In current weeks, the destiny of the United States Postal Service (USPS), a revered and very important public establishment, has been unsure. Because the begin of his second presidency, Donald Trump has launched main modifications to the federal authorities. Together with billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called “division of presidency effectivity” (Doge), the president has carried out widespread layoffs at businesses such because the Small Enterprise Administration and the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau, with the purported aim of chopping prices and boosting effectivity. Now, Trump is popping his focus to the put up workplace, an company he has lengthy been important of and one which he could also be privatizing.
Along with delivering upwards of 343.5m items of mail and packages a day, the put up workplace is chargeable for administering official authorities varieties reminiscent of passport purposes, and offering banking providers, reminiscent of cash orders. As of 2025, it employs 640,000 folks. Black folks, particularly, make up 29% of its employees, whereas making up simply 12% of the nationwide workforce general.
The Washington Put up first reported that Trump is anticipated to take management of the USPS, doubtless signing an government order within the coming weeks to put the impartial company below the Commerce division. With privatization, Trump would most likely curtail postal providers, stated Arrion Brown, the nationwide assist providers director for the American Postal Employees Union. “The privatization positively would require much less workers,” he stated. “That may minimize down on the variety of postal jobs.”
Trump’s potential plans for the USPS might threaten the company’s wealthy legacy of Black employment, from which generations of Black households have secured wealth and advantages by way of service. “The postal service workforce is extra numerous racially [and] ethnically than the labor drive on this nation as a complete,” stated Brian Renfro, nationwide president of the Nationwide Affiliation of Letter Carriers.
The features within the put up workplace close to range aren’t unintended. One cause for the excessive charge of Black employment on the postal workplace is as a result of the USPS recruits veterans, a big share of whom are Black, stated Monique Morrissey, an economist on the Financial Coverage Institute. “They’re vetted and so they’re reliable,” stated Morrissey of veterans. “You don’t need any person messing with mail. The implications are harsh if any person does that.”
Due to federal protections, the put up workplace, like different federal businesses, additionally has much less discrimination in hiring in comparison with personal sector employment. Anti-discrimination language in USPS’s collective bargaining agreements promotes worker range, stated Renfro. “Lots of of hundreds of excellent middle-class jobs have been supplied to folks everywhere in the nation, with out regard to race or another demographic [information]”.
Elevated entry to postal service employment signifies that Black households can entry strong advantages, particularly as generations have been “blocked from different methods of making wealth”, stated Morrissey. “The advantages matter lots to African American communities due to historic boundaries to wealth creation and entry to monetary safety by way of well being advantages,” she stated. USPS additionally pays comparatively effectively in comparison with different jobs that don’t require a university diploma, Morrissey added, given coaching and belief required for the job. USPS additionally has union-protected pay will increase primarily based on how lengthy an individual has been employed with the put up workplace, Renfro famous. “It’s a spot to actually make a strong center class profession,” he stated. “Once we discuss collective bargaining rights being attacked, we’re speaking about folks’s capability to have a center class profession.”
Variety within the postal service can also be a direct results of “geographic range”, stated Renfro. Most of the greater than 33,000 put up places of work within the US are “closely concentrated in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and different city areas”, areas the place Black individuals are extra prone to dwell and be employed from.
The wealth constructing relationship between Black Individuals and the postal service dates again to the nineteenth century, says Phillip Rubio, a historical past professor at North Carolina A&T State College. In 1865, Congress handed a regulation permitting Black folks to be employed as postal employees, reversing an 1802 invoice that beforehand declared that mail carriers might solely be “free white individuals”. Previously enslaved folks then began “profiting from what was a patronage job”, stated Rubio, who’s an professional on Black postal employees. “The way in which the postal service opens as much as African Individuals is [that] they open the door,” he stated, including: “The put up workplace [was] enticing when so many personal sector jobs have been closed to [Black people].”
Black individuals who have been already employed by the put up workplace started serving to different Black of us receive jobs, together with finding out with them for the postal examination. In 1872, Congress revoked the Freedman’s Bureau Act, which offered labor contracts between freed Black folks and landowners. With these alternatives gone, “[the postal office] turns into a method of wealth accumulation and switch,” stated Rubio, notably for Black folks within the south. “It turns into a method of upper schooling for them and their households, additionally for his or her kids, [and] turns into an avenue to dwelling possession,” he stated. Black folks shifting north in the course of the nice migration additionally discovered work at northern put up places of work in city cities.
Within the Forties, 14% of middle-class Black folks have been employed by the put up workplace, in keeping with analysis by the economists Leah Boustan and Robert Margo. Even nonetheless, Black workers have been largely denied office development, together with for clerk positions and different higher-ranking roles. Black postal employees, notably within the south, fought to get into native unions and hold native branches from being segregated.
The civil rights motion of the Nineteen Sixties contributed to improved situations for Black folks within the postal service. President John F Kennedy’s Govt Order 10925 prohibited discrimination within the hiring of federal workers, with USPS places of work throughout the nation posting Equal Employment Alternative posters and notices the place workers might submit complaints. Black postal workers have been additionally promoted to increased rating jobs and elected to native and nationwide management positions. From 1960 to 1966, USPS was the largest employer of Black folks within the US, and by 1970, Black folks have been 2.5 instances extra prone to work for the put up workplace than white folks (the speed is increased in particularly segregated cities). By the yr 2000, Black postal workers employees have been additionally within the prime 25% of earners of Black employees within the US.
At the moment, the postal workplace’s legacy of range and fairness are below risk. The custom of career-long employment, the place postal employees stay in service for a number of a long time, might be eradicated as jobs throughout the board are slashed below privatisation. A discount in jobs would imply “much less center, good paying, profit jobs in Black communities”, stated Brown, the place a number of distribution facilities are concentrated. Trump’s plans might rollback achievements for employees, particularly hard-fought advantages. “Decrease wage, non-career workers” might be drafted into service, stated Morrissey, versus employees with a long-term curiosity in postal service.
The power to barter a contract can also be a important function of the put up workplace employment that might be eradicated, particularly given Trump’s anti-union actions. The present postmaster basic Louis DeJoy lately introduced that he could be stepping down, which might lead to Trump appointing a postmaster basic who “refuses to acknowledge collective bargaining rights, both partially or in complete”, stated Renfro. The settlement was a direct results of the 1970 postal strike, an eight-day, nationwide demonstration involving 200,000 employees who fought in opposition to low wages. Referring to a rollback of union protections, Renfro warned: “We’ve got to be ready for any assaults.”
Finally, such modifications wouldn’t solely have an effect on the practicality and effectivity of the put up workplace, and its advantages to thousands and thousands of Individuals, however particularly Black households, who’ve lengthy relied on the establishment for upward monetary mobility. With privatization a probable final result, Brown stated, “We couldn’t make the argument within the Black group that postal jobs are protected, good, dependable jobs sooner or later.”
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