The US Postal Service (USPS) Board of Governors is preparing to name David Steiner, a current member of FedEx’s Board of Directors, as the next Postmaster General (PMG), according to a report in the Washington Post. The selection is reportedly being made at the behest of Donald Trump.

The move signals a massive escalation of attacks on the post office, especially its privatization, which both Trump and Elon Musk, head of the “Department of Government Efficiency,” (DOGE) support. But privatization would be the culmination of decades of bipartisan attacks, beginning with its demotion from a cabinet level department to an independent, self-funding agency under President Richard Nixon.

The situation urgently requires organized resistance by postal workers and their allies in the working class. As the USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee explained in a statement in March: “This requires new organizations, rank-and-file committees, to mobilize ourselves independently of Trump’s collaborators in the Democrats and the union tops. We must safeguard our own initiative and begin organizing now rather than waiting for ‘permission’ from the top which will never come.”

  • NarrativeBear@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Privatization and then closure, blaming lack of profitability.

    National postal service is a public service just like public transportation. It is not meant to be profitable on its own. Ita existence alone is profitable as a service to the community and country.

    Public services should not have a necessity to “operate in the green”, these are public funded services with government tax funding.

    Edit: Public roads like highways are publicly funded. You don’t see car companies building infrastructure for consumer to have a place to drive their car products.