CWA Phone Workers Stand with Postal Workers

in Fight for Survival of Job and Service

In Nashville, Tenn., CWA Local 3808 members joined the postal workers' march. Local Secretary-Treasurer Bob Cooper and President Rick Feinstein are pictured at left.

Below: Local 4108 members support postal workers in Saginaw, Mich. Locals 4008 and 4622 also were among Michigan CWA locals that rallied and marched to save the postal service.

CWA members were among thousands of union activists joining rallies for embattled postal workers at nearly 500 locations Tuesday that covered every U.S. congressional district in every state.

Seven-year-old Ryan Richards, son of Local 4252 Vice President Angel Minnick, marches Tuesday in Joliet, Ill., with CWA members and other unions supporting U.S. postal workers. Behind Ryan is Local 4252 President LaNell Piercy.

Once again using a budget crisis to attack union workers, some members of Congress want to slash 120,000 postal service jobs and close thousands of post offices, among other severe service cuts.

The national "Save America's Post Office" day of action urged lawmakers to save the USPS (US Postal Service) by supporting H.R. 1351. Introduced by Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass), the bill would help stabilize the postal service financially by reducing overpayments it is required by law to make to its pension fund.

While conventional wisdom and virtually all media coverage suggest that email and Internet services are mainly to blame for USPS financial woes, postal unions say it has more to do with over-funded pension and retiree health care plans. In 2006, the Republican-led Congress passed a bill giving the post office just 10 years to pre-fund retiree health care for the next 75 years.

No other government agency or private company is required to make such extreme overpayments, which cost USPS $5.5 billion annually. Without the forced payments, USPS could be running a $1.5 billion surplus.

Neither the pension nor health care funds were addressed by the bill Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) pushed through a House subcommittee last week, with all eight Republicans voting for the devastating postal service cuts and all five Democrats voting against them.

"This is a brazen attempt to dismantle the United States Postal Service and render it ripe for privatization," APWU (American Postal Workers Union) President Cliff Guffey said.