Postal Workers from across the nation will gather at Detroit’s Campus Martius Park on Tuesday, Aug. 24, to protest the Postal Service’s plan to end Saturday mail delivery.

More than three thousand members of the American Postal Workers Union — who are meeting in Detroit for the organization’s 20th Biennial National Convention — will march from COBO Center to the rally site at 12 noon, where APWU President William Burrus and others will deliver a spirited denunciation of proposals by the Postal Service to cut Saturday mail delivery.

Background:

Congress is considering a request by the Postal Service to eliminate Saturday delivery. “Ending Saturday mail service would slow service, drive away business, and lead to the demise of the world’s most efficient, affordable, and trusted postal system,” Burrus said.

Congress should relieve the USPS of an onerous provision of the 2006 postal reform law that requires the Postal Service to pay more than $5 billion annually to “pre-fund” healthcare benefits for future retirees. (No other federal agency or private company is burdened with such a mandate.) The pre-funding requirement is the primary cause of USPS financial deficits. Without it, the Postal Service would have netted a surplus in recent years — despite declining mail volume amid the deep recession.

Abolishing Saturday mail delivery would undermine any justification for the Postal Service’s exclusive access to citizens’ mailboxes and would destroy universal service at a uniform price, Burrus said.