Washington, D.C. – Congressman Stephen F. Lynch recently introduced H. Res. 993, a bipartisan resolution providing that Congress must ensure that the U.S. Postal Service is not subject to privatization. Cosponsored by 209 Members of Congress, including 40 Republicans, H. Res. 993 reflects strong opposition by both Democrats and Republicans to misguided efforts by the Trump Administration to privatize an agency that Americans consistently rank as their most trusted government institution. Most recently, in June 2018, the Administration issued government-wide reform and reorganization plan recommending the “future conversion of the Postal Service from a government agency into a privately-held corporation.”
For over 240 years, the Postal Service and its dedicated workforce have performed the essential government function of “providing postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people.” In furtherance of this mission, the Postal Service and its more than 500,000 clerks, letter carriers, mail handlers and supervisors help deliver the mail to over 157 million residential and business customers six days a week nationwide.
“The presumption that the American people are better served when their government outsources its core functions to private contractors has been disproven time and time again. A range of congressional investigations have revealed the harmful impact of government outsourcing on the safety and the security of the American people, as well as the responsible expenditure of taxpayer dollars,” wrote Congressman Lynch. “Whether it is the outsourcing of Iraq reconstruction and military logistics activities to Halliburton and its subsidiaries, the contracting out of management and support services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, or waste, fraud, and abuse in hurricane recovery and relief contracting in Puerto Rico, it is more than clear that the delivery of essential government services should not be subject to privatization and is best performed by our experienced federal workforce.”
“In order to understand the importance of retaining the Postal Service as a public sector entity, we need only recall the exceptional public service exhibited by our postal workforce in response to the bioterrorism that threatened the integrity of the mail network in the immediate aftermath of 9/11,” Congressman Lynch continued. “The mailing of anthrax spores claimed the lives of two postal workers, Joseph Curseen and Thomas Morris, Jr., at the Brentwood Processing and Distribution Center that now bears their name. Under the threat of continued anthrax attacks, our 700,000-strong postal workforce continued to report to work throughout the crisis and make certain that our nationwide mail and commerce would not be subject to disruption.”
In addition to 169 Democrats and 40 Republicans, Lynch’s resolution has been endorsed by The National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union, the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, the American Postal Workers Union, the National Association of Postal Supervisors, the United Postmasters and Managers of America, and the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service.
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