The US Postal Service (USPS) Board of Governors is preparing to name David Steiner, a current member of FedEx’s Board of Directors, as the next Postmaster General (PMG), according to a report in the Washington Post. The selection is reportedly being made at the behest of Donald Trump.

The move signals a massive escalation of attacks on the post office, especially its privatization, which both Trump and Elon Musk, head of the “Department of Government Efficiency,” (DOGE) support. But privatization would be the culmination of decades of bipartisan attacks, beginning with its demotion from a cabinet level department to an independent, self-funding agency under President Richard Nixon.

The situation urgently requires organized resistance by postal workers and their allies in the working class. As the USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee explained in a statement in March: “This requires new organizations, rank-and-file committees, to mobilize ourselves independently of Trump’s collaborators in the Democrats and the union tops. We must safeguard our own initiative and begin organizing now rather than waiting for ‘permission’ from the top which will never come.”

  • psivchaz@reddthat.com
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    3 days ago

    In case you’re curious why they might hate the post office so much, I suspect it’s because as a government entity it has two important attributes:

    • A requirement for universal access
    • At least some constitutional protections for privacy.

    When you ship UPS or FedEx, you’re giving a package to a private entity. They are only bound by the contract they make with you. If they decide to start opening every package, that’s their right. The USPS has specific laws around when it can and cannot search packages, and generally requires a warrant.