The Post Office is a wonderful national treasure
in every community, from the most remote rural
portions of the country to the most densely
populated urban centers and neighborhoods.
And as such — and again, its mission is
to bind the people together.
So, there’s so much more that the Post Office
can do.
It already does a certain amount of financial
services.
It could do a lot more, even basic paycheck
cashing, ATMs in Postal Service, money transfers.
All of that would be a counter to this predatory
payday-lending, check-cashing industry.
There’s tens of millions of people that
are either unbanked or underbanked, meaning
that they have no bank account at all, where
they end up in this, what they call, this
alternative — we call it the loan sharking
predatory industry.
So, there are opportunities there to serve
the people.
It would bring in revenue.
Postal workers are eager to perform those
kind of things.
There could be all sorts of licensing.
There could be, you know, internet access.
There could be copying services.
There’s all sorts of things that the Post
Office can do and should do.
But in order to get there, we have to make
sure that we have a public Postal Service.
And that now is really up for grabs, because,
clearly, we have an administration that would
like to — and it’s clear.
They have an agenda.
They would like to sell the public Postal
Service off to private corporations, privatize
it and turn what’s a service of the people
into — and everybody has the same equal
access to — turn it into a profit-making
entity, where whether people get mail service
or not, and at what cost and what kind of
surcharges, would depend on whether somebody
can make a quick dollar.
And again, the Post Office is set up on a
nonprofit basis to serve every single person.
So, this administration has an agenda, and
they’re shamefully using this crisis to
carry it out rather than set policy.
I mean, here you had an incentive package
of $2.2 trillion.
The corporations got $500 billion.
The postal Board of Governors asked for $25
billion.
And also the possibility of bringing in private
carriers to deliver in regular post office boxes?
Well, look, our mailbox is an extension of
our living room.
It’s part of our home.
It’s private.
Nobody can walk through our front door.
Nobody now has access to that mailbox.
It’s the last — really, it’s the last
holdout of true private communications.
The internet is not, Facebook is not, tweeting
is not, and so on.
So, that’s what’s called the sanctity
of the mail.
And if the Post Office was to let die by this
administration, we don’t think that the
people of the country are going to put up
with that.
They’re not going to let it be stolen.
But if it were to die, part of what would
die with it is that right to privacy and the
right to what we call the sanctity of the
mail.
So, that’s an absurd idea, and we don’t
think the people of the country are going
to buy that idea.
But again, we’re not going to have these
debates if we don’t call Congress, if we
don’t write Congress, if we don’t email
Congress, if we don’t get and sign all the
petitions going around.
The listeners can go to APWU.org.
There are petitions there demanding that Congress
step up and do the right thing.
