Northwest labor press., August 02, 2013, Page 12, Image 12

Occupation of NW Portland’s main post office thwarted
Several dozen protesters rallied
against postal privatization and at-
tempted to occupy Portland’s main post
office at 713 NW Hoyt St., July 26 —
the 238th birthday of the Post Office.
The action was thwarted by a heavy
presence of Department of Homeland
Security police, postal inspectors, and a
half dozen postal managers standing in-
side the post office lobby. Senior plant
manager Lisa Shear, herself a target of
the protest, came out to warn activists
that she would have them arrested if
they stepped foot inside the lobby.
So, protesters marched and chanted
with a bullhorn outside, sang happy
birthday, and enjoyed birthday cake.
The Post Service was created by the
Continental Congress on July 26, 1775.
Benjamin Franklin was the first post-
master general. Today, some members
of Congress are threatening its future by
trying to privatize the U.S Postal Serv-
ice (USPS) and bust its unions.
USPS is an independent agency that
gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day op-
erations. It is, however, subject to con-
gressional control.
The postmaster general already has
closed 30 percent of mail processing
10 fun facts on Postal
Service’s 238th birthday
On July 26, 1775, the Continental Congress created the post office, nam-
ing Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster general. Here’s a look at 10 fun
facts about a unique American institution posted by the National Constitution
Center:
1. The Founding Fathers were all for a postal system, especially Franklin.
It was Franklin who modified and improved the postal delivery system as joint
postmaster general for the Crown, greatly expanding its services in the
Colonies. He was fired by the British in 1774 for sympathizing with rebel-
lious forces. When the new nation needed a postmaster, it turned to Franklin in
1775 and Congress paid him a salary of $1,000 a year.
2. The post office was in the Articles of Confederation, too. Article IX said
that the government “shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of
… establishing or regulating post offices from one state to another, throughout
all the United States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through
the same as may be requisite to defray the expenses of the said office.”
plants, reduced hours by 25 to 75 per-
cent in half of post offices, put 10 per-
cent of post offices up for sale, subcon-
tracted trucking and mail handling to
nonunion companies, eliminated tens of
thousands of family-wage, postal jobs,
and delayed mail delivery.
USPS management says the clo-
sures and sub-contracting are necessary
to save labor costs in a “financial emer-
gency.” Protesters maintain that the fi-
nancial emergency is being manufac-
tured in an attempt to transfer the
agency’s wealth to for-profit, private
corporations. The USPS is a $65 billion
annual business with over $100 billion
surplus in its pension and retiree health
benefit funds, over 30,000 post offices
(much of it in prime downtown loca-
tions), and 200,000 vehicles.
Since 2006 the USPS has been
forced by Congress to spend nearly 10
percent 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.
The USPS has also over-paid tens of
billions into two pension funds.
Protest organizer Portland Commu-
nities and Postal Workers United
(PCPWU) has been fighting the cuts
and closures with civil disobedience.
Five protesters were arrested July 3
in an occupation of a private air cargo
facility slated to process U.S. mail un-
Portlanders rally July 26 at main post office in Northwest Portland.
der a subcontract with USPS. Last
April, five protesters went to jail for a
civil disobedience action at the Salem
mail processing plant, which has since
been dismantled and moved to Port-
land. And in May 2012, 10 activists
were arrested occupying Portland’s
University Station post office, which
also has been shuttered.
“We intend to disrupt this attack on
our communities,” said Jamie Par-
tridge, a retired letter carrier with
PCPWU.
The demand to end the subcontract-
ing was echoed by leaders of Portland
area postal unions: Joe Cogan, vice
president of American Postal Workers
Local 128; David Jarvis, president of
the National Postal Mail Handlers
Union Local 315, and Jim Cook, pres-
ident of the National Association of
Letter Carriers Branch 82.
3. The Constitution gave the post office (and Congress) even more power.
The Constitution gives Congress the ability “To establish post offices and post
roads” in Article I, Section 8. That means not only does Congress have the
power to create a postal system, it had the ability to acquire and control the land
for the “post roads” to carry the mail and the buildings needed to maintain the
system. In 1789, that meant 75 post offices and about 2,400 miles of post roads.
4. Today, the Postal Service is slightly larger. It has more than 31,000 Postal
Service-managed offices and 511,000 employees. Carriers and drivers travel
more than 1.3 billion miles (yes, that is billion) a year transporting and deliv-
ering the mail.
5. Abraham Lincoln was a local postmaster. As a postmaster in New Salem,
Illinois from 1833 until 1836, Lincoln would occasionally deliver the mail by
stashing it inside his hat.
6. According to the Postal Service’s website, here are some other famous
people who delivered the mail or worked as clerks, or postmasters: Bing
Crosby, Walt Disney, William Faulkner, Charles Lindbergh, Richard Wright
and Adlai Stevenson.
7. The Postal Service as high-tech innovators. The quest to deliver the mail
faster and more consistently led to the pioneering uses of steamboats, trains,
boats, cars, planes and horses.
8. The Pony Express was a financial failure. Like all great technological
innovations, the privately operated Pony Express than ran in 1860 and 1861
had a lot of risks. The use of relay horses cut mail-delivery times in half, but an-
other technology, the telegraph, grounded a Pony Express that was deeply in
debt.
9. The post office had a dog as a mascot, until …. yes, Owney the dog was
befriended by workers in Albany in 1888 and soon became a sensation as he
rode on the rail cars along with the mail to New York. For the next decade, he
was an international postal ambassador until he committed a cardinal sin:
Owney bit a mail worker. Although a postmaster put Owney down, his co-
workers paid to have him stuffed and he’s at the National Postal Museum to-
day on display.
10. The price of stamps has gone up slightly in the past few years. Until
1968, it cost 5 cents to mail a one-ounce piece of mail, and it only cost 3 cents
in the 1930s. Times have changed as has the cost structure of the mail business.
The current cost of a first class stamp is 46 cents for the first ounce.
PAGE 12
12-31-2013.
2013
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
AUGUST 2, 2013