VACPUSA

by worker-correspondent Tim Dennis

Sunday March 23rd, VACPUSA joined a crowd of National Association of Letter Carriers and supporters gathered at a post office in Alexandria, Virginia to protest the GOP led privatization of the USPS. Chanting “The US mail is not for sale!” over a hundred letter carriers and supporters turned out to lend their support. Across the nation, NALC and American Postal Workers Union (APWU) held protests against privatization. Participants marched around the block to a chorus of car horns, honking in solidarity. The message of the day was clear: “Hell no!” to privatization.

Why does it matter if Republicans privatize the USPS?

Unlike private delivery services, The USPS’s universal service obligation means the post office cannot refuse to deliver mail to a location simply because it “isn’t profitable”. Despite this obligation, the USPS is entirely self funded by postage and stamp sales, not a single tax dollar goes to the USPS.

If the USPS is privatized, around 51.5 million households and businesses in rural communities would have no guaranteed deliveries[1]. Despite attacks from the GOP, Americans’ view of the USPS is overwhelmingly positive, and it continues to be one of the USA’s most functional services. Millions of workers and their families rely on the USPS to survive, especially in rural areas. If the USPS is privatized, access to affordable mail delivery, especially delivery of medication and social security benefits, will be in danger.

For the USPS workers, a privatized post office undoubtedly looks like the nightmarish conditions at Amazon fulfillment centers: no benefits, sub-poverty wages, unreliable hours, and workers dropping dead of heat exhaustion on the warehouse floor. The privatization of public services like the USPS is nothing short of an attack on the working class. We must stand in solidarity, and oppose these attempts to remove democratic control of our essential services.

How did we get here?

In 2006 the Republican controlled congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, requiring the USPS to pre-fund health benefits for future retirees seventy five years in advance. After the bill was signed, the USPS was forced to set aside billions of dollars every year, to pay for retirement costs for employees who wouldn’t be hired for decades.

This requirement is unique to the post office, no other government entity has ever had to shoulder such an unreasonable financial burden. Unsurprisingly, the billions that Republicans forced the USPS to pay into the retirement fund caused the post office to appear unprofitable, allowing the GOP to spend the next two decades attacking the USPS as wasteful and unreliable. 

Now in 2025, the GOP is attempting to deal a coup-de-grace to the USPS, handing it over to the insatiable vultures of private capital, at the expense of the millions of people who rely on the post office.

What can we do?

Call your congressional representatives and tell them to oppose the privatization of the post office through HR70, and ask them to additionally support HR1522 and HR1065. Don’t stop there, educate your friends, family and coworkers on this issue, and support your local postal worker and letter carrier unions through donations (you can donate to the NALC political fund here).

[1]https://www.nalc.org/news/nalc-updates/nalc-statement-on-reported-executive-order-attacking-postal-service