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Panel Poses 'Serious Threat'

(This article first appeared in the Jan./Feb. 2003 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine)

Calling the appointment of a special Presidential Commission "the most serious threat to the Postal Service in our lifetime," APWU President William Burrus urged all postal workers to steel themselves for battle.

"We're going to need to fight to protect the Postal Service as we know it," Burrus said. "Universal service at uniform rates - that's what the public needs, deserves, and wants. Every APWU member must be part of the coming struggle."

Appointed Dec. 11, the nine-member panel has until July 31 to produce a report that the Bush Administration is expected to use to craft legislation to overhaul the nation's mail system.

At the press conference announcing the commission, Peter R. Fisher, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for domestic finance, declared, "This is not a stealth project to privatize the Postal Service."

But the Executive Order creating the panel instructed it to consider "the extent to which postal monopoly restrictions continue to advance the public interest under evolving market conditions, and the extent to which the Postal Service competes with private-sector services." The panel will also consider changing the universal service mandate and will address what the Executive Order called "rigidities in cost or service."

Everything 'On the Table'

"There are just two things that are out of bounds," Fisher said. "We don't want the Commission to suggest [that] the existing costs all be rolled up on the taxpayer [or] rolled up on the rate payer. Everything else is on the table."

Burrus said he expected the commission to create a plan that would adversely affect postal services for most Americans. "It could produce recommendations that include ending the postal monopoly, rolling back collective bargaining rights, ending six-day delivery, and closing postal facilities, particularly in rural and inner-city communities," he said. "The committee's proposals are likely to have a devastating affect on postal workers."

Burrus ridiculed the idea that a panel with no expertise in the Postal Service could understand its complexities in seven months. "It would take them longer than that to learn the postal acronyms. The suggestion that the panel will be able to recommend sweeping changes to an institution as large as the Postal Service and as important to American public life in such a short time is an insult to our intelligence."

"For years we've been reading the reports on the Postal Service generated by right-wing think tanks like the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation," Burrus added. "Now these reports undoubtedly will serve as the blueprint for the commission's final report."

Commission Profile

The commission appears to be dominated by Bush loyalists. The members are:

Co-chairman Harry J. Pearce is chairman of Hughes Electronics, a General Motors subsidiary, and a corporate lawyer specializing in product liability defense;

Co-chairman James A. Johnson is the chairman of the board of the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. He may be the panel's only Democrat;

Dionel E. Aviles is an executive with a Texas environmental engineering company who boasts a long relationship with President Bush;

Don V. Cogman is the former Chief of Staff to the late Senator Dewey Bartlett (R-OK), and the former chief operating officer of Burson-Marsteller, a large lobbying and public relations firm;

Carolyn Gallagher, of Austin, TX, is the former owner of a furniture company. While Texas governor, Bush appointed her to various boards;

Richard C. Levin, an economist and the president of Yale University, has studied the effects of antitrust laws and public regulations on private industry;

Norman Seabrook is the president of the New York City Correctional Officers Benevolent Association, which has backed President Bush and many other Republicans in recent elections;

Robert Walker served 20 years in the House. The Pennsylvania Republican was a close ally of Newt Gingrich and served as Bush's science advisor during the 2000 presidential campaign; and,

Joseph R. Wright is a corporate executive who was James C. Miller's deputy at the Office of Management and Budget during the Reagan-Bush Administration. Miller, nominated to serve on the Postal Board of Governors, is an outspoken advocate of privatization of the Postal Service.

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