World Socialist Web Site: The World Socialist Web Site spoke recently with a United States Postal Service (USPS) letter carrier about the effects of the consolidation of a former facility into a new Sorting and Delivery Center (S&DC). The consolidation of offices into larger S&DCs has accelerated under the Delivering for America (DFA) initiative, now in its fourth year, which is aimed at consolidating operations into large Amazon-style automated facilities, wiping out tens of thousands of jobs.
The attack on the post office is set to massively ramp up under Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The Trump White House intends to privatize the USPS entirely, as part of its broader drive to destroy federal agencies not directly related to war and repression.
The response of the union bureaucracy to DFA and to Trump has been open collaboration. The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) responded to a historic rejection of a poverty contract by having virtually the same deal imposed by arbitration. The bureaucrats, who have also backed DFA from the beginning, are responding to DOGE and Trump by offering to help find places to cut costs….
According to the Save the Post Office website, as of last year, more than 3,300 postal delivery routes from 200 spoke offices had been consolidated into 60 S&DCs, a process which appears to be accelerating.
Spoke offices are spaces for employees to work without regularly travelling to the headquarters. Depending on the company’s needs, these can be shared coworking spaces or dedicated private offices.
In September of last year, the USPS inspector general issued a report which found that DFA has led to a dramatic decline in the quality of operations. The purpose of the program is not to make USPS “efficient” but to create chaos in order to justify privatizing it.
The letter carrier, whose name has been withheld to protect his or her identity, explained some of this….