Unintended Consequences: the U.S. Postal Service Conundrum of Service, Business, Labor, and Politics

Abstract

This paper examines the 2020 turmoil surrounding the U.S. Postal Service—a crisis not seen since roughly 209,000 employees struck its predecessor the U.S. Post Office Department in March 1970, which led to passage of the Postal Reorganization Act that summer and the inauguration of the USPS in July 1971. The 2020 conflict was not merely rooted in the economic disaster following the COVID-19 pandemic, but in fact stretches back to the 2009 postal financial crisis. I argue that these crises are an unintended consequence of the compromise formation of the USPS as a hybrid government agency/business. Debates over whether public or private postal service too often leave out conflict over the rights of postal labor. The origins of that debate lie in the former USPOD’s management of labor using “business methods” that included authoritarian discipline, contingent workers to cut costs, and creating racial divisions among employees.