USPS workers sound alarm over Trump efforts to dismantle service: 'The hounds are at the door [View all]

Source: The Guardian

Thu 24 Apr 2025 07.00 EDT
Last modified on Thu 24 Apr 2025 07.02 EDT


US postal workers – and many who depend on them – may have sighed in relief when the Trump-appointed postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, resigned last month. Now, postal workers and others fear the worst is to come. Many feared DeJoy, a prolific Trump donor and trucking logistics executive who pushed a 10-year consolidation plan at the agency, would be the man who would finally dismantle the United States Postal Service (USPS). Now the service is facing off with an empowered Trump and Elon Musk, his billionaire backer and chainsaw-wielding leader of his government job-cutting “department of government efficiency” (Doge).

At stake, supporters argue, is the very existence of a service woven into US society, which can be traced back to 1775. “These are real threats. The hounds are at the door,” said Don Maston, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, the union representing more than 130,000 mail carriers in rural America. Workers and labor unions at the USPS are sounding the alarm and calling for public awareness of the threats of dismantling and privatizing the agency by the Trump administration.

In March, the USPS reached an agreement with Doge to cut billions of dollars from its budget and finalize a voluntary retirement buyout program announced under the Biden administration to cut 10,000 employees. The Washington Post has reported industry executives are preparing for government efforts to outsource mail and package handling and long-haul trucking routes, and offload leases for unprofitable post offices.

“There are other organizations on the chopping block right now, and it is just an amount of time before they get to us. So we just need to get the message out and get ahead of them to say ‘hands off the post office’,” said Tameka Brown, a rural letter carrier in Louisiana and president of the Louisiana Rural Letter Carriers’ Association. “We are the lifeline for a lot of American people, so to feel that your job is being threatened, it’s heart-wrenching.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/24/usps-workers-sound-alarm-over-trump-efforts-to-dismantle-service-the-hounds-are-at-the-door