Postal workers rally in St. Louis (video)

ST. LOUIS – Closing post offices and eliminating Saturday service “will cost more than just the jobs at the Postal Service,” Fred Wolfmeyer, president of the American Postal Workers’ Union (APWU) Gateway District Area Local, told the People’s World as hundreds of postal workers and supporters rallied outside the downtown post office here Sept. 27.

“What’s going to happen to all of the mail houses, the printers and other institutions that rely on the Postal Service? It could have a ripple effect in this bad economy,” Wolfmeyer said.

Postal workers held hundreds of simultaneous rallies all across the country on the 27th to bring attention to HR 1352, a bill that would address the manufactured financial crisis facing the Postal Service.

According to Wolfmeyer, the Postal Service would be financially solvent if it wasn’t required to pre-fund retiree health care 75 years into the future.

The pre-funding requirement was placed on the Postal Service in 2006 as part of the Bush Administration’s attack on public services, working families and unions.

“No other corporation has to pay that. No other federal agency. Only the Postal Service,” Wolfmeyer added.

The APWU, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association say, “Congress created this problem, and Congress can fix it!”

Photo: Tony Pecinovsky