7 Arrested Trying to #SaveUSPS

7 Arrested Trying to #SaveUSPS

Tuesday, 17 December 2013

introduction by the editor:

Few today have not heard that the Post Office has been targeted for privatization.  As explained by the conservative Reason Foundation, “The federal government operates numerous business enterprises that could be converted into publicly traded corporations, including the USPS…”

While the USPS is generally mistaken by an under-informed public  as a government-owned corporation like Amtrak, it is legally defined as an “independent establishment of the executive branch.” As a quasi-governmental agency, it has many special privileges including the power of eminent domain, and an exclusive legal right to deliver First-Class and Standard Mail.  (In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the USPS was not a government-owned corporation and could not be sued under the Sherman Antitrust Act.)

So why privatize the Post Office?  Isn’t it one of the most criticized federal operations, accused of rampant inefficiency…A hapless government operation that has been losing money for years, resulting in the need for continuous rate increases?  In the age of electronic communication, is the USPS even still needed?  Why does government even need to be involved? 

Just what does ALEC have to gain from privatization?  Why has ALEC been scheming for so many years to privatize the USPS? 

Politically it fits their stated objectives.  (Jefferson would not recognize what ALEC calls Jeffersonian principles.)  Elimination of unions.  Free markets without any government intervention.  Small government that will not have the resources or the mandate to regulate corporate behavior to protect the economy, the environment, education, labor, civil rights…

And because it will bolster the businesses of Federal Express and United Parcel Service, long-time ALEC Corporate Members.

The worst damage inflicted on the Post Office was the 2005 law passed in Congress forcing it to do something required of no other corporation in the United States—pay forward pension benefits—i.e. fund the benefits for employees not even born yet.  Would WalMart or Exxon Mobil even be profitable if they had to pay forward their own pension benefits?

To make the USPS a publicly acceptable target for privatization, a continuous and ongoing public relations campaign has been conducted to convince the public that the USPS cannot be profitable. It is increasing our budget deficit. Heavy rotation in the conservative “echo chamber”. High profile congressional hearings. This is the standard M.O. used by ALEC to reinforce the PR spin.

What can we expect from this piratization?  If we look at the example which has been set by ALEC Corporate Members with privatized prisons, costs at the USPS will be greatly reduced.  We can expect them to get rid of the Unions and their labor contracts. Replace older workers who have received wage increases over the years with new workers who will start with lower pay and no benefits.  Sell off real estate and lease Post Office branches.  Raise postage.  Eliminate Saturday delivery – which will cut the number of workers by perhaps 8-10%.  And the elimination of delivery service to remote areas in lieu of customer pick-up. 

Currently the USPS delivers for FedEx and UPS in remote areas where it is just not profitable for the private corporations to service. And mail delivery is constitutionally protected. So if the USPS is given over to UPS and/or FedEx, what will happen to those non-profitable routes? Will the US Government have to step in and set up something just to deliver to non-profitable areas?

And most ironically, all of the pension monies which have been paid forward will be lost to the piratizers.

This would transfer government services, holdings and responsibilities to corporate control.  Put another way: “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power.”  — Benito Mussolini.

Seven activists were arrested today at a protest against the pending closure of the Gateway mail processing center in Springfield.

Holding signs aloft and using a megaphone, the protesters staged a sit-in on the processing center’s loading dock and refused to leave when asked to do so. They were arrested by police officers with U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

The protesters were cited for blocking the loading dock, a federal misdemeanor charge, and were released shortly afterward.

The sit-in followed a rally outside the adjacent Gateway post office attended by processing center employees, activists, and local elected officials.

The processing center, which employs around 200 people, is slated for closure next year. A similar mail sorting center was closed in Salem earlier this year.

The closures are a cost-cutting strategy by the U.S. Postal Service, which has ran annual deficits of $5 billion to $16 billion in recent years. All in all, the quasi-governmental agency, which is not taxpayer-supported, has closed 140 processing centers nationwide in 2012 and 2013 and plans to close another 89 next year, providing a total savings of $2 billion a year and eliminating around 13,000 jobs.

The impact of the closures will be to slow the overall pace of mail. The Gateway processing center currently handles all mail coming from zip codes starting with 974, which includes Lane, Douglas, Coos and Curry counties.

If it closes, all that mail would be shipped to Portland and processed there.

Opponents of the closures say the Postal Service’s finances could be shored up in other ways, including if a unusual Congressional mandate that the agency pre-fund 75 years’ worth of future health care benefit payments to its retirees was rolled back. Other ideas include giving the agency freedom to increase its own rates, or to allow it to explore other revenue-generating services it could provide, as many postal services in other countries do.

But the U.S. Congress largely has been inactive on the issue since the proposed closures were first announced in 2012. Lawmakers did block U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe’s proposal to do away with Saturday mail, another cost-cutting concept which will, for now, extend the USPS’ red ink.

Under pressure from lawmakers, Donohue also abandoned a plan to shutter 4,000 rural post offices nationwide — including post offices in Deadwood, Walton and Swisshome in Lane County. Instead, hours of operation for the post offices were reduced.

A video clip of the protest can be watched at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy3lj5YnTQo#t=68
A better video from KVAL-TV can be watched at http://youtu.be/3DFA1sqh4tA which has  been uploaded to the ResistPrivatization YouTube page.

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This article was written by Saul Hubbard for the Register Guard.  It is published at http://registerguard.com/rg/news/30880319-76/postal-processing-center-service-mail.html.csp

The feature photo is from KVAL.com