The nation’s four postal unions are mobilizing a National Day of Action on Nov. 14, to send a powerful message to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe and the United States Postal Service Board of Governor’s: Stop Delaying America’s Mail.

On Jan. 5, the USPS is poised to make devastating cuts in service to the American people – cuts so severe that they will forever damage the U.S. Postal Service, the union presidents said in an Oct. 16 letter to their members. According the unions:

• The USPS is slated to lower “service standards” to virtually eliminate overnight delivery – including first-class mail from one address to another within the same city or town.
• All mail – including medicine, online purchases, local newspapers, church bulletins, bill payments and sale notices – throughout the country will be delayed.
• Beginning Jan. 5, 82 Mail Processing & Distribution Centers are scheduled to close or “consolidate operations.”

The service cuts, said the union leaders:

Will cause hardships for customers, drive away business, cause irreparable harm to the U.S. Postal Service, and lead to massive schedule changes and reassignments for employees. They are part of a flawed management strategy that has unnecessarily sacrificed service and failed to address the cause of the Postal Service’s manufactured financial crisis.

The four postal unions are the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), Letter Carriers (NALC), National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), Mail Handlers (NPMHU) and Rural Letter Carriers (NRLCA) .

This blog  originally appeared in AFL-CIO.org on October 29, 2014. Reprinted with permission. http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/Postal-Unions-Set-Day-of-Action-to-Protest-Service-Cuts-Mail-Delays.

About the Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. He came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and have written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. When his collar was still blue, he carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. He also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold my blood plasma and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen him at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. He was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still has the shirts, lost the hair.