Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Union workers, volunteers and friends of the United States Postal Service rallied outside of Salt Lake City's Main Post Station, Thursday.
They picketed, along with thousands of others nationwide, against the Trump Administration's plans to privatize the United States Postal Service.
Chants on the street corner rang out: "Not for sale. We'll sing this song — all day long."
"We need to keep the Post Office public. We have been around for 250 years, since 1775," Sabrina Larsen who is the vice president of the Utah State American Postal Workers Union said. "We hope Utahns will stand with us. Don't let DOGE come in."
Dissolving the Postal Service is not a new idea for the Trump Administration. In 2018, President Trump commissioned a task force put together by the Treasury Department to recommend reforms to the service. It concluded that rural communities would suffer from privatization.
"In Utah, we have a lot of rural areas. I live in Roy. It is rural. People in rural areas would not be getting their mail under Trump's plan. Because if you privatize — it's about making money," Larsen said. "We're not about making money. We're about serving the public. Our veterans who wait on their mail to get their medications and who rely on their Social Security checks — they absolutely depend on the Postal Service. If you take their service away because it's not making a lot of money, what are those people going to do?"
Executive orders cannot override existing laws, so an attempt to place the Postal Service under another agency would likely be challenged in federal court. However, legal experts said there is the option to maintain the Postal Service as an independent agency overseen by the executive branch, but privatize operations such as mail hauling and sorting.
"Privateers come in as the 1% of the richest people in the world, and yet they are taking most of the wealth," Russell Franklin, president of the Salt Lake City Area American Postal Workers Union said. "The middle class built America. The union class made America strong in the '50s, '60s and '70s. Although we have seen a dip in the past decade, union numbers are rising now."
The Postal Service was created by Congress to be free of political interference.
Franklin said privatization would eliminate decent living-wage union jobs for workers from all walks of life.
"The Postal Service gives jobs to 70,000 military veterans. We are incredibly diverse: all skin colors and transgender people find employment here," Franklin said.
Thursday's rally was just one of more than 150 nationwide in support of keeping the Postal Service public.
"Look at other countries that have privatized," Larsen said. "Look at Germany — I am from Germany. My dad was a postal worker there. We have been through it. It didn't do any better once Germany privatized. In fact, everything was much worse: less deliveries, horrible service, and people had to go further to get their mail."
Volunteers are hosting another rally on Sunday, March 23 at 2261 S. Redwood Road.
Photos
Show 1 Photo
