Omar Gonzalez
Omar Gonzalez, APWU Western Region Coordinator
No, I’m not writing to [Megan] Brennan the 74th (and first female) PMG. I’m directing this to you, Ben Franklin.
Yes, I realize you were one of the last PMGs of the British Crown. And yes, it is technically Sam Osgood who was the first PMG of the USA.
But Mr. Franklin sir, to millions of Americans you are considered our first PMG appointed by the Continental Congress in 1775.
So I write to you about what they are doing to our wonderful American postal system. The system you helped establish even when you were the Postmaster of Philly way back in 1753.
Making Money
As the founding father of our Postal Service you helped reorganize it giving personal attention to visiting the Post Offices. You even posted a surplus!
Now, under the concocted notion the Postal Service is broke the PMGs of today have taken a course of cutting services and deliberately delaying the mail. They do this despite posting a $1.3 billion operating profit.
Your successor, retired PMG Donahue, went to Congress in 2012 to claim the Postal Service was on the “brink of default.” He set a crazed course of cutting personnel, service, and ignoring rational calls to stop plans to deliberately delay our nation’s mail.
Slashing Workers
Today’s PMGs have slashed the workforce needed to give quality and full service to America. Unlike you, who only had a Secretary/Comptroller, then 3 Surveyors, a Dead Letter Inspector and 26 post riders before Postal HQ was moved to DC in 1800, today’s PMGs have increased their staff at HQ while cutting operational staff to the bone at our postal facilities undermining service.
And unlike you with a salary of $1,000, today’s PMGs retire with golden parachutes of more than $4,000,000 yet they don’t believe younger postal workers should be promised a government pension.
Dismantling Your Organization
As Chairman of the Committee of Investigation to establish a postal system, and as PMG, you planned and put into operations our postal system.
Ordinances have since been adopted to codify postal laws/regulations. The Post Office Act of 1792 allowed
access to the P.O. to the entire country and the privacy of mail. The P.O. Act of 1845 lowered postage and encouraged communication.
By 1863 we had free delivery followed by RFD in 1896. We evolved into the People’s Postal Service when in 1877 the US Supreme Court ruled that the Post Office was not confined to the instrumentalities that existed at the time the Constitution was adopted.
The Postal Policy Act of 1958 declared that the Post Office was to unite more closely the American people. “The P.O. is not a business enterprise conducted for profit or for raising general funds. The Post Office is a public service!” You would be proud that in 1982 postage stamps were declared a postal product and not a tax. Tax payer money doesn’t go to operate the P.O.!
But, I believe you would be saddened by the Postal Enhancement and Accountability Act of 2006 that is turning a profitable service into a paper debt ridden mess. This law is being used to destroy Motor Vehicle Services founded in 1914 and to dismantle the metro and sectional center systems that gave rise to one of the most efficient code systems in the world- ZIP.
Today’s PMGs call postal workers their most important asset while they disrupt their work and home lives with insane staffing plans that don’t work time and again. All this they do while deliberately delaying the mail.
Ben Frankin reading Omar’s letter. Seriously, Franklin in London, 1767
Rest In Peace
So Mr. Franklin, I’m sorry if I disturbed your peace. We will continue to fight to preserve the postal system you founded and what I ask from you now is for you and Saint Peter to say a prayer for us that we prevail!
By Omar M. Gonzalez via APWU East Bay Area Local #47, Unionizer
Its not 1775 any more you morons.
CLERKS, CARRIERS, COUNTRYMEN and WOMEN, Lend me your ears. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Corresponding with the spirits of the beyond not withstanding, one must understand those unable to learn from their history are destined to repeat it. Most remarkable correlation relating a truly visionary revolutionary founding father with the trials and tribulations of today’s Postal Service. Things that make you go Hhmmm….
well said sir. postal mgt. doesnt give 2 $ about their customers and especially about their employees.
God bless Bush, God bless Koch and God bless America!
I actually enjoyed the history lesson and the reaffirmation that the USPS is a public service and not a money making machine.
Wonderful letter , to bad this will fall on death ears . This is the beginning of the end for the Postal Service .
The letter will fall on DEAD ears, Jeffery. The system isn’t just corrupted within – everything surrounding the USPS management that can actually do something to address the insanity and, in my humble opinion willful and illegal delaying of mail, refuses to act, and when they do, it’s only to pour more salt in a badly ulcerated wound.
These outside sources do not include the unions, although I think the NALC, my union, is far too timid these days, the craft employees or the legislators who have been championing the sensible reform of the Service, like Bernie Sanders, for example.
However, Congress’ enemies of the USPS are the number one culprits unwilling to lift a finger to stop postal management, the most bloated and incompetent bunch of ninnies ever in corporate or organizational America. These include the vast majority of Republicans in both Houses, all of whom hate workers, the middle class and organized labor, and traitors like Doug Carper, D-Delaware, who once called himself a pal of the letter carriers, and then turned snake on us. At least Darryl Issa is not on the committee to destroy the USPS right now.
Then, the lobbyists for FedEx and UPS. They shove money under the table to legislators in amounts the union’s PAC funds can’t possibly match, and D.C. revolves around politicians extorting payoffs from businesses and lobbies in return for favorable legislation. Most Americans think it’s the other way around, with lobbies controlling Congress, but the tables have turned in recent times.
Union haters, the Koch brothers and stupid voters who cannot be made to understand how voting for the GOP is the absolute worst thing they can do in their own best interests make up the rest.
Franklin would have had shit conniptions to be sure. However, as grim as we think it is, nobody should ever give up the good fight. It’s very depressing sometimes and one can certainly understand the temptation to throw one’s hands up in the air and forget about it. That isn’t wise though, because the next time enough people are sufficiently motivated to truly act after being stomped on long enough, it can and does result in violent events as politicians take advantage of every situation to abuse it and many times make a bad thing worse.
The USPS doesn’t have to end. We can increase our informational pickets, write and call our legislators until their phones die. The worst thing we can do is nothing.
Amen
Well , Mr. Ben, hope your casket spinners are well greased !
nothing new under the sun……99% of postal mismanagers have no college education. 5 or ten years ago the GAO (government accounting office) said 10 year old’s had a better accounting systems at their lemonaid stands. OSHA is always finding safety violations and nothing is ever done.-try that in a Fortune 500 company. only way around this for me is to keep accumulating FDX and UPS stock as a hedge against this madness. instead of democrat president jimmy carter deregulating the airline and telecommunication industries( and screwing a lot union airline and phone company workers), he should have spun off the post office to stew in its own juices. VA hospitals are in second place and the “Illegal Alien Escort Service” (Border Patrol) is in third and coming up fast. federal govt sucks at running a business.
well that was time well spent Mr. Gonzalez…… seriously???????
when i saw the article was written by omar gonzalez i decided not to waste my time reading it. i heard enough from this loser to last a lifetime.
Didn’t Gonzalez back Donawhore lackey,Cliff Guffey and the morons that were in the APWU leadership 4 years ago and helped push the big giveaway CBA on the stupid APWU members who voted for it? why didn’t he urge members to vote no on it and pushed for Guffey’s removal at the next convention?