[Two of the biggest employers of veterans are the Department of
Veterans Affairs and the Postal Service, both targets of
Republican-backed efforts to reduce their staff and outsource their
functions. ]
[[link removed]]

VIEWPOINT: SUPPORT VETERANS BY DEFENDING, NOT DEFUNDING, PUBLIC
SECTOR JOBS AT THE POST OFFICE AND THE V.A.  
[[link removed]]


 

Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon
November 8, 2022
Labor Notes
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed].]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Two of the biggest employers of veterans are the Department of
Veterans Affairs and the Postal Service, both targets of
Republican-backed efforts to reduce their staff and outsource their
functions. _

Support VA and Postal Workers, AFGE

 

Our nation’s year-round celebration of former military service by 19
million Americans reaches its apex every Veterans Day. On that
occasion, there is no louder “thank you for your service” heard
throughout the land than the expressions of gratitude that emanate
from businesses, large and small.

Men and women who enlisted in the military—or were draftees before
conscription was suspended after the Vietnam War—suddenly become
eligible for all kinds of special consumer discounts. As retired Army
Colonel Andrew Bacevich, a military historian, observes, “corporate
virtue signaling” on November 11 takes the form of “an abundance
of good deals: free coffee, free doughnuts, free pizza, free car
washes, and as much as 30 percent off on assorted retail purchases.”

Conspicuously missing from this annual display of appreciation is what
military veterans need far more than a less expensive day at the mall.
And that is wider understanding of and greater support for their role
as providers of essential public services at the local, state, and
federal level.

Two of the biggest employers of men and women who served in the
military are the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which serves 9
million patients in the nation’s largest public health care system,
and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), which delivers mail to 163 million
homes and businesses. Both of these federal agencies have long been
the target of Republican-backed efforts to reduce their staff,
downsize their operations, and outsource their functions to favored
private firms.

Under President Trump, privatization got a big push from top-level
political appointees at the VA and the USPS who were overtly hostile
to the official mission of their own agency. Unfortunately, President
Biden has yet to make necessary changes in the pro-privatization
policies or management personnel his administration inherited from
Trump.

As a result, federal workers—many veterans among them—are still
mobilizing at both the VA and the USPS to defend jobs and services
that benefit all Americans. Their ongoing alliances with other labor
and community groups are key to defeating bipartisan assaults on two
bastions of public provision in little need of replacement by private
sector alternatives.

A CULTURE OF SOLIDARITY

At VA hospitals and clinics around the country, about one-third of the
300,000 unionized staff members are veterans themselves, including
many health care professionals, clerical workers, custodians, and
other support personnel. As we describe in a new book called _Our
Veterans_, this creates a unique culture of empathy and solidarity
between providers and patients, whose service-related physical and
mental health conditions often require highly specialized treatment.

Despite his 2020 presidential campaign pledge never to “defund” or
“dismantle” this high-quality health care system, Joe Biden
appointed a VA Secretary, Denis McDonough, who has deviated little
from the path of his Republican predecessor.

Despite appeals from VA union members, McDonough won’t restrict
outsourcing that may soon divert half of his agency’s $100
billion-a-year health care budget to reimbursement of for-profit
hospital chains and medical practices. Earlier this year, he even
recommended that scores of VA facilities be closed and their patients
treated, at greater public expense, by the private health care
industry instead.

This proposal triggered strong grassroots resistance from VA
caregivers, their patients, some veterans’ groups, and elected
officials in cities and states threatened with a reduction in medical
services. Members of the American Federation of Government Employees,
National Nurses United, and other VA unions organized rallies, press
conferences, and picket lines which demanded improvements in VA
staffing and infrastructure, not layoffs and its dismantling.

Responding to constituent pressure, both Democrats and Republicans on
the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee refused to confirm White House
nominees to a VA facility closing commission that was poised to
rubber-stamp McDonough’s pro-privatization proposals.

Veterans who belong to the American Postal Workers Union and the
National Association of Letter Carriers hope to have similar success
derailing the latest postal service restructuring scheme unveiled by
Louis DeJoy, a controversial holdover from the Trump Administration.
DeJoy is a right-wing businessman from North Carolina, worth $110
million, who left his logistics company to become Postmaster General
[[link removed]]
after donating millions to Trump and other conservative Republicans.

Postal workers have been jousting with DeJoy since he received his
marching orders from a White House task force created by Trump. That
Republican body called for massive contracting out of USPS services,
closing many post offices, reducing delivery days, increasing prices,
and eliminating collective bargaining by a workforce that is nearly
one-quarter African American
[[link removed]]
and includes more than 110,000 military veterans.

The Trump Administration’s goal was to force the USPS into
bankruptcy so it could be auctioned off to private companies
[[link removed]],
putting 500,000 jobs at risk, while conveniently disrupting
census-taking and mail-ballot voting
[[link removed]] for
president.

NEW THREAT TO LETTER CARRIERS
Coming together as the Save the Post Office Coalition
[[link removed]], members of 300
advocacy groups mounted successful protests
[[link removed]]
against DeJoy’s attempt to cut service and slow election year mail
delivery. After Democrats regained control of the White House and the
Senate, Congress passed the Postal Service Reform Act, which has put
the agency on a sounder financial footing.

But the USPS is formally independent of the executive branch, so its
top official serves at the pleasure of a nine-member board of
governors and cannot be sacked by the president like a cabinet member.
Despite mounting calls for DeJoy’s resignation, he’s still on the
job
[[link removed]]
under the Biden administration, which has yet to fill board vacancies
with enough appointees (or the right kind) to fire the Trump appointee
by majority vote.

In the meantime, the latest manifestation of DeJoy’s 10-year
consolidation plan is a massive change in mail sorting and delivery
[[link removed]]
that will be rolled out in February and initially impact 200
facilities
[[link removed]]
nationwide. Instead of sorting mail in neighborhood post offices, tens
of thousands of mail carriers will be forced to drive back and forth
to large centralized regional sorting centers, located far away from
their current delivery routes.

Labor critics point out that bad working conditions, like
understaffing and long hours, are already causing many letter carriers
to take early retirement; the retention rate for new hires is 30
percent, a number likely to drop further if the job soon entails
lengthier and more costly commutes. Post offices that lose their
“back-end” delivery units will inevitably have fewer clerks and
shorter retail hours, and then become candidates for closure. The jobs
affected will be among the 50,000 positions DeJoy is seeking to
eliminate.

PUBLIC MEETING THIS THURSDAY

An activist network called Communities and Postal Workers United is
urging all postal service supporters to sign petitions protesting mail
carrier removal, organize town hall meetings against it, and speak out
at the Postal Board of Governors’ next national meeting on November
10. (To make virtual or in-person comments about DeJoy’s plan, sign
up here
[[link removed]].)

Many speakers will no doubt emphasize the adverse economic impact on
postal workers and the communities they serve, particularly in rural
areas. On the eve of Veterans Day, some will also remind the board
that military veterans, now wearing the uniform of the postal service,
will be among the first casualties of yet another public service
restructuring scheme inherited from Trump but still unfolding on Joe
Biden’s watch, like the parallel undermining of the VA
[[link removed]].

_Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon are NewsGuild/CWA members and authors
of _Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends and Enemies on the New
Terrain of Veterans Affairs
[[link removed]]_.
Published by Duke University Press, the book describes the parallel
labor-community campaigns against privatization of veterans’ health
care and U.S. mail delivery. They can be reached at [email protected]._

====

* Veterans' Jobs; Veterans Affairs; US Post Office; Privatization;
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed].]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]