The following is a statement being distributed at rallies of postal workers this week. To join the USPS Rank-and-File Committee, fill out the form below.

To All USPS Workers,

As we take part in rallies this week to defend the United States Postal Service (USPS) against privatization, it is essential to understand the broader context of this struggle. The fight to protect the USPS is not just about defending our jobs, as important as that is. It is part of the fight against an emerging dictatorship in the United States. It can and must be stopped through a mass movement of the working class that can wield its collective power to stop them.

Through fascist billionaire Elon Musk and his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” the corporate oligarchy is carrying out the biggest looting operation in history. At stake is not just the future of USPS, but of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps and other programs on which tens of millions of Americans rely. In an interview, Musk summed up his goal: “Privatize everything we possibly can.” In other words, steal everything that is not bolted down.

This is connected with Trump’s sweeping attacks on free speech and other democratic rights, including arrests of student protesters like Mahmoud Khalil for opposing the genocide in Gaza. He is operating with a strategy to transform America into a police state, where workers have no rights and the oligarchs rule like kings.

Last week, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy signed an agreement with DOGE—the text of which has not been publicized—in order to help it slash costs. The first item of business is 10,000 job cuts through early retirement over the next months. After that, he has singled out pension obligations, equal service mandates, workers’ compensation and other key programs. Building upon what has already been “accomplished” in the Delivering for America program, the aim is to prepare USPS for privatization by making it as lucrative as possible for potential buyers.

USPS is not, and was never meant to be, a source of profit! It is a public service that delivers to every house and business in the country six and in some cases seven times a week. To make it “profitable” would require a vast reduction in service, including the number of days per week that mail and packages are delivered.

But in the face of the deepest attacks in the 250-year history of the post office, the union officials in NALC, the NRLCA and APWU have not proposed, much less organized, a serious struggle against these attacks. Instead, they are offering their collaboration, with NALC even proposing to help find ways to close the funding gap in workers’ pension plans by moving the fund into the (rapidly declining) stock market!

While Trump defies the courts, the law and the Constitution at will, union officials insist that postal workers must accept anti-democratic strike laws and waste our time writing letters to Congress. Meanwhile, the NALC is currently in expedited arbitration, after NALC workers rejected the first deal by a historic margin. This move deprives workers of the right even to vote on the contract cooked up in arbitration, which will almost certainly be nearly identical to the first one they rejected.

Meanwhile, Trump’s “opponents” in the Democratic Party are busy giving him everything he wants, voting on deals to help him pass his budget to carry out massive social cuts. Their pathetic sign-waving, which disgusted millions during Trump’s address to Congress, shows that they will not lift a finger even to warn the public about what is happening. As the other party of Wall Street, the Democrats are more afraid of a movement from below than they are even of fascism.

NALC president Brian Renfroe’s position is that the best way to fight privatization is with an arbitrated contract in place. But this is not a “legal” fight, least of all because Trump simply ignores the courts. The White House has already ripped up the contract for TSA airport workers and has ordered federal agencies to ignore existing labor contracts in cutting jobs.

In reality, this is a political fight which will be decided in a struggle between social forces.

In a statement last month on the NALC arbitration, we wrote:

The worst thing we can do is to wait for the next contract and new union elections to fight. If they get away with this, it will be the last contract with USPS as a public entity. As for union elections, experience proves no amount of “pressure” or musical chairs at the top will change their nature as pro-management sellouts. At UPS, yesterday’s so-called “reformers” in the Teamsters are helping carry out massive automation-driven cuts, while placing the resources of the union at the disposal of the right-wing Trump administration.

We must act now to fight back. The first step is for us to adopt the principle that this [current] process has no legitimacy. 

Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. The only way to save the post office—and American democracy—is through the mass mobilization of the working class. The working class is the most powerful force on earth. If only we know how to use that power we can defeat the attacks by Trump and his handful of oligarchs and right-wingers.

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.

We postal workers must link up with workers in every city and neighborhood where we make deliveries, uniting with federal workers, teachers, industrial workers and others to build a powerful and unified class movement against dictatorship.

Many rank-and-file committees have already been built at key workplaces over the last four years. They are affiliated with each other in a world movement in the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.

We must unite with workers around the world, rejecting Trump’s “America First” poison. Workers in other countries and immigrants in the US are our friends and allies. Our real enemies are the oligarchs within the US. In the IWA-RFC, postal workers in Canada, Britain and Germany are organizing to fight similar privatization schemes to our own—we must link up with them and prepare joint actions.

In a recent online meeting which we co-sponsored with the IWA-RFC, attendees passed a resolution which declared in part:

The time for empty statements is over. The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees and Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee call for immediate preparations for mass resistance … We reject the dismantling of public services and demand workers’ control over critical sectors like the USPS. The only way forward is through the independent organization of the working class, in opposition to both corporate-backed parties and their enforcers in the trade union apparatus. 

We must continue now to build such a movement. If you agree, join us! Sign up for the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee by filling out the form below.

In Solidarity,
The Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committees