Postal Union Holds Rally
Rallies all across the nation were held Tuesday afternoon by U.S. Postal workers. They were staged in their respective congressional districts to get the aid and support of the nation’s legislators. Jackson postal employees along with their families, and friends gathered outside Congressman Stephen Fincher’s downtown Jackson office to try and grab his attention and get him to co-sponsor and support H.R. 1351 and the United States Postal Service’s Pension Obligation Recalculation and Restoration Act of 2011, which takes the necessary first steps toward ensuring a financially sound future for the USPS. “Well it’s a bit unnerving. There are a lot of people wanting to dismantle the postal service and cut delivery standards. We’re in the business of serving the public and that’s what we need to be concentrating on,” says Jackson’s Postal Union President Dan Springer. Claims that the Postal Service is broke, that it loses billions of dollars a year delivering the mail, or that a taxpayer bailout is imminent are spurring proposals to slash services, close thousands of post offices and fire hundreds of thousands of postal employees. Postal workers say these drastic measures would weaken communities, hurt the U.S. economy and eventually destroy our nation’s only universal communications/delivery network. With things like e-mail and on-line bill paying, many people are turning away from how they traditionally used to send mail; but city carrier Annette Johnson says, “In rural west Tennessee there are 3 people that lack of service are going to impact, and that’s the small business man, elderly, and the rural areas, which is exactly who we are.” Springer says they will continue to petition until they get the support they need to pass this bill.
