Postal Workers Rally for Increased Protection, Better Staffing: ‘We’re Under Attack’

Amanda Vinicky | October 1, 2024, 4:40 pm

Workers rally outside the Roseland station, 11033 S. State St., on Oct. 1, 2024. (WTTW News)

Ahead of the busy holiday season and wading into an election when voters are increasingly casting ballots by mail, postal carriers are demanding more protection.

“We’re under attack,” said Elise Foster, a letter carrier who is president of the Chicago 11 branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers. “We need someone to do something about it.”

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Letter carriers and other unionized postal employees rallied Tuesday in front of the Roseland station, 11033 S. State St., as part of a national call to action in 90 cities.

It came as Chicago police and federal marshals on Monday arrested a 15-year-old charged with murdering Octavia Redmond, who was delivering mail on Chicago’s South Side on July 19 when she was shot repeatedly at close range.

Foster bemoaned congressional delays in taking up the Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, which would increase penalties for assaulting letter carriers, increase funding to update mail collection boxes to electronic versions that can’t be accessed with a stolen key, and create special assistant U.S. attorneys to focus on mail-related crimes.

Spencer Block, a spokesman with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, said he understands that employees want to be safe on the job, and that actions taken by the agency through its Project Safe Delivery program are helping.

Block said robberies of carriers in Chicago’s region — which covers Illinois, Wisconsin and parts of Missouri — dropped to 31 for the fiscal year that ended Monday, down from 103 in the 2023 fiscal year.

“We understand where the postal union is at,” Block said. “We understand that carriers see these horrific stories. But these numbers are coming down.”

Through Project Safe Delivery, high security mailboxes are getting installed nationwide, and locks are getting updated to the electronic version.

Block didn’t have immediate figures as to how many mail collection boxes have been updated in the Chicago area.

Other postal workers on Tuesday complained of an erosion in services, saying that a lack of staff contributes to slower mail delivery.

The American Postal Workers Union represents more than 200,000 USPS employees and retirees, plus nearly 2,000 private-sector mail workers.