The 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union accused President Donald Trump of plotting to “sacrifice our public Postal Service at the altar of private profit” after the Washington Post reported late Thursday that the White House is considering using a $10 billion relief loan approved by Congress last month to impose long-sought changes on the popular agency.
“It’s a power grab to destroy the public Postal Service. Shame on them,” Mark Dimondstein, president of the APWU, said in a statement.
According to the Post, “officials working under Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who must approve the $10 billion loan, have told senior officials at the USPS in recent weeks that he could use the loan as leverage to give the administration influence over how much the agency charges for delivering packages and how it manages its finances.”
The $10 billion loan was authorized by the CARES Act, which President Trump signed into law last month after threatening to veto the bill if it included a $13 billion direct grant that Democratic lawmakers proposed. The loan is a fraction of the $75 billion the Postal Service has requested to avert total collapse by September.
Trump has openly dismissed calls to prioritize emergency funding for the Postal Service, whose finances have been shaken by a precipitous decline in mail volume caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Analysts have stressed that Congress is largely responsible for the popular agency’s financial troubles: In 2006, lawmakers approved legislation that requires USPS to prefund its retirees’ health benefits through the year 2056.
Dimondstein said Thursday that the Post’s reporting confirms that the Trump administration is attempting to take advantage of the Covid-19 crisis to fundamentally transform USPS and force “draconian cuts.” In 2018, a White House task force released a proposal that, if implemented, would eventually privatize the Postal Service and roll back postal workers’ collective bargaining rights.
As the Post noted, “if Mnuchin were to gain greater control through the new loan, a slew of Postal Service management decisions, including the terms of major contracts and collective bargaining strategy, could require Treasury’s approval.”
“Postal workers provide an absolutely essential service to everyone in the country — no matter how rich or poor we are or where we live,” said Dimondstein. “During this pandemic, postal workers have continued to bind the nation together and deliver essential medicine, supplies, and information to a public that is confined to their homes.”
“At a time when the country needs us now more than ever,” Dimondstein added, “Mnuchin and his Wall Street cronies are attempting to exploit the crisis to raise prices, demonize heroic postal workers, and cut service, all so private delivery companies can profit.”
An explosive report in @washingtonpost tonight shows that while postal workers are literally putting their lives on the line, the White House is coming after their jobs.
We need EVERYONE to take action to #SaveThePostOffice #SaveTheUSPS https://t.co/z4xxdrmmFH— APWU National (@APWUnational) April 23, 2020
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) told the Post that he hopes USPS will tell Mnuchin that “they’re not going to agree to unacceptable conditions, and that means Mnuchin will have on his hands the disruption of services this fall.”
“I think it’s time to stare him down and this White House down, and for Congress to decide [if we are] going to stand with the Postal Service as we know it,” Connolly said. “This is an essential service and it needs to be treated as such. My hope would be that the Postal will stare him down. If they don’t, it’s tantamount to handing over day-to-day management to the Treasury Department.”
In an email to supporters on Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that if Congress “can bail out large corporations, we can damn well help the Postal Service — the most popular government agency in America — from going bankrupt because of this horrific pandemic.”
“The USPS is expected to lose about 50% of its revenue due to a loss of mail volume during the pandemic. And what most people do not know is that the USPS does not run on taxpayer dollars — it relies completely on revenue created by postage and postal services,” Sanders wrote. “If the Postal Service goes under, universal and affordable delivery would no longer be a guaranteed public service.”
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!
With gratitude and resolve,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy