Politics
Postal Workers Union Pushes Back on Potential USPS Cuts and Outlines Impact on Illinois Residents
The United States Postal Service has been facing a slew of challenges for years following the rise of the internet and a subsequent decline in physical mail.
And things recently got even more complicated.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who is responsible for overseeing daily operations for the USPS. announced his resignation last week. It comes as the postal service says it’s working with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to cut costs, including slashing 10,000 jobs.
“Look at the model from the Royal Mail in England,” said Melissa Rakestraw, executive vice president of the National Association of Letter Carriers. “They privatized in 2013 and it increased cost for mailers and consumers, it slowed down services and increased the mismanagement of pension funds. We can expect the same thing here.”
USPS is currently made up of nearly 640,000 employees who have a universal mandate, meaning they deliver mail to anyone, anywhere. Privatizing the service or merging with the U.S. Department of Commerce, as President Donald Trump said he wants, could jeopardize accessibility for Americans in rural or low-income areas, Rakestraw said.
“There are neighborhoods in Chicago that FedEx and Amazon and UPS won’t go into. We deliver to those neighborhoods every single day,” said Rakestraw.
The executive branch doesn’t have the authority to eliminate the postal service as it’s an independent, non-government agency that’s under congressional control.
And dismantling USPS means residents will have to rely on private companies to send and receive mail, and prices will likely go up as a result.
But the USPS has had complaints thrown at them for years over the quality of service. They lost $6.4 billion in 2023 and $9.5 billion last year.
Michael Caref, national business agent for the National Association of Letter Carriers, said that while there are financial concerns, the institution is part of the nation’s fabric.
“The postal service doesn’t receive any taxpayer money whatsoever,” said Caref. “It’s not like the postal service is a burden to anyone right now. You have a live person who’s out in every community at least six days a week, and while we’re out there we’re also looking out for the people in the community.”
Since a reorganization in 1970, the USPS has been largely self-funded. The bulk of its annual $78.5 billion budget comes from customer fees, according to the Congressional Research Service. Congress provides a relatively small annual appropriation — about $50 million in fiscal year 2023 — to subsidize free and reduced-cost mail services.
Amid challenges that include the decline in profitable first-class mail and the cost of retiree benefits, the Postal Service accumulated $87 billion in losses from 2007 to 2020. However, the service reported a $144 million profit last quarter, attributing it to DeJoy’s 10-year plan to modernize operations and stem losses. The service had reported a net loss of $2.1 billion for the same quarter last year.
“The postal service has to reinvent itself as the delivery mechanism for America in the modern era and that’s not going to happen overnight,” said Caref. “I think it’s well worth it to make that investment.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
