Milwaukee rally demands: “Hands off our Postal Service”

Milwaukee, WI – On Sunday, March 23, over 300 people took it to the streets to demand an end to Trump and the billionaire class’s constant threats of dismantling the United States Postal Service (USPS). The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Pioneer Branch 2 hosted the rally with support from the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) Local 3 and the Wisconsin Rural Letter Carriers Association. The event was part of a larger national day of action which saw hundreds of other cities across the country participate.

The attack comes while the NALC and APWU are in contract negotiations with the USPS. For the first time since 1978, the membership of the NALC recently voted down a proposed contract, with 71% voting no.

The Postal Service continues to poorly manage the company and claim it is broke, yet it continues to spend record amounts on wages for abusive managers and in the installation of surveillance technology that further micromanages and represses its employees.

The Postal Reform Act of 2022 repealed the requirement to pre-fund retiree benefits and will go into effect this year, taking a $5.6 billion burden off the books.

At Milwaukee’s rally, Travis Albert, vice president of NALC Branch 2, said, “Hell no to the attacks on the Postal Service! Politicians are attempting to take away our right to paid grievance time. This would impact our only avenue for peaceful negotiations with management. You take that away and what will we be left with? And we here in Milwaukee we are building a mean, mean union!”

NALC Branch 2 Sergeant at Arms William Schroeder called employees to action, stating, “We need to take this energy back to the shop floor every single day – if all of us used this energy at union meetings, in the grievance procedure, and when management harasses us it would stop right now.”

The Postal Service is a trillion dollar company that provides an affordable service to every house in the country, and any attempt to dismantle or privatize it is an attack on all Americans. If there was no public Postal Service, the private sector would run rampant with high costs and less coverage to rural areas. Today however, the various Postal unions made it loud and clear that the U.S. mail is not for sale.

The turnover rate in the postal service is higher than ever before due to the poor working conditions and low wages, but that has not deterred postal workers from all over the country. Instead, these conditions have ignited a new wave of militant action against Postal Service management and anyone else who tries to dismantle the company.

A national reform movement is rapidly growing within the NALC as members across the country have become angry with working conditions and the incompetency of union national President Brian Renfroe. This has resulted in the rise of the Concerned Letter Carriers (CLC) and Build a Fighting NALC (BFN), which both demand an end to concessionary leadership. Thousands of members have participated in national organizing calls to replace the weak NALC leadership and in demanding a strong contract.

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