“Not only do postal workers deliver the mail through rain, snow, sleet and hail, but through COVID and anthrax,” said APWU Local 140 President Dena Briscoe. Augmented by progressives, notably from the group Our Revolution, thousands of postal workers, other unionists and their supporters turned out across the country on Tuesday – including in Northeast DC, where Briscoe (at mic in photo) spoke -- to campaign against Trump Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s plans to resume attacks on the U.S. Postal Service. And, speakers added, to lobby lawmakers, particularly GOP senators, to pass the Heroes Act, which includes $25 billion to keep the USPS going and offset the huge crash in profitable first-class mail caused by the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent economic depression. Click here to call your senators. Metro Washington Council president Dyana Forester told the crowd gathered outside the city’s main post office on Brentwood Road NE that a reliable postal service would provide Americans “the one stable thing” in the ongoing pandemic. The rallies, called by APWU and joined by members of UFCW, the News Guild, the Auto Workers and other unions, come as Congress again wrestles with renewing aid to the 21-million-plus workers in all occupations who lost their jobs since the pandemic hit. Just after the 9/11 attacks 19 years ago, an anthrax attack through the mail killed two postal workers; a memorial to one stands at the main D.C. post office.
- Mark Gruenberg, PAI News; photo: Hal Ginsberg/Our Revolution
- Mark Gruenberg, PAI News; photo: Hal Ginsberg/Our Revolution