Madison postal workers protest push to privatize

The rally was part of a nationwide 'Day of Action' organized by labor

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Toni Richardson’s father worked for more than 20 years as a letter carrier for the United States Postal Service, a job he greatly enjoyed. Inspired by her father, Richardson, 44, joined the service herself almost nine years ago. She’s worked ever since as a retail distribution clerk at a post office in Platteville.

But she’s concerned small locations like hers could be eliminated if the postal service is privatized.

“I'm from a really rural area. We have a lot of [remote-managed post offices], which basically are small post offices that have PO boxes. That’s how the customers get their mail,” Richardson says. If the system were privatized, she adds, “I feel that they would want to get rid of some of these post offices to cut down on overhead and things like that, and it's going to affect the customers.”

Richardson was among around 30 postal workers and supporters who picketed outside of the Milwaukee Street post office Thursday — part of a nationwide “Day of Action” organized by the American Postal Workers Union — to warn against potential changes to the agency’s independence and existence as a public service. The crowd engaged in call and response chants like “U.S. Mail, not for sale.”

Cars barreling down Milwaukee Street honked in support. “We love the post office!” one driver yelled out her window, to protesters’ cheers.

Shake-ups at the postal service seem likely. In his first term, President Donald Trump sought to privatize the agency, a move met with sharp bipartisan opposition in Congress.

In December, Trump said privatizing the USPS is an option “we’re looking at” and in February said he would like to bring the postal service, an independent executive agency since 1970, under the authority of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Either action would likely require congressional approval.

In March, Postmaster General and Republican mega-donor Louis DeJoy said he would work with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to cut 10,000 workers and billions in operating costs from the agency.

Evan Elkins, an officer with the American Postal Workers Union, organized Thursday’s rally — his first time putting together such an event. Given recent federal actions, he says, “right now is the time to be courageous.”

Elkins, 30, has worked for the postal service since 2019, deciding during the COVID-19 pandemic to quit his studies at UW-Madison in favor of full-time employment at USPS.

He was drawn to the job for its pay, his enjoyment of public service and because it is a “good union job.”

“I've met more characters in my life working at the postal service than I have [in] any other career,” says Elkins, who includes his coworkers in that group. “Every single one of them is very committed to serving the public. During the elections, people were really stressing out, running around the post office making sure we didn't miss a single ballot when we were trying to get people their right to vote.”

He notes that, as a public institution, the postal service provides services the private sector would be unlikely to offer. The agency is required to deliver packages to rural and remote areas, regardless of the high cost and low return on doing so, and often serves as the “last mile” for such private delivery services as UPS or FedEx.

“Suppose if you're a more elderly person, or you're just someone who depends on getting your medication through the mail, and you live in one of those communities,” Elkins says. “It might become a major obstacle for you to get your medicine or other pharmaceuticals.”

Some Republican lawmakers did push back in November 2024 when the postal service was considering an overhaul of its delivery service. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who represents northern Wisconsin, told the Midwest Farm Report at the time that he had “real concern, along with a lot of other members of Congress, that they’re going to leave rural America behind.”

Trump and Musk are taking aim at an agency that predates the United States. Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first American postmaster general in 1775 and in 1792, President George Washington signed the Postal Service Act, establishing the USPS’ predecessor, the United States Post Office Department, part of the president’s cabinet.

In the post-World War II era, booming population growth and increased mail volume severely challenged the operations of the agency. Facing a massive strike from around 200,000 laborers angered by poor wages and working conditions, the U.S. Congress in 1970 established the USPS as it exists today — an independent executive branch agency — through the Postal Reorganization Act.

“The postal system must be given a non-political management structure consistent with the job the postal system has to perform as a supplier of vital services to the public,” President Richard Nixon said in a 1969 message to Congress proposing the legislation, noting that “while the work of the Post Office is that of a business enterprise, its organization is that of a political department.”

The postal service’s finances have taken a hit from reduced mail volume in the digital age. The agency has operated at a deficit every year since 2007, according to the USPS Office of Inspector General. Since 2020, the agency, which is supposed to support itself entirely off its revenue, has received more than $120 billion in congressional aid, according to The Washington Post.

Elkins says the answer is not to cut jobs and service, but to look for new avenues of revenue. 

He mentions postal banking — providing basic financial services through the postal service, a measure that could help the nearly 4.2% of U.S. households without a checking or savings account at a bank or credit union — as an example.

Janet Davis, a retired schoolteacher and Madison resident, was among the protesters at the Milwaukee Street post office. She says she would like to see the agency expand, not cut, services and is worried about the threat of privatization to all federal agencies.

“We’re going to get less and pay more,” says Davis. “I think people in rural communities are going to be really hurt by privatization, whether it be the schools or the post office.”