Printer-Friendly Page
Burrus to Congress:
Service Undermined by Privatization Push
(This article first appeared in the September/October 2007 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)
The USPS “has begun to travel resolutely down the road of privatization,” APWU President William Burrus told a Senate subcommittee on July 25, “without authorization from Congress” — or the American people. The subcontracting of postal work, he warned, “is just one aspect of a dangerous trend: the wholesale conversion of a vital public service to one performed privately for profit.” [full testimony - PDF]
 |
APWU President William Burrus testifying at Senate hearing, July 25, 2007 |
Burrus called on the Senate to act. “On the critical issue of privatization of the United States Postal Service,” he said, “it is imperative that Congress take a stand and insist on its right — its responsibility — to set public policy.”
The Postal Service, he said, has adopted a business model that is designed to privatize mail processing, transportation, maintenance, and delivery. He described the Postal Service as “a private investor’s dream: a tax-exempt, public monopoly, with revenues of $80 billion per year.” Eager businessmen anticipate the opportunity to divide the pieces of the U.S. Postal Service among themselves, he said, for substantial private financial gain.
The APWU president shared the words of a mailing-industry spokesman who was quoted in the Washington Post on July 7: “In the not too distant future, the Postal Service could evolve into something which could be called the master contractor, where it maintains its government identity, but all the services would be performed by private contractors.”
Burrus urged lawmakers to refrain from intervening in specific subcontracting disputes, encouraging them instead to enact legislation compelling the Postal Service to bargain over the issue. A week earlier, while testifying before the House subcommittee with oversight on Postal Service operations, President Burrus noted that a recent expansion of USPS subcontracting had prompted the National Association of Letter Carriers to seek congressional intervention.
“This resulted in legislative proposals by members of Congress and the subsequent announcement that a tentative agreement had been reached within the collective bargaining arena on the subject in dispute.” Burrus pointed to this tentative contract as proof that “when given the opportunity and appropriate forum, the collective bargaining process works.” No real bargaining on letter carrier contracting-out occurred, he said, until Congress became involved.
The Postal Service refuses to bargain over subcontracting, Burrus said. “We have been successful in negotiating a requirement that the Postal Service notify and consult with the unions when subcontracting is contemplated, but we have been unable to achieve real bargaining over whether or not specific activities will be subcontracted.
“I am certain that the Congress of the United States does not desire to be called upon each time subcontracting is threatened. To prevent the continuous solicitation of your involvement, a clear provision must be enacted requiring the USPS and its labor unions to bargain … Congress has previously enacted provisions requiring bargaining, so this would not represent a significant departure from its current policy.”
In informal remarks to the subcommittee, NALC President Bill Young endorsed Burrus’ message. It was the intervention of Congress that helped the NALC secure a tentative contract, he said, adding that he felt that requiring the Postal Service to engage in collective bargaining on subcontracting “is a good approach.”
Before the Senate subcommittee, Burrus also testified about what he calls “perhaps the most insidious example of the march to privatization,” the secret operations of the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee, a panel composed of high-ranking postal officials and mailing industry moguls. At closed-door meetings, top-level postal officials entertain policy recommendations by the nation’s biggest mailers. Despite “government in the sunshine” laws, Burrus noted, “the public is excluded from its deliberations, as are individual consumers, small businesses, and, of course, labor unions.”
At these secret meetings, Burrus said, “schemes are being hatched to convert work performed by the USPS to private, for-profit entities.”
Also testifying at the hearings were the presidents of the other major postal unions, Postmaster General John Potter, USPS Board of Governors Vice Chairman Alan Kessler, and USPS Inspector General David Williams.
