'U.S. mail not for sale,' union leaders tell Newsmaker audience

Americans will lose out if the U.S. Postal Service is privatized or its autonomy is sacrificed in the name of efficiency or profit, the leaders of three unions representing postal workers told a National Press Club audience March 25.

The postal service, which has been around in one form or another for 250 years, ought to be viewed as a public service to America and not held to the same standards as a private enterprise, the union officials said.

“Privatization is a terrible idea,” National Association of Letter Carriers President Brian Renfroe said at the Club Newsmaker event. “We are a public service. We serve everyone no matter where they live for the same price, every day.”

Renfroe was joined on stage by American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein and National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association President Donald Maston.

If the service is sold to a private-sector entity, “they will raise prices, close post offices and throw people out of work,” Dimondstein said. “The U.S. mail is not for sale.”

The press conference was in part a forum for hearing from workers who deliver mail or work in post offices. Many audience members were postal employees or union members, and they spoke up to tell their own stories, an unusual Newsmaker format.

The conversation among union leadership came just a day after the abrupt resignation of U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who had vowed to stay in his job but reversed course this week and left without warning Monday afternoon.

DeJoy held the job for five years. Even though he was chosen by President Donald Trump in 2020, he’s been in the hot seat amid a widespread effort by the administration to privatize, cut, consolidate or eliminate wide swaths of the federal government.

DOGE targets USPS

Reportedly DeJoy feuded last week with the U.S. DOGE Service, or the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. The union leaders credited him with seeking change but keeping the postal service intact.

Despite the anger directed at Trump and DOGE leader Elon Musk, only Dimondstein went after them by name, warning that their allegiance to big business would not serve the postal service.

“I’ve been telling people the privatizers are coming,” Dimondstein said. “This is really a struggle between Wall Street and Main Street. Elon Musk is not about efficiency. He's about picking your pocket. We have to make sure our pockets aren’t picked by these millionaires,” a process he likened to a frog slowly boiled to death in a saucepan.

If the postal service is cut back, subsumed into the Department of Commerce or privatized, the impact will be felt disproportionally on rural communities and the elderly, who often rely on delivery of medications down quiet country roads, the union leaders said.

“The hounds are at the door,” Maston warned.

There’s no clear authority to shut down the postal service, which has been independent since 1970 and is governed by a board, the union bosses said. It also has broad and bipartisan Congressional support, they said, though in recent weeks there has been very little Republican resistance on Capitol Hill to government downsizing the Trump administration has pursued.

Potential changes at Post Office

The union leaders acknowledged the postal service is in need of change. It was created long before the telephone and the Internet were envisioned, and the dramatic decline in letters written or sent, combined with changes in automatic bill pay, electronic payment and other forms of technology have significantly reduced the amount of flat mail sent or received.

Instead, the post office has become primarily a parcel delivery service, like UPS or FedEx or other services that bring packages to customers.

Renfroe noted that during the height of the COVID pandemic, the postal service delivered test kits. He suggested postal workers could be enlisted to carry sensors for the Department of Defense to ‘detect dirty bombs.’

Meanwhile, Dimondstein argued that post offices themselves could be configured for banking and financial services like money orders, electric vehicle charging stations, issuing hunting licenses or processing passports or TSA clearances.