On February 20, a leak came from the White House that Trump plans to sign an executive order to bring the U.S. Postal Service under his control through the Commerce Department. The leak was later confirmed. Trump’s executive order threatens to dismantle the Postal Service as a public service and jeopardizes its over 600,000 jobs.

For years, Trump has openly advocated privatizing USPS. In his first term, he appointed Louis DeJoy—the CEO of a logistics company and major Trump donor—as Postmaster General, promising a ten-year plan toward privatization. Now, apparently, ten years is too long and Trump plans to accelerate the process.

DOGE’s mass layoffs of tens of thousands of federal workers, scrapping of collective bargaining rights for nearly 50,000 TSA workers, and threats to privatize the Postal Service are the beginning of a Trump-led offensive against the entire labor movement. While primarily public sector workers are being targeted today, bosses in the private sector are watching closely. If it goes unanswered, we could see similar attacks against private sector unions.

Organizing against Trump’s anti-worker agenda will require a common front across the entire labor movement—public and private sector unions and non-unionized workers. Building public support through organizing rallies in defense of the Postal Service and federal jobs, and escalating workplace actions up to and including strikes, all need to be on the table.

Trump’s Right Populism: Draining the Swamp or Billionaire Money Grab? 

On the campaign trail, Trump posed as the pro-worker candidate. He promised to curb rising inflation, to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., and that his right populist program would usher in a supposed “Golden Age” for U.S. workers. When Trump and Musk launched DOGE, they pledged to “drain the swamp.”

The reality is Trump and Musk are using DOGE to wage an offensive against public sector unions and the labor movement as a whole, following years of high-profile strikes winning record contracts for workers. The vast majority of federal workers who have been laid off are not high-level bureaucrats. They are working-class people who have often only been at these jobs for one to two years.

A memo produced by Wells Fargo to its shareholders on the “opportunities” of postal privatization says: “Should the USPS be privatized, it is likely that there will be less job security amid inevitable loss of union protections, loss of pension benefits, higher healthcare costs and employee/wage restructuring.” 

This is an opportunity for Trump and his billionaire buddies to enrich themselves off of the dismantling of a public service that millions of people in the U.S. rely on. The same memo included talks of raising postal prices on different products up to 140%. And Wall Street is absolutely giddy over the nearly $90 billion in real estate that would be up for grabs if the Postal Service were to be stripped for parts and sold to the highest bidder.

Postal Workers Demand a Strong Contract

The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), which represents over 280,000 members including retirees, was in the middle of a contract struggle when news of this potential privatization hit. Letter carriers just voted down, by an over 2:1 margin, an insulting tentative agreement (TA) that included a mere 1.3% annual wage increase. 

The No Vote campaign was led by reform group Build a Fighting NALC (BFN), a group of letter carriers nationally fighting for $30/hour starting wages, an end to mandatory overtime, conversion of all second-tier CCA workers to career carriers, and the right to strike (it is currently illegal for all federal workers to strike). No Vote rallies were organized by BFN members across the country. Union resolutions advocating to vote no and to fight for more were passed in NALC branches. Crucially, now that the “no” vote has been won, BFN chapters are being organized across the country to fight for a more militant NALC.

Now with news of this executive order, BFN is tying the struggle for a strong contract intimately to the fight against Trump’s privatization. Any union contract agreed to today could be nullified by Trump tomorrow if he brings the Postal Service under his control.

Federal Workers Organize Against Mass Layoffs

Federal workers across departments like the National Park Service, Veterans Affairs, the Postal Service, and more have shown there is a mood to fight against the mass layoffs. The Federal Unionists Network (FUN), a group of unionized federal workers, organized protests against the mass layoffs in at least 24 cities outside federal buildings and Tesla distribution centers. Among FUN’s demands are: no cuts to vital services, no mass layoffs, and to end the funding freeze.

Crucially, FUN built public support by connecting the struggle against mass layoffs with the need for fully funded public services that can positively impact all working people. Slogans at one rally included: “Immigrants Aren’t Stealing Our Jobs, The President Is.” As Trump tries to pit immigrant and U.S.-born workers against each other, the labor movement needs to cut across this division. Federal workers, immigrants, and trans people are all under attack by the same administration.

During their No Vote campaign, BFN did exactly this by publishing a statement against Trump’s ban on transgender people using their preferred bathroom in all federal buildings, linking the struggle for a strong union contract for letter carriers with the struggle for trans rights.

Opposing Trump Means Workplace Actions

In the postal unions, many workers are questioning whether the mass layoffs and drive towards privatization is the beginning of a “PATCO moment” for Trump. In 1981, PATCO, the air traffic controllers’ union at the time, went on an illegal strike, demanding a 32-hour work week, significant wage increases, and pension reforms. When workers refused to leave the picket line, Ronald Reagan fired over 10,000 air traffic controllers in what was a massive setback for the entire labor movement, accelerating its decline for decades.

But the PATCO strike didn’t have to end there. Reagan’s decision could have been challenged if the entire labor movement had rallied to the side of the fired workers. Public and private sector unions should have united and organized public rallies and workplace actions—including coordinated strikes against the Reagan administration—demanding all workers get their jobs back and their contract demands conceded to. The NALC, for its part, was actually organizing illegal strike action scheduled to begin shortly after the PATCO strike. Instead of linking the struggle of letter carriers with the fired air traffic controllers, NALC leadership cancelled their plans and retreated, along with most other unions.

Trump and Musk’s attacks today can go differently. But what is desperately needed is for the entire labor movement to come to the defense of federal workers, including those at the Postal Service. NALC leadership’s call for rallies on March 23rd to defend the Postal Service should only be the beginning.

To prevent a modern day “PATCO moment” all postal and federal workers’ unions must organize mass rallies in defense of federal jobs and public services. Private sector unions need to join the fight and recognize that an injury to one is an injury to all. Ultimately, workplace actions including strikes, coordinated across unions, will be needed to stop the Trump administration’s war on workers.