
The selection of FedEx Board member David Steiner as the new Postmaster General is a declaration of all-out war against more than 600,000 postal workers. His top priority will be to destroy USPS and privatize whatever can make money for Fedex and other huge corporations.
Many spoke of the conflict of interest of the last PMG Louis DeJoy for owning a company that contracts with USPS. This goes far beyond that. Once Steiner takes office, an agency of the federal government will effectively become a subsidiary of FedEx.
Coming amid the jobs slaughter by oligarch Elon Musk, this shows once again that the present government is of, by and for the oligarchy. The result is collapsing infrastructure, as shown by the Newark Airport air traffic outages, and mass layoffs in both the public and private sector. At UPS, 20,000 more layoffs have been announced as a result of Trump’s tariffs.
We have no choice but to fight. This would mean tens of thousands more job losses, even deeper cuts to pay and more overwork than what we already deal with. Automation will be used to destroy countless more jobs, beginning with the distribution centers. For the public, it will mean higher prices and massive delays.
Everything which they have been doing for years under the misnamed “Delivering for America” restructuring under DeJoy is now going to kick into high gear. Already, city carriers are being harassed and written up by computers through the TIAREAP monitoring system, rural carriers have endured thousands of dollars in wage theft under the RRECS compensation system, and clerks are battling office closures and consolidations.
This is not some far-off possibility. They are preparing a conspiracy now to move against us. The fact that the National Association of Letter Carriers contract expires several months early next May suggests that management and the union bureaucrats know something we don’t.
The Post Office is also being converted into a surveillance network for the would-be dictator Trump. The Washington Post reported that the US Postal Inspection Service is being used to locate immigrants for ICE to snatch and disappear. It won’t stop with immigrants. Already he is arresting judges and mayors for opposing his policies—what he has planned for the whole working class would be far, far worse. And as always, censorship and police measures are connected with plans for new wars abroad.
The Trump administration is a dictatorship of the oligarchy. Through him, the handful of billionaires and corporations that run this country are seizing direct, open control.
How to fight back
But we can fight back with a movement from below, from the working class. We are the majority, we create the world’s wealth and we have no interest in privatization and dictatorship. Only mass action, including a general strike, can force a stop to Trump’s conspiracies.
The big question is: how do we do this? First of all, we can’t rely on the Democrats. They are letting him get away with everything because they are the other Wall Street party. They’re more afraid of us, the working class, than fascism. We have to base ourselves on a strategy which is independent of the whole existing political setup.
Second, we have to fight the union bureaucracy which is sitting on our chests. NALC has just used expedited arbitration to override an historic “no” vote and impose a new contract. The National Rural Letter Carriers Association has put forward its own sellout patterned after NALC. They tell us that there is nothing we can do because of illegitimate anti-strike laws, even as Trump violates the law at will, including by ripping up federal labor contracts.
It’s not just a few bad apples, but the whole bureaucracy. They have different class interests than us. Even as they “bargain” pay increases of 1.4 percent, NALC President Brian Renfroe gave himself a 19 percent pay increase, to over $270,000 a year. NRLCA President Don Maston got a 14 percent raise. There are hundreds of officials making six-figure salaries, financed by our dues money. Their enjoyment of their wealth would be disrupted by a confrontation with the Trump government.
Playing musical chairs at the top, replacing Renfroe with some other bureaucrat, accomplishes nothing. In the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters, yesterday’s “reform” candidates are today’s Trump supporters! This shows the whole bureaucracy has to be overthrown and replaced, not reformed. We need to build a new type of leadership, drawn from, organized by and accountable to the ranks.
Just like the 1970 wildcat strike, the biggest fight in history by US postal workers, initiative can only come from below.
Build rank-and-file committees at every post office! Mobilize the working class!
This new type of leadership is the rank-and-file committee. Many have asked us: how do you build them? There is no one-size-fits-all, but you should start by gathering a group of the most trusted coworkers in your facility. Don’t allow union officers, managers or other potential stoolpigeons in.
Do not worry at first about numbers. The power of the committee is that it is the only group telling workers the truth and fighting to unite them, not dividing them up by union or wasting time with useless appeals to Renfroe or his replacement waiting in the wings.
You have now founded a local rank-and-file committee. Affiliate it with the national USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee so you can make contact with other postal workers and discuss plans for joint action. Issue statements explaining what the committee is and what you are fighting for. This will begin to attract support.
We propose the following national demands:
No to privatization! Save USPS as a public service!
End USPS’ collaboration in attacks on immigrants and opponents of Trump!
Inflation-busting pay increases!
An end to the RRECS and TIAREAP programs!
The reversal of all job and pay cuts and facility closures since the start of Delivering for America!
An end to two-tier pay! All workers should be on the Table 1 pay schedule!
Instead of privatizing USPS, convert Fedex, UPS, Amazon and other logistics corporations into public entities under workers’ control to use this infrastructure for the common good, not profits.
As postal workers, you are familiar with the communities which you serve. You can use that to your advantage, educating workers in your area about what is going on and urging their support.
The USPS Workers RFC is also part of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees. Through this, you can make contact with workers across the US and the world, including postal workers in other countries fighting the same things. You can use these connections to appeal for broad support and warn other workers that they’re next!
If you agree with this: Now is the time to get off the sidelines! Contact us now to begin fighting!