Communities and Postal Workers United

A mystery vehicle suddenly blocked a private truck attempting to transport mail at the Mt. Hood Distribution Center (US Postal Service) at 9am this morning (8/14/2013). A ten-foot banner reading “Stop the Privatization of the People’s Postal Service” covered one side of the silver station wagon, tying the action to a blockade of the same private truck last month.

”Postal truckers are losing work to a bankrupt, fly-by-night outfit – Dill Star Route, Inc. — in a corrupt, no-bid deal with local USPS management,” declared Jamie Partridge, a retired postal worker, when he participated in the July 17th blockade. “We intend to stop this attack on family wage, union jobs.” Partridge would not comment on claims that the silver station wagon is registered in his name.

As the truck driver paced, postal managers huddled and postal workers giggled, the “silver bullet” held the private truck in check for an hour and a half. Workers reported that a postal supervisor told the driver to “plow the f*cking car.” The driver fretted that the car “might blow!” Then, just as a tow truck was seen arriving, the silver station wagon disappeared, as mysteriously as it had arrived.

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 Route, Inc. owes the postal service over $300,000. “Dill 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 (503-294-2402), who appears to have a special relationship with the Dill family.”

Portland Communities and Postal Workers United (PCPWU), the group behind the July 17th protest, has 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 is now being dismantled with mail processing machines moving to Portland. On July 3rd, five “postal protectors” were arrested for occupying Matheson Flight Extenders, a company slated to take over twelve mail handling and six mail processing jobs from union, postal workers.

“This privatization and union-busting is being carried out in the name of a phony financial emergency,” said Rev. John Schwiebert, one of the ten in the July blockade. “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.”

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 half of post offices, put hundreds 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 CPWU, 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.