The following statement is from the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee, which was founded in late 2023 to oppose attacks on the USPS workforce by management and their enablers in the union bureaucracy. To contact the committee, fill out the form below.
To postal workers across the US and the world:
Last year, in responses to the deaths of two of our coworkers at facilities in Michigan and Georgia, the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee launched an investigation into workplace safety at the United States Postal Service.
This investigation is independent and worker-led, we explained, because “Management, OSHA and the union bureaucracy have repeatedly failed to protect us.” The purpose, we explained, is “not only to establish responsibility for these deaths, but to produce clear demands and plans to enforce safe working conditions under workers’ control.”
This statement reviews some of the initial findings, using evidence provided to us by our coworkers. But to begin with, we want to say we support Friday’s general strike in Minneapolis. It is part of a wave of class struggle across the country which has the potential to change the balance of power in this country from the corporate elite to working people.
We wholeheartedly support postal workers’ demand that ICE be expelled from USPS property, which they are using as staging areas for the occupation of the city. We urge our coworkers to hold mass meetings and vote on collective action to participate in Friday’s action and beyond.
Trump’s deployment of ICE forces is part of a broader war on the working class. In truth, however, this war has been going on for years in workplaces across the country, as our investigation has revealed.
The deaths we are investigating include the following:
Nick Acker, who died at the Detroit Network Distribution Center after falling into a mail sorting machine. The autopsy report lists the cause of death as asphyxiation, with his body covered in lacerations and contusions. We are still investigating why standard lockout/tagout procedures were not followed.
Russell Scruggs, who died the same week at the Palmetto Regional Processing and Distribution Center after falling and hitting his head. According to the autopsy report we obtained, the official cause of death was a heart attack. This suggests that his life may have been saved with timely medical intervention. Instead, there was no first aid, no defibrillators on site, and significant delays in emergency medical services. USPS blocking of cell phone signals delayed the call to EMS, and first responders then faced difficulty entering the building.
Scruggs’ death was the third death at the Palmetto facility in two years. Palmetto is one of USPS’ newest facilities, built as part of the Delivering for America restructuring. Billions of dollars are being spent on automated, networked equipment. Yet there is no money for medical equipment, on-site health professionals, or even basic safety procedures. According to sources speaking to our investigation, the facility has never had written safety protocols.
At the North Metro Processing and Distribution Center in Duluth, Georgia, a former postal worker told us they fell into a coma after inhaling particles from construction work conducted inside the building while normal operations continued. They are now being denied workers’ compensation, a familiar experience for workers across the country injured on the job.
We also learned of the death of Lucy Diaz at the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center in New York City last November. Management provided no information to workers about her death. But as an operator of an Automated Package Processing System (APPS) machine, she was likely left alone for extended periods without immediate supervision or assistance. Workers at the facility report that there is no nurse on staff.
In addition, there were heat-related deaths last year of two letter carriers, Jacob Taylor in Dallas and Dan Workman in Grand Junction, Colorado. These deaths occurred in the context of the USPS’ use of automated surveillance systems to impose discipline for “stationary events,” forcing carriers to keep working without rest even in extreme heat.
Similar patterns exist across industries, from auto plants to aviation and rail, where cost-cutting and regulatory indifference have led to repeated mass-casualty incidents.
The conditions at USPS are, in particular, the product of the Delivering for America program to consolidate operations into a smaller number of massive automated facilities. Parallel restructurings are underway at UPS, Amazon and FedEx. New technology is being deployed not to make jobs easier or safer, but to intensify labor and discipline workers.
Government regulators offer no protection. OSHA does nothing. Even when workers are killed, fines are typically on the order of $15,000 and are quickly appealed or reduced. Management temporarily cleans things up when OSHA inspectors arrive or when a congressperson visits in response to resident complaints. Once the inspection is over, conditions revert immediately to what they were before.
The union bureaucrats at NALC, the APWU and NRLCA are worse than useless. Union officials cultivate friendly relations with management and openly support restructuring. Their primary function is to let management off the hook and block independent action from below by workers.
The only answer is for workers to take matters into our own hands. We fight for workers’ control over safety, because safety is fundamentally incompatible with the interests of the corporate politicians and former private sector executives who run USPS as a business.
We advance the following immediate demands:
Defibrillators and fully stocked first aid equipment in every building
Nurses in every USPS facility
An end to the blocking of cell phone signals to allow prompt emergency response
Written emergency plans and designated safety personnel in every building, subject to approval and oversight by workers to prevent corner-cutting by management
Strict, enforceable observation of lockout/tagout procedures
Comprehensive heat mitigation measures for letter carriers and all other workers during the summer months
These safety demands are inseparable from broader demands needed to protect both jobs and lives by ending overwork:
An end to the restructuring and no more facility closures
Full protection for career jobs, with none lost through attrition
For temporary workers, including CCAs, PSEs and others, full-time status for all who want it
Use of automation and technology to improve safety and reduce the physical burden of work, not to discipline and monitor workers
An end to privatization and a reaffirmation of the USPS as a public service, funded not through forced “self-sufficiency” but through taxes on major corporations such as Amazon that rely heavily on postal services
We must fight for these demands by taking action ourselves. No right has ever been won by pleading with those in power. Rights are asserted and secured through struggle. Anything else leaves our demands as empty words on paper.
We declare that we have the right to take all actions deemed necessary to protect our lives. This includes the right to stop work whenever conditions are unsafe and to take broader collective measures to win our demands.
In formulating our strategy, we should recall that the Post Office itself is a product of the American Revolution against the British Crown. We should also draw lessons from the past struggles of postal workers, including the 1970 wildcat strike, which was organized in defiance of opposition from union officials. In both cases, new organizational structures were required to prepare and lead action from below.
We call on our coworkers to hold mass meetings, elect trusted workers to rank-and-file safety committees, and collectively enforce safety standards. We urge workers to establish links with other facilities to plan joint actions.
The USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee will help put workers in touch with one another and, through the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees, link up with postal workers in Canada, Britain, Germany and Australia who are fighting the same issues.
Management stooges will point to undemocratic laws banning strikes by federal workers. But without action to back them up, demands are not worth the paper they are written on. In any case, the government itself is acting illegally. As Trump himself has stated, the only restraint is “my own mind.”
What is happening in the United States, in Minnesota and beyond, marks the beginning of something far bigger movement of the working class. This movement has the potential to change everything, as workers confront oligarchy, inequality and authoritarianism. Within this struggle, the fight for workers’ control over safety must be taken up as a key demand.
If you agree, join us. Fill out the form below.