Hundreds of letter carriers from throughout Connecticut came to the New Haven Green along with a U.S. senator and Congresswoman to send a message to the U.S. postmaster general: Keep Saturday deliveries intact. Or else.
They delivered the message at a lively noon rally Sunday.
The rally, organized by the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 20, had a simple cry: “Six days yes! Five days no!”
Blaming pension and health care costs, U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has announced that he will eliminate Saturday deliveries beginning in August to cut costs at the financially plagued postal service, which has faced intense competition from the internet as well as private delivery services. Most branches across the country operate at a loss now, and mail use has dropped over 20 percent in recent years.
Ralliers said the move would cost over 22,000 jobs, further hurt the postal service’s ability to compete (by ceding Saturday service to outfits like Federal Express), and harm seniors and others who depend on Saturday deliveries for medication or social security checks.
Paul Bass Photo
Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have passed measures calling for the retention of Saturday service at least until September, setting up a showdown with Donahoe. If the postmaster general proceeds with his plan in defiance of the Congressional vote, Blumenthal vowed to the crowd on the Green Sunday, “we will put [him] behind bars.” He also said he’d ask U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the postmaster general.
Blumenthal said the real culprit in the postal service’s financial problems is a 2006 law that required largely funding pension benefits 75 years in to the future, which he called an unnecessary requirement that puts the postal service at a competitive disadvantage. “That law is a travesty,” he said. “We’re going to make it history. No other pension system is funded that way.”
“They’re not going to do this to us!” U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro declared. “We’re going to fight back!”
Central Labor Council President Bob Proto piggybacked on Blumenthal’s message to the postmaster general. If Donahoe proceeds with cutting out Saturday deliveries, Proto vowed, “our next assembly will be at his house!”
Other speakers identified a second villain: the computer age. They struck out at the notion that electronic bill-paying and other technological advances are making six-day-a-week postal delivery obsolete. (Click on the play arrow at the top of the story to watch some ralliers address that question.)
“There’s a lot of things a computer can’t do that a letter carrier can do,” and besides, lots of seniors either don’t own computers or can’t do much with them, retired sheet-metal worker Frank Pannone, 70, told the crowd.
“Frank talked about this being a computer age. I have some bad news for you,” state AFL-CIO chief John Olsen said when it was his turn at the lectern. ” My computer got a virus on Friday. I took it to the hospital yesterday. And I’ve been told it’s going to be there at least a week! So I don’t know if I want to depend on that kind of technology! I know my letter carrier was there yesterday.”
Olsen argued that the real agenda behind the move to cut Saturday service is the eventual privatization of postal service.