The Save the Post Office Coalition came together last summer after Postmaster Louis DeJoy was appointed and began cutting service and slowing down the mail. The coalition’s membership includes over 300 organizations that range from national groups like Public Citizen, ACLU, NAACP, Indivisible, MoveOn, Color of Change, the American Postal Workers Union, National Farmers Union, VoteVets, and RuralOrganizing.org, to state groups like Mainers for Accountable Leadership, Alaska PIRG, and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. Our asks of Congress and the Biden administration are here.
Today and Friday, the USPS Board of Governors meets for the first time since the swearing in of three new governors appointed by President Biden.
Last night, over forty national and local groups sent a letter to the USPS Board of Governors urging it to reconsider current plans to slow down first class mail. Signatories included the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, American Federation of Teachers, Americans for Financial Reform, Color of Change, Common Defense, Communications Workers of America, Greenpeace, In the Public Interest, National Organization for Women, Our Revolution, People’s Action, Public Citizen, SEIU, Social Security Works, Take on Wall Street, and the Working Families Party, among others. (letter is attached)
Earlier this week, we learned that the board decided to cancel the public portion of their meeting, rather than simply holding it online. “Given the earful they received during a public session on the permanent mail slowdowns required by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), it’s not surprising that they want to meet in secret,” says Porter McConnell of the Save the Post Office Coalition.
USPS has received over 130,000 comments that were overwhelmingly in opposition to USPS leadership’s proposal to permanently slow down the mail. To put that number in perspective, the last time USPS slowed down first class mail in 2015, they received only 4,000 comments. “The PRC concluded from that 2015 mail slowdown that the savings were minimal at best, and not worth the reduction in service. Why go down that road again, unless rendering the post office less competitive was the goal?” said McConnell.
“Closed door meetings of a public agency on topics that affect vulnerable populations are never a good idea,” McConnell continued, “but given Louis DeJoy and the Trump-appointed board members’ previously documented conflicts of interest, you would think they would be especially sensitive to transparency and good government concerns. After their track record over the past year, when they are so quick to cancel an opportunity for public comment, it’s hard not to wonder, what are they hiding?”
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