‘Save The U.S. Post Office,’ Senate Candidate From Newark Says

NEWARK, NJ — If the United States is willing to spend trillions of dollars to bail out businesses during the coronavirus crisis, why won’t it rescue the U.S. Postal Service? That’s the question longtime Newark activist and U.S. Senate candidate Larry Hamm posed earlier this week as part of a pitch to “save the USPS.”

According to Hamm, a former USPS employee who is running for U.S. Senate in New Jersey this year, the agency is an essential link in the supply chain for millions of “working poor” across America.

But there’s a problem, he says: The agency is on the brink of financial collapse.

“We have a crisis before us,” Hamm said Wednesday. “The United States Postal Service will crash without a direct and immediate infusion of financial relief from Congress.”

Hamm said that Congress needs to make the USPS as much a priority as the financial services sector, which it is bailing out in the trillions of dollars.

Hamm added that he’s worried the administration of President Donald Trump is using the national economic crisis exacerbated by COVID-19 to push forward its plan to privatize or eliminate the USPS. It’s an allegation the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) also recently made after Trump refused to approve any coronavirus bailout for the agency unless it dramatically hikes its prices.

Regardless, unless the USPS gets some financial relief soon, a serious headache may be in the cards for millions of people who are depending on its members as they self-isolate, the APWU says.

According to the union:

“As millions of Americans seek shelter in their homes, postal workers continue to carry out their vital work and deliver for the United States of America every day, but the White House has failed to support these efforts. In the recent negotiations over the stimulus package, the administration wouldn’t spare a dime to ensure that this essential service continues in the months ahead … We do our job. Congress and the administration need to do theirs and ensure that postal workers can safely and reliably deliver for the people of the country.”

THE ‘FAIRNESS ACT’

Hamm said he also supports another move that may help keep the struggling agency afloat: the USPS Fairness Act.

If passed and signed into law, the act would repeal a 2006 mandate that requires the agency to prefund its retiree health care benefits 75 years in advance. Advocates have said the current regulations are causing huge financial losses for the USPS.

The House of Representatives passed the bill in February; it now goes before the Senate.

“The Senate must pass their companion bill to the recent bill passed by Congress to repeal the prefunded retiree health care benefit plan that is holding the postal service in debt peonage,” Hamm commented.

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