On today's Your Call, we continue our Agenda for a New Economy show by talking about the post office. The USPS is facing thousands of staff cuts and post office closures after an almost $16 billion loss in 2012. Critics are calling for the post office to be privatized. But what do we lose if mail delivery is no longer a universal government service? How do you think the post office should run? It’s Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.
Guests:
Gray Brechin, historical geographer; visiting professor at UC Berkeley; founder and project scholar of California’s Living New Deal Project,
David Welsh, retired letter carrier for the USPS in Daly City and former organizer with the Letter Carriers Union
Richard John, professor of journalism at Columbia and author of Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse
Maurice McTigue, vice president at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University; former cabinet member and member of New Zealand's Parliament and assisted in overhauling that country's postal service.
Resources:
National Association of Letter Carriers
NY Times ‘Room for Debate’: Give Them Authority
NY Times: How the Post Office made America
Harvard University Press:Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse
Mother Jones: Privatizing the Post Office
Mercury News: Berkeley: Residents face USPS authorities on fate of downtown post office
Workers World: Berkeley, Calif., gears up to save post office
LA Times: Be wary of talk about privatizing the post office
Colorlines: USPS’s Largely Black and Female Workforce Rallies to Save Jobs
Esquire: Do we really want to live without the post office?
Washington Post:Privatize the Nation's Mail Delivery
Investors News: Dear Congress, Please Privatize The Post Office
NPR: Is a Privatized Post Office Better?
Huffington Post: Post Office Privatization Is Probably a Huge Real Estate Deal
Roanoke Times: Congress is killing the post office
USPS: Postal Facts