Under cover of his war on the so-called “deep state,” Trump and his billionaire cronies have taken aim, not just at his personal enemies at the CIA, FBI, and State Department, but also at millions of ordinary federal workers.

From air traffic controllers to FDA inspectors to park rangers, vital jobs are on the chopping block. Now Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency are targeting the United States Postal Service (USPS) for “reform”—and possible privatization.

For the country’s 670,000 postal workers, this means only one thing: we have to fight like hell!

USPS in the crosshairs

USPS has long been in the capitalists’ crosshairs. It’s the largest logistics network on the planet, able to deliver to 169 million addresses daily. It boasts $45 billion in assets, 8,400 facilities on 900 million square feet of land, $31.6 billion in package revenue, and $24.5 billion in First-Class Mail revenue. Billions could be made by selling off its real estate alone.

Trump took half-hearted steps towards privatization in his first term. He’s taking bolder, faster, and more sophisticated action this time around.

First came the resignation of USPS head, Louis DeJoy. Appointed under Trump 1.0, DeJoy oversaw a botched “restructuring,” leading to worse service, worse working conditions, and higher turnover. He weakened USPS, but apparently fell short of his master’s expectations. On his way out, DeJoy struck a deal with DOGE to cut 10,000 USPS jobs by April.

Next, Trump announced an executive order to dissolve the Board of Postal Governors and place USPS under the direct control of the Commerce Department.

This would reverse the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, put in place following the successful postal workers’ strike that year. Rank-and-file letter carriers initiated the wildcat strike against the sanction of their union leadership. In a failed attempt to defeat the strike, Nixon invoked the reactionary Taft-Hartley Act and deployed the military to deliver mail.

The Postal Reorganization Act was a step forward for postal workers, recognizing our right to collective bargaining and making USPS an independent agency.

While Trump cannot legally overturn an act of Congress, we have seen how weak all the liberal institutions of “democratic” rule have become. One thing is certain: Trump, the capitalist courts, and the millionaires and billionaires who populate Capitol Hill cannot be trusted to protect our rights. The working class must take matters into its own hands!

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Privatization threat

Howard Lutnick, Trump’s Commerce Secretary and former CEO of Cantor-Fitzgerald, is one of Wall Street’s largest private equity capitalists. Private equity companies make big profits through corporate raiding, also known as asset stripping. They buy other companies in order to shut them down, selling off the real estate, machinery, and other capital for a quick buck—like a vulture picking at a corpse. Trump wants USPS under the control of Lutnick’s department, which is a good indication of his plans for it.

Asked about privatizing USPS, Trump replied that it isn’t “the worst idea I’ve ever heard.” Elon Musk spoke of the “necessity” of USPS privatization to a conference organized by financial giant Morgan Stanley. He threw in Amtrak privatization as a bonus to the audience of bankers, who gleefully ate it up.

What would USPS privatization mean for the working class? It would spell the end of USPS’s “universal service obligation”—in layman’s terms, the end of guaranteed free mail delivery. Perhaps not at first, but over time, the logic of the market would dictate that private mail delivery companies charge for regular delivery—in addition to charging the sender shipping costs.

This was the norm in the 18th and early 19th centuries, before mail services were nationalized. For rural areas, mail delivery would likely mean driving to whatever private post office is in your county—or region.

Package costs would soar. “Free delivery” and 1–2 day shipping offered by private companies like Amazon would likely also fade away in many areas. Due to its massive infrastructure and universal service obligation—delivering to each and every address regardless of cost—USPS sets the floor for all package pricing in America.

Private shippers also make expedited deliveries using USPS as the “last-mile” carrier. The private shipping companies make a killing piggybacking on the public mail service, while at the same time spending millions lobbying Congress to weaken USPS.

What would privatization mean for postal workers? A gutting of the institution we work in like we’ve never seen before. As a public service, our jobs have become harder and less rewarding, while paltry raises have failed to keep up with inflation. Working for profit-hungry private companies would make things even worse.

After the German and Japanese postal services were privatized, tens of thousands of jobs were trashed, while pay and benefits declined. How do you think we’ll do under the likes of Trump, Musk, and Lutnick? Should we wait and see? Or should we prepare now by organizing a mass fightback?

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Really fight like hell!

The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) and American Postal Workers Union (APWU), along with other public sector unions like the American Federation of Government Employees, have already begun organizing protests, rallies, and marches across the country against federal job cuts and Trump’s privatization plans.

The NALC, which represents USPS mail carriers, is organizing actions like these under a campaign called “Fight Like Hell.” The RCA agrees that the whole working class should mobilize in solidarity with postal and federal workers and fight like hell against these attacks.

What should the leadership of the NALC and other postal unions do? They could start by organizing a coordinated national day of action by mobilizing the 670,000 strong USPS workforce, other federal workers, the wider AFL-CIO, and sympathetic non-union workers to descend on Washington DC. It would show Trump the size of the army of public sector workers and supporters he’s taking on.

Along with planning for a national day of action, rank-and-file postal and other federal workers could begin organizing anti-privatization and anti-cuts committees in their workplaces to build an even broader movement. These committees should be open to postal workers of all crafts, other federal workers, and sympathetic workers in other sectors.

These local committees could help spread the movement to workers in the private sector. They would be able to plan, organize, and mobilize for regular actions to keep the movement growing, and could link up at the local, regional, and national levels.

Concession contract voted down

Militant committees would feed off growing anger and discontent among postal workers. Despite being without a contract since May 2023, NALC members overwhelmingly rejected an insulting concession contract this past January. This was the first deal rejected by the membership since 1978. The rejected contract only provided a 1.3% per year pay increase for most members, despite inflation increasing by 3% last year and 23% since 2020!

The contract also failed to offer real incentives to combat high turnover and forced overtime. Since the NALC leadership abides by Taft-Hartley and has given up the right to strike, the final contract will be arbitrated by a panel of three judges—whose decision is final. How can the fate of hundreds of thousands of workers be left in the hands of just three individuals? This is why the NALC must fight for the right to strike!

Why was this contract so bad to begin with? For starters, NALC President Brian Renfroe bought postal management’s argument that since the service is losing so much money, a paltry 1.3% increase was all they could “afford.” In the interests of preserving the postal service, letter carriers will have to tighten their belts.

Management has put this argument forward for decades. A class-struggle leadership would tell management that financial losses are their responsibility, not ours!

Postal management claims poverty when it comes to letter carriers, clerks, and mail handlers. Yet they find money every year to create more and more management positions that are further and further removed from the hands that actually touch the mail.

Even delivery supervisors on the workroom floor have become superfluous. Their work largely consists of answering the phone, filing useless reports, and harassing carriers and clerks.

Change is coming to the NALC

After the last concession contract, the membership has had enough of Renfroe. Two reform currents, the Concerned Letter Carriers (CLC) and Build A Fighting NALC (BFN), have gained ground since the last National Convention in 2024.

Both are demanding a militant confrontation with management and a fight to regain our lost pay and restore our working conditions. Both organized a “No” campaign on the last contract, which was key to its defeat.

CLC is running a slate of candidates for national and regional leadership. BFN is supporting the CLC slate and advancing a program demanding open bargaining, a $30/hour starting wage, a workers’ wage for union officers, and the right to strike. If we win these demands, it will be a big step forward in our fight against management. If the CLC slate wins, they will be put to the test: will they accept the limits of the capitalist system? Or will they challenge it?

With the looming threat of privatization, postal workers will face a struggle that goes beyond contracts and union conventions. The struggle against privatization cannot stop at rallies, marches, and pickets. If necessary, we have to be prepared to wage an illegal strike in the course of this fight, since there may not be time to achieve our right to strike “legally.”

Just as in 1970, postal workers must be prepared to break the law and strike in order to defend our jobs. In doing so, we would not be isolated, as hundreds of millions of other workers, both in the public and private sectors, would be inspired by our example. By building anti-privatization committees across the country, we can engage them and urge other workers to strike with us in solidarity. With a bold lead, we could unleash a powerful mass movement to stop Trump in his tracks!  We won in 1970 and we can win in 2025!

As long as capitalism exists, every public institution—whether it be education, Amtrak, or the USPS—is under threat. Capitalism is a system that reached its expiration date a long time ago. As it degenerates, the capitalists are less able to reap profits from investments in production. Seeking quick and easy returns, the capitalists will attempt to privatize and asset-strip the public sector, and the working class will be forced to pay. This is why we must fight to overthrow the whole rotten system. Only by fighting for socialist revolution can we create a society truly fit for all human beings.