ALEC/Koch Cabal Pursuing Privatization of the US Postal Service for UPS and FedEx… [View all]

[Galraedia]

An event occurred in front of my home on Wednesday of this week that provided an incentive for me to go ahead and publish an article I’d written about the United States Postal Service (USPS). The event was a strong-arm robbery of a mailman at a house on our block. I witnessed this event and was asked to give statements to agents of the Postal Inspector’s Office and local detectives.

Ruminating over the past two days I realized that for hundreds of thousands of USPS letter carriers the possibility of robbery of packages, mail and their personal safety are everyday worries. Many letter carriers have routes that take them into neighborhoods where their safety is in jeopardy – yet as representatives of our government they willingly return day after day to deliver the mail. Virtually every citizen in the U.S. comes in contact with USPS employees on a daily basis as they pick up or deliver our mail.

For years the GOP – led by alumni of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in the U.S. Congress – have urged cutting back the wages of USPS workers. They claim they are paid too much, pensions and retirement provisions too costly to taxpayers and their collective bargaining gives them unfair advantages over private sector workers. At the core of this argument is that the USPS has a “monopoly” on first class mail and rail parcel package delivery systems. UPS and FedEx want to take over those services and contracts.

ALEC has pushed for privatizing the USPS and has used the services of RW think tanks such as Reason Foundation, CATO, Econ Journal Watch and National Taxpayers Union to contribute their support for this privatization agenda against the USPS.

Read more: http://www.vltp.net/alec/aleckoch-cabal-pursuing-privatization-of-the-us-postal-service-for-ups-and-fedex