The American Postal Workers Union bureaucracy is telling postal workers that the financial crisis at the United States Postal Service is not a crisis at all—but a “situation,” and that “victory is only a phone call away.”
That was the central message of APWU President Jonathan Smith’s livestream last Tuesday, an exercise not in organizing opposition to the massive concessions being prepared against postal workers, but in getting out in front of rank-and-file resistance in order to smother it.
The reality is far different from Smith’s complacent claims. Earlier this month, Postmaster General David Steiner warned Congress that USPS is approaching a liquidity crisis so severe that, “At our current rate we’ll be out of cash in less than 12 months.” Without new borrowing authority, he said, “the postal service would be unable to deliver the mail.”
Steiner’s testimony before the House Oversight subcommittee made clear that management is preparing sweeping restructuring measures. He pointed to the collapse in mail volume from a historic peak of 213 billion pieces annually to 109 billion today, amounting to what he described as more than $80 billion in lost revenue. He complained repeatedly that 71 percent of delivery routes are “financially underwater,” that the current $15 billion borrowing cap is too low and should be raised to $30–40 billion, and that USPS is burdened by restrictions on pension investments, post office obligations and the universal service mandate itself.
The only thing USPS does well is Lie!!!!!
So who knows what the truth is???