Save the Post Office Rally and March – Portland Oregon

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Filmed in Portland Oregon on March 17th 
The first hour of the video is the speeches and rally at Pioneer Square.
The last 30 minutes of this video …is the march to the main Post Office in downtown Portland Oregon.

The following information was copied from the Facebook event page:

SAVE AMERICA'S POSTAL SERVICE —
Save 6-Day and Door-to-Door Delivery!
Stop Closures, Cuts and Delay of Mail!
Restore Jobs and Service!
Downtown March & Rally -Sunday, March 17th, 2 — 3:30pm
(Anniversary of the Great Postal Strike of 1970)
Pioneer Courthouse Square to Main Post Office
sponsors: Portland Communities and Postal Workers United,
National Association of Letter Carriers 82, American Postal Workers Union 128
initial endorsers: OR AFL-CIO, Occupy St. Johns, UNITE-HERE 8, We Are Oregon, Alliance for Democracy, OSEA, NW OR Labor Council, SEIU 49 & 503, CWA 7901, UFCW 555, AFT 2277 & 3922, ATU 757, AFSCME 88, 189 & 328, IBT 206, Rural Organizing Proj., Reynolds Educ. Assoc., OR Alliance Retired Americans, LIU 296 & 483, IUPAT 10, OFNHP, JOBS with JUSTICE

Dear Friends of the Postal Service,

We write to ask the endorsement and participation of your organization in our March 17th rally and march to Save America's Postal Service. We'd also like to speak to your members, if there is an opportunity.

Thank you for your support,
Jamie Partridge
Portland Communities and Postal Workers United
503-752-5112

On July 1st, 2012 the Postmaster General began a massive wave of distribution plant and community post office closures and cuts, eliminating tens of thousands of jobs. On February 6th he announced the elimination of Saturday mail delivery by this August, taking out tens of thousands more living wage jobs.

These attacks on our beloved postal service are not necessary. The postal service is not broke. Congress created the financial crisis. Postal management should back off and let Congress or the President fix the finances.

These closures and cuts are causing huge disruptions to mail service, eliminating the overnight first class delivery standard, delaying delivery two or three days, and forcing hundreds of thousands of postal patrons to travel many miles to the nearest post office.

Think about the frail who depend on timely delivery of prescription drugs, the farmer who depends on delivery of perishable products, the elderly who depend on a Social Security check, the homeowner who depends on timely delivery of a mortgage payment, the consumer who depends on delivery of a credit card payment, the business that depends on timely delivery of advertising, the medical facility that depends on lab samples through the mail, the community newspaper that depends on timely delivery of the news.

The Postal Service is our national treasure, enshrined in the Constitution. The operations of the USPS are funded solely by postage and no tax dollars. The Postal Service serves over 150 million households and businesses six days a week and provides equal universal mail services for all the people at reasonable uniform rates. Good postal jobs help build strong communities.

Current plans to close half the distribution plants and thousands of post offices, eliminate six-day and door-to-door delivery, out-source postal trucking and abolish 200,000 jobs will send the public postal service into a death spiral.

To justify these cutbacks, Congress has created a phony financial crisis. Since 2006 the USPS has been forced to spend nearly 10% of its budget pre-funding retiree health benefits 75 years in advance. No other U.S. agency or private business faces such a crushing financial burden. Not only would the postal service have been profitable without the mandate, the USPS has also over paid tens of billions into two pension funds.

The postal service is not broke, but the agenda of the 1% and their friends in Congress is to cripple the USPS, to soften it up for union busting and privatization. The USPS is a $67 billion annual business with over $100 billion surplus in its pension and retiree health benefit funds, over 30,000 post offices and 200,000 vehicles. We're facing a huge transfer of public wealth to Wall Street investors.

What can we do? Sign petitions, join rallies and protests to Save America's Postal Service. Show up to hearings and town halls to oppose post office and plant closings. Involve your neighborhood, fraternal and faith based organizations in the fight to save the service. Build local coalitions of postal workers, seniors, veterans, rural, small business, and consumer groups. Ask your Congress persons to oppose all closures and cuts, save 6-day delivery, repeal the pre-funding mandate and refund the pension surplus.

for more info:

Portland Communities and Postal Workers United
portlandcommunitiespostalwork@gmail.com
www.cpwunited.com
www.savethepostoffice.com

 
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