As Trump pushes to privatize the troubled Postal Service, others push back

SteveBlog

Kansas City Star: U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver recalls the days when, every morning at 10, his grandmother would walk to the post office in Waxahachie, Texas, to catch up with friends, family and other community members. “The postal service is, for rural America, more than a mail delivery system,” Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat, said in a phone interview. “It’s a … Read More

The Postal Service’s “Retail Channel Strategy”: A blueprint for privatizing the post office

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It’s been clear for a long time that the Postal Service is in the process of privatizing itself by shifting processing operations to companies like Pitney Bowes through the workshare system and contracting out billions of dollars of work to private corporations (over $12 billion in 2014).  The Postal Service has also been working to privatize its retail operations by … Read More

Alas, poor post office: Newsweek broods on the demise of the Postal Service

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Last week Newsweek ran an opinion piece entitled “Do We Need a Postal Service?”  It originally appeared on the website of the Brookings Institute with the title, “The U.S. Postal Service’s existential problem.”  “The U.S. Postal Service has an existential problem,” begins the op-ed, and twice more in the space of just 840 words it refers to the “existential crisis” … Read More

What we lose with a privatized Postal Service

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Katherine McFate is the President and CEO of the Center for Effective Government has a good piece on privatization.  "Our nation’s founders understood that a universal, affordable, and yes, public postal system helps knit us together as a nation," writes McFate. "They recognized that commerce requires a common infrastructure and public institutions that belong to and benefit the entire country. … Read More

Next in postal privatization: Goin Postal counters in 2,000 Walmarts

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The Goin Postal pack-and-ship company has signed a deal to put small postal stores inside of 2,000 Walmarts.  While the Postmaster General will probably say it’s all about customer convenience, the deal represents yet another step in the privatization of the Postal Service. These postal stores, it should be noted, aren’t exactly the same as the mini-post offices that the … Read More

The Privatization Ruse

SteveJamison Articles

BY MARK JAMISON Accusations that the PMG’s ultimate goal is to privatize the Postal Service are apparently starting to make some of the folks at L’Enfant Plaza a little touchy. On January 17, the Washington Post ran a story about the new postal counters in Staples that included a quote from Senator Jon Tester of Montana: Donahoe “can say whatever he wants … Read More

WaPo: Staples’ selling postal products without USPS workers stirs fears of privatization

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Washington Post: With its steep financial challenges, the U.S. Postal Service desperately needs to find innovative solutions, including new ways to deliver services to the public.  A pilot project with Staples stores around the nation does that. But feeling ignored in this equation are postal workers left watching as their jobs go to private employers who can pay their employees less, … Read More

The next chapter in postal privatization: Post Offices inside of Staples

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The Postal Service has rather quietly announced a pilot program to put post offices inside of Staples.  It’s part of what the USPS is calling the Retail Partner Expansion Program, and the first Staples to host a post office will be located in San Francisco and San Jose. According to an article in the Burlingame-Hillsborough Patch, which was apparently based on … Read More

Portlanders Kicked, Arrested for Protesting Post Office Privatization

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Calling themselves “postal protectors,” 15 activists gathered in the lobby of the main post office in downtown Portland, Oregon, Tuesday, holding signs protesting postal privatization. Seven were arrested while attempting to negotiate a meeting with District Manager Erica Brix.  Read more.

Thousands of post offices in UK face closure after privatization

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Privatising Royal Mail will be the ‘nail in the coffin’ for the Post Office network and lead to thousands of branch closures, local communities fear.  The Government is backing a £3 billion stock market flotation of Royal Mail that could go ahead within the next few weeks.  Although any sell-off should include a ten-year deal to continue to sell stamps and … Read More

U.S. and British postal workers fight privatization

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A British parliamentary spokesperson announced on May 13 that the world’s oldest postal service would be privatized this fall.  The U.S. Postal Service, originally part of the British postal system, is also threatened with privatization by powerful congressional and corporate forces.  Postal workers, however, are organizing resistance to the for-profit theft of the “people’s post office” in both countries. “Save … Read More