Connections

Protesters rally in downtown Bloomington against postal privatization: 'U.S. Mail is not for sale!'

Letter carriers and area residents demonstrate on the courthouse square in downtown Bloomington against the idea of privatizing the US Postal Service. (March 23, 2025)

On Sunday afternoon (March 23), a crowd of at least 80 people gathered on the courthouse square in downtown Bloomington, to protest the idea of privatizing the kind of mail delivery that is now provided by the U.S. Postal Service.

The group included postal workers and other area residents.

Carrying signs and chanting slogans like “U.S. Mail is not for sale!” demonstrators walked the southeast sides of the square along Kirkwood Avenue and Walnut Street. They then crowded together on the corner steps by the Alexander Memorial to hear remarks from Joshua Peterson, who is the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 828 president.

Peterson said it’s the recent talk from President Donald Trump about privatizing the U.S. Postal Service that has prompted hundreds of rallies across the country, like the one in Bloomington. But privatization has been threatened for years, with previous rumblings in 2016, he said.

Peterson warned that privatization could lead to the dismantling of profitable and needed services like parcel delivery and banking services at retail counters, and could drastically reduce service to rural areas. Peterson pegged at 51.5 million the number of rural addresses that are often not served by private carriers. He highlighted the crucial "last mile delivery network" where private companies like FedEx, UPS, Amazon, and DHL still rely on the USPS to complete the delivery to a customer’s door.

Peterson also warned that privatization could also end nationwide uniform pricing and “Forever Stamps.” Peterson underscored the vital role of postal workers, especially letter carriers, who deliver essential services like medication, connect with isolated people, and act as a safety net in communities. Peterson said that there was never a day when service was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic: “We brought you your test kits. We brought you medical results. We came every day.”

Peterson noted that in addition to letter carriers, several postal clerks, rural carriers, and maintenance clerks were represented at Sunday’s rally, as members of both the APWU (American Postal Workers Union) and the NRLCA (National Rural Letter Carriers' Association).

Also attending the rally were several locals who are connected to USPS as everyday customers, and who rely on mail service. One of them was Jo Ann Vogt, who told The B Square she had come out to support her letter carrier, Pete.

Vogt encouraged Pete to post the event on the Bryan Park listserv. She’d told him, “You definitely should, because there's a bunch of the people who like you, and care about you, and care about the post office, and they won't know about this otherwise.” Vogt said she gets some kind of mail almost every day—she exchanges cards and sometimes letters with people, there’s the inevitable junk mail, and she gets three or four requests per month for monetary donations.

Peterson estimated that as many as half the people who turned up on the rainy Sunday afternoon were not letter carriers, or other postal workers, but instead were people like Vogt, who turned up to support their own letter carrier.

Around 15 minutes before the scheduled 1 p.m. start for Sunday’s demonstration, the 41°F temperature seemed colder than that, because rain was pouring down. Overheard from maybe a dozen people who were a huddled beneath umbrellas on the Kirkwood sidewalk was a recitation of the famous paraphrase of a quote from Herodotus's Histories, which is inscribed over the entrance to the New York City Post Office: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

Some of the recent national level conversation that prompted demonstrations like the one in Bloomington on Sunday, stems from a letter sent 10 days ago, on March 13, 2025, by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to congressional leaders, about an agreement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The agreement is supposed to help the Postal Service achieve further efficiencies. DeJoy says in the letter that the USPS has been "transforming from a battered government bureaucracy with substantial financial losses" and that the Delivering for America (DFA) plan started in 2021 focuses on financial sustainability and service quality.

Following pushback from the March 13 letter, DeJoy sent another letter on March 17, this one to all members of Congress, acknowledging concerns about the DOGE agreement's potential conflicts with the Postal Service's independence and service.

DeJoy’s March 17 letter states that DOGE would help in areas such as retirement plans, workers compensation costs, unfunded Congressional mandates, regulatory requirements, retail center lease renewals, leveraging postal infrastructure for federal agencies, and counterfeit postage.

After the rally, Peterson told The B Square that the reduction of local post office locations is a big concern, connected with privatization or efficiency measures. “We have more postal service locations than there are McDonald's and Starbucks combined—that's over 31,000 locations,” he said. Some of the locations are leased, he said, like the one in Bloomington on Walnut Street south of Seminary Park. Others are owned by USPS like the one at 3210 East 10th Street in Bloomington. Privatization could mean the closing of post office locations that are not owned by USPS, Peterson said.

Another big concern is that letter carriers have been working without a contract since May of 2023. The proposal that was presented in the fall of 2024 was rejected by two-thirds of union members, Peterson said. This past Monday, an expedited process started, which is supposed to lead to an agreement. An arbitrator will help settle the wage portion of the contract, Peterson said.