Credit: Courtesy of National Association of Letter Carriers
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  • Courtesy of National Association of Letter Carriers

How many hundreds of people packed downtown for a march and two rallies yesterday against devastating federal budget cuts aimed at the U.S. Postal Service? That all depended on who did the counting.

The main organizers of the event, the local branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), had the most exuberant estimate: “Over 800 Portland-area letter carriers, other postal workers, family members and allies,” the group said in a statement last night. Among those allies? Sympathetic members of Occupy Portland and the labor coalition Jobs With Justice.

More from NALC’s statement:

From a rally at downtown Pioneer Courthouse Square, the boisterous marchers chanted and sang down Fourth Avenue, ending with a rally at the Main Post Office on Northwest Hoyt. Signs calling for saving 6-day delivery, door-to-door and curbside delivery, community post offices and family wage jobs dotted the blocks long procession.

But the TV reporters who followed the marchers, making their own best guesses, were way more miserly. KGW had a still-impressive estimate of 400 people—double the paltry 200-person figure given by KATU.

Even without taking drastic steps like shuttering rural post offices and ending Saturday delivery, the postal service has been making other annoying cash-saving changes in recent months: chiefly, slowing delivery of first-class mail—affecting things like Netflix DVDs and magazines.

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Denis C. Theriault is the Portland Mercury's News Editor. He writes stories about City Hall and the Portland Police Bureau, focusing on issues like homelessness, police oversight, insider politics, and...

12 replies on “Scenes from Yesterday’s Rally to Save the Postal Service”

  2. Isn’t this just prolonging the inevitable? I understand people not wanting to lose their jobs, but this is progress.

    Also interesting to note the average age of people in that photo. This has got to be one of the oldest protests in Portland history, and that should tell you something about the longterm feasibility to the postal service. Only the tobacco industry’s customers are dying off faster, and at least they’re still bringing in new smokers.

  5. LIST OF THINGS I USE THE POSTAL SERVICE FOR ON A REGULAR BASIS:

    1. MAIL MY RENT CHECK
    2. RECEIVE BULK-JUNK MAIL THAT GOES STRAIGHT IN TO THE RECYCLING BIN

    I WOULDN’T MISS ANY OF THOSE THINGS IF THEY WENT AWAY.

  6. Sorry, Chuck. But I don’t view losing infrastructure where we are able to mail a letter for less than a dollar and by which we depend in some places to deliver and collect our ballots to vote as “progress”. Unless you call paying $7 for FedEx to deliver a Social Security check “progress”. Some addresses in this country can ONLY get mail delivered via USPS. And small businesses and vendors in web sites like Etsy and eBay can only afford to send via the mail. This “free market” solution to everything is bullshit.

    Read up on the facts. The only reason why the Post Office is in trouble is because an act of a Republican-led Congress required that they front-load their pension program for 30+ years. How do you you think FedEx and UPS would fare if they had to do that?

    Stay ignorant. The politicians are depending on you.

  7. bujeeboo, the restrictions to limit mail to some addresses are government mandated. It is one thing to bitch about how private enterprise can’t reach some addresses, but it might be worthwhile to note that that restriction is not one the private carrier industry is responsible for.

    They are easily worked around.

    As for collecting our ballots, we can drive/bike/walk the few miles to a delivery station to vote. It isn’t all that hard, I’ve done it for a decade.

  9. “Unless you call paying $7 for FedEx to deliver a Social Security check “progress”.”

    No, progress is direct deposit, which has already completely replaced the need to mail checks. Mailing government checks (which costs the government a fortune, btw) will become practically unnecessary as soon as the people who are too old to figure out direct deposit die off, a date which is rapidly approaching. Progress is not wasting paper on bills, correspondence, newsletters, junk mail and glossy political mailers.

    “The only reason why the Post Office is in trouble is because an act of a Republican-led Congress required that they front-load their pension program for 30+ years.”

    Yeah, I’m sure email, PDFs, fax, mobile phones, teleconferencing and text messaging had nothing to do with a decrease in profitability.

    Outside of products purchased online, I can’t think of a single function the postal service provides which won’t be made completely unnecessary through technology in the not-to-distant future. If you can’t afford to send something via FexEx, charge more for shipping. The USPS isn’t around to serve as a low-cost shipping outlet for overpriced crafts, and even if it were, that could be done with 5-day a week delivery.

    Mail is going the way of the telegraph, and that’s not a bad thing.

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