Portland Communities and Postal Workers United

Seven arrested at postal privatization protest

Calling themselves “postal protectors”, fifteen activists gathered in the third floor lobby of the Main Post Office in downtown Portland yesterday, holding signs protesting postal privatization. Seven were arrested while attempting to negotiate a meeting with District Manager Erica Brix.

“Postal truckers, mail handlers and mail processing clerks are losing their jobs to profiteering, private corporations,” declared Jamie Partridge, one of those arrested. “We are protesting the privatization of the people’s postal service. We oppose the destruction of family wage, union jobs and the delay of the people’s mail.”

After months of attempts to gain a meeting with senior postal managers, the “protectors” showed up armed with over a thousand signatures on a petition to managers Brix, Brenda Jackson (transportation), and Lisa Shear (mail processing). For the sixth time, the activists were refused a meeting – since August senior postal managers have received requests from postal union presidents, from Congress people, from community groups – to discuss an end to privatization of postal jobs (letters of request and refusals attached).

While waiting peacefully to meet with Brix, four of the petitioners were attacked by a postal inspector, causing injury requiring medical attention. The petitioners are considering filing assault charges. Despite news reports to the contrary, the activists never attempted to enter a secure area nor threatened any postal property or personnel. Portland police were called by the activists to intervene. After beginning a promising mediation to set up a meeting between Brix and the protesters, the police abruptly cut off talks and arrested seven for trespassing. The arrestees declared their intention to plead not guilty and request a jury trial.

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Postal mail handlers and processing clerks have lost their jobs in Salem as the work is being subcontracted to the low-wage, non-postal, non-union Matheson Flight Extender corporation in Portland.

At the same time, Portland postal truckers are being put on standby while the low-wage, non-postal, non-union Dill Star Route/ LAPO trucking company takes their work.

“This privatization and union-busting is being carried out in the name of a phony financial emergency,” said Rev. John Schwiebert, one of the arrestees. “The security, safety, and timely delivery of the mail are all at risk. Rural communities, seniors and the disabled, small businesses and low-income communities are hit the hardest. Postal management needs to stop and reverse these closures, cuts, and subcontracts which are sending our beloved postal service into a death spiral.”

Portland Communities and Postal Workers United (PCPWU), organizers of yesterday’s action, have been fighting cuts and closures to the postal service for the past year. In May of 2012, ten activists were arrested occupying Portland’s University Station post office, which has since been closed. In April of this year, five protesters went to jail for a civil disobedience action at the Salem mail plant, which has now been dismantled with mail processing machines moving to Portland. The same group was arrested in July occupying the Matheson plant and has blockaded Dill Star Route trucks multiple times, demanding those companies stop stealing family wage, union postal jobs.

TRUCKERS

Seven postal trucking positions were recently eliminated at the same time as the subcontractor, Dill Star Route trucking, hired twenty drivers to do twice as many mail runs as were previously needed, according to Partridge. The company is being paid $59 per hour for each driver, while the USPS is paying for the gas and lending the company postal trailers (in violation of postal rules) and leasing nine tractors for Dill Star use (at $30,000 per month). According to union officials, postal drivers are sitting on standby without work, up to 500 hours a week, while many of the extra Dill Star trucks are running empty or have very little mail.

Bankruptcy papers show that Dill Star owes the postal service over $300,000. “Dill Star used federal credit cards to avoid the federal gas tax, and then never paid the bill,” says Partridge. “This padded, no-bid contract was arranged by USPS transportation manager Brenda Jackson, who appears to have a special relationship with the Dill family.”

MAIL HANDLERS AND PROCESSING CLERKS

Mail sorting machines being moved from Salem cannot fit into the Portland Air Cargo Center, so space is being leased next door in the Matheson facility. But when the SWYB machine is moved into the Matheson space, it will be worked by twelve non-postal mail handlers and six non-postal processing clerks, hired by Matheson. USPS senior plant manager Lisa Shear says the sub-contracting is necessary to save labor costs in this “financial emergency”.

PHONY FINANCIAL EMERGENCY

The “financial emergency” is phony. Since 2006 the USPS has been forced to spend nearly 10% of its budget pre-funding retiree health benefits 75 years in advance. No other U.S. agency or private business faces such a crushing financial burden. Not only would the postal service have been profitable without the mandate, the USPS has also over-paid tens of billions into two pension funds.

COSTLY CUTS, CLOSURES, and CONTRACTING-OUT

In the past year, the Postmaster General has closed 45% of mail processing plants, reduced hours by 25% – 75% in a third of the post offices, put 10% of post offices up for sale, subcontracted trucking and mail handling, eliminated tens of thousands of family wage, postal jobs and delayed mail delivery.

The USPS own studies (revealed at the March 22, 2012 meeting of the Postal Regulatory Commission), showed that big mailers leave the system as a result of such delays, costing more in lost revenue than is saved by lowering labor costs, not to mention the dramatic increase in trucking costs as mail is transported hundreds of extra miles to be sorted in the closest still open facilities.

Postal workers have seen their wages cut by 25% for new hires. Bottom-tier Postal Support Employees (truckers and clerks) and Mail Handler Assistants now make less in wages and benefits than the non-postal, non-union sub-contract workers.

The postal service is not broke. Subcontracting work is unnecessary and costly. However, the agenda of corporate America, their friends in Congress and in postal management, according to the PCPWU, is to cripple the USPS, to soften it up for union busting and privatization. The USPS is a $65 billion annual business with over $100 billion surplus in its pension and retiree health benefit funds, over 30,000 post offices and 200,000 vehicles. Postal activists claim that America is being confronted with a huge transfer of public wealth to for-profit, private corporations.