Bernie Sanders fights bill to wreck postal service

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders says he agrees with Postal Service unions that oppose legislation likely to end Saturday mail service, significantly slow down delivery, close processing plants and eliminate door-to-door deliveries.

A bill by Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was called “a serious threat” to the Postal Service in a joint letter signed by leaders of the American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association.

The labor leaders said the Carper-Coburn legislation would dismantle mail processing and delivery networks, slash 80,000 jobs and retain elements of an onerous congressional mandate to pre-fund health benefits for future retirees. That mandate makes the Postal Service set aside $5.5 billion a year in a fund that already has more than enough to cover future benefits. Financing that mandate, which is unlike any in private business or other public-sector employers, accounts for about $4 out of every $5 in Postal Service debts.

Unlike last year’s Senate-passed bill, the Carper-Coburn proposal would allow the Postal Service, over a short period of time, to shut mail processing plants, end Saturday delivery and open the door to additional weekday mail service cutbacks.

Sanders on Feb. 13 introduced his own legislation, which now has 28 cosponsors, to modernize the Postal Service, save Saturday mail, and repeal the crippling law responsible for about 80 percent of the mail system’s funding woes. Similar legislation introduced in the House by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) now has 166 cosponsors.