It is no secret, or at least it shouldn’t be, that the National Association of Letter Carriers was pulling for Democrat Joe Biden to win the 2020 election. More than 90 percent of all letter carriers belong to the union. And the union endorsed Biden while slamming President Donald J. Trump and his administration in the process.
In a June newsletter sent to carriers in central Iowa, there was an article about “urgent political action needed.” Below are some excerpts:
“The Postal Service is in a fight for its financial future…The first (COVID-19) stimulus package included financial relief to USPS, and both political parties were in agreement. As you should know, the President threatened a VETO if it included any money for the Postal Service!
“I’ll say this once again, ‘Elections Have Consequences.’ (their emphasis, not mine) The current administration has total dislike for the Postal Service. Trump thinks we should raise our rates on Amazon to fuel his fight with its CEO. All this so he can stroke his ego. But what his administration really wants is to privatize the Postal Service and in turn bust the Unions. His recent appointment of one of his cronies to become the new Postmaster General only proves what he’s up to.
Letter carriers are told to visit NALC’s website and send pre-filled letters to senators and congressmen.
“Do it every day! If you want to save your job and the future of the Postal Service, please take the time.”
Then, in the September edition of The Postal Record, the monthly journal of the NALC, the group’s president writes a special message in support of Biden.
“As for the candidates’ records, the Biden-Harris ticket is clearly superior for letter carriers and their families,” he wrote. “President Trump, who refused to fill out our candidate survey, has demonstrated unrelenting hostility to the Postal Service and its workers over the past four years, attacking the agency as ‘a joke’ and calling for the elimination of our collective bargaining rights while proposing budgets that would slash our pensions and health benefits. He’s pushed privatization and deregulation, and has blocked any help for USPS in COVID-19 relief legislation.”
That was from page 4. The same edition had an article on page 1 that stated, “President Donald Trump unleashed a political firestorm by launching a months-long sustained attack on the Postal Service and vote-by-mail.”
The article finishes with, “For NALC, the bottom line is clear: We will do whatever it takes — at the bargaining table, in the halls of Congress, in the courts, in the streets and in the media — to protect the health, safety and job security of our members, and to defend the Postal Service and its essential role in American life.”
For good measure, because articles on Page 1 and Page 4 may not have been clear enough, there’s another on Page 5. This time they highlight the differences between the two platforms of the GOP and the Democrats.
“These platforms show a stark contrast in goals and priorities when looking ahead to a potential Biden administration versus four more years of a Trump administration,” it concludes.
In case it hadn’t been driven home, Page 32 includes an article on why elections matter.
“The outcome of the presidential election and other races that will be decided in November will have a significant effect on the future of the Postal Service and our jobs,” it says.
That article finishes, “the future of the service we provide to our customers and our jobs will be at stake this fall when we exercise our right to vote in our democracy.”
Over and over and over again the message to the letter carriers is the same — the future of the Postal Service and your job depend on this 2020 election.
And, Joe Biden will be much better for the Postal Service than President Trump who appointed one of his “cronies” and “strokes his own ego” in a fight against Amazon’s CEO.
That’s what was said time and time again to the men and women who were tasked with delivering and collecting ballots.
Letter carriers have an idea whether a customer is a Republican or a Democrat. Bumper stickers can give it away. Yard signs definitely may be an indicator. But the other mail someone receives — whether it is Republican mail or Democrat mail — provides a pretty good heads up.
For months it was drilled into these letter carriers that the future of the Postal Service depended on the outcome of the election, as does their job.
The United States Postal Service played an integral part in the 2020 campaign. It was essentially THE third party in the process. It served as THE middle man between state and county election officials and voters.
It never should have been. It isn’t neutral.
Democrats would never allow the NRA or Right to Life members go door to door to collect ballots.
Yet here we are.
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