Letter Carriers "Fight like hell" against Trump's attacks

By Dre Say and Clio Jensen

Seattle, WA – Seattle union members and community activists joined a National Day of Protest on March 23 led by the National Association of Letter Carriers, saying “Hell No!” to dismantling the postal service. 300 people attended the rally in front of a Seattle post office, one of several rallies in the region in solidarity with 200,000 letter carriers and 640,000 postal workers who are fighting against President Trump’s attempt to restructure or privatize the U.S. Postal Service.

The Trump administration threatened to reorganize the independent, self-sufficient USPS under the Department of Commerce. Elon Musk recently stated, “We should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized.”

Speakers emphasized the universal, trusted, public service of the USPS and were representative of the breadth and depth of solidarity for letter carriers across the labor movement.

David Yao from the American Postal Workers Union said, “Trump and his evil henchman Elon Musk have come for our public services and that is because the billionaires don’t need those services, the people do! What do they want? Higher prices, less services! But we are going to fight, and we are going to win!”

C Moline, rally emcee, NALC shop steward and delegate, stirred the crowd, stating, “Why was there a 1970 strike? Because we had no collective bargaining, we only had collective begging. Letter carriers deserve fair pay, and fair work.”

Katie Garrow, executive secretary treasurer of the MLK Labor Council, continued the theme, “In 50 years, we will look back on this moment and your children and your grandchildren will ask you: where were you then? You will be able to tell them that you stood in the rain to fight back!”

To close out the rally, the Seattle Labor Chorus sang Solidarity Forever and the union letter carriers led the crowd on a march around the block, situated in a popular strip mall. Workers chanted, “Yes to unionization! No to privatization!” and “When union rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!”

While this action was at an urban postal office, the NALC has emphasized that while everyone benefits from the widely trusted USPS that delivers 376 million pieces of mail and packages, rural residents benefit the most. USPS letter carriers deliver mail to 51.5 million rural households and businesses where private carriers do not deliver.

A reorganization or privatization of USPS could have a devastating impact, not only jeopardizing the 7.9 million jobs in the mailing industry, but it could also reduce or end services to rural households and raise shipping costs. In this scenario, working-class households are hit the hardest, while a tiny number of bureaucrats and billionaires profit.

The Seattle rally was one of many across the country, demonstrating the desire of letter carriers and postal services workers to fight against Trump’s attacks, and the broad community support for their universal public service.

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