CATHY BODNAR, a member of The National Association Of Letter Carriers Local 580, speaks at a rally in Merrillville.
Sunday’s (March 23) rally of post office workers held in Merrillville was just one of hundreds of rallies U.S. Postal Service employees held across the nation on the same day, sending a ‘hands off’ message to President Trump and Elon Musk’s Dept. of Government Efficiency.
Members of the National Association of Letter Carriers and the American Postal Workers Union gathered along Broadway and 80th Place, carrying signs of “Hell No to Privatization.”
Postal office employees have been angered by U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s announcement that he will work with DOGE to cut 10,000 workers and slash billions of dollars from the agency’s budget.
DeJoy said the service plans to cut the employees in the next 30 days through a voluntary early retirement program.
President Trump said he may put the U.S. Postal Service under the control of the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. Trump has said he would like to see the postal service privatized.
“We are not here today to just make noise. We are here to make history,” said Cathy Bodnar, of NALC Local 580. “We are here to fight like hell for something that is bigger than ourselves – for something that touches every home, every business, every family in this country – the United States Postal Service.”
According to Inc.com, DeJoy asked for DOGE’s help with retail leases at almost 31,000 retail centers, noting “the difficulty we will face in their renewal … when decades long leases expire.” The USPS lease review is likely to result in the consolidation of several postal facilities. When combined with the staff reductions, that could slow average delivery times for both letters and packages.
NACL says any effort to privatize or restructure the postal service is a direct threat to 640,000 postal employees, including 73,000 veterans.
NACL says privatization will threaten the postal service’s promise of service to every address in the country and especially the 51.5 million homes and businesses in rural America. “It’s not profitable enough for private companies to go into rural communities,” Bodnar said.
The proposed privatization of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) could have significant implications for postal operations nationwide, including those in Gary, Indiana. The Gary Main Post Office, located at 1499 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, serves as a central hub for mail distribution in the area. While specific employment figures for this facility are not publicly disclosed, the USPS has been actively recruiting for positions such as city carrier assistants, indicating ongoing staffing needs. Given that Gary had a population of 69,093 as of the 2020 census, any moves toward privatization could potentially affect both the postal employees and the residents who rely on consistent mail services.
History of Privatization Attempts
While Trump’s administration is the most recent to push for privatization, efforts to privatize the U.S. Postal Service have spanned several presidential administrations—both Republican and Democrat.
In the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s administration openly considered privatizing the Postal Service as part of a broader strategy to reduce the size of the federal government. A 1988 report by the President’s Commission on Privatization suggested that the USPS could be operated more efficiently as a private entity.
During President George W. Bush’s term, the 2002 President’s Commission on the United States Postal Service proposed a series of structural reforms. Although it stopped short of recommending full privatization, it encouraged outsourcing and competition, laying groundwork for future discussions.
Even under President Barack Obama, some moves sparked concern among postal worker unions, particularly during periods of proposed consolidations, delivery reductions, and discussions about five-day mail delivery. Though not overtly privatization efforts, critics argued they represented a slow chipping away at the USPS’s role as a public institution.
Legal Barriers to
Privatization
Despite political interest, privatizing the USPS would require congressional action. The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 transformed the former Post Office Department into the United States Postal Service, an independent agency of the executive branch, but it remains governed by federal law and the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitution, under Article I, Section 8, gives Congress the power “to establish Post Offices and post Roads.” Therefore, any effort to completely privatize the USPS would require repeal or overhaul of existing federal legislation, a process that would involve extensive legislative debate and public scrutiny.
Moreover, legal scholars have pointed out that the USPS has a statutory “universal service obligation,” requiring it to deliver to every U.S. address regardless of profitability. That obligation would have to be repealed or dramatically altered before privatization could move forward—something that would be highly controversial, especially in rural and underserved communities.
Union Response and Public Sentiment
The overwhelming participation in Sunday’s national rally signals deep resistance among postal workers and the communities they serve. For unions like NALC and APWU, the issue is not just about jobs, but about protecting a service that has been a backbone of American society for over two centuries.
“The U.S. Postal Service is not a business—it’s a public service,” said Bodnar. “It belongs to the American people, not private investors. We will fight this every step of the way.”
Sharon Fountain, Gary Crusader Newspaper, also contributed to this story.
