Government and unions — the nutshell version

The United States Postal Service is billions and billions in the red, so much so that complete insolvency looms. Budget hawks have proposed deep cuts — but, says Businessweek, with Democrats receiving the bulk of the postal unions’ political contributions, such measures are unlikely under the current administration.

Not only won’t the 275,000-member National Association of Letter Carriers agree to cuts, the union believes the USPS should expand. Why? To fight — wait for it — terrorists.

[NALC president] Fredric V. Rolando doesn’t sound like he’s interested in making major concessions. He argues the agency should be increasing rather than cutting its services. One of his ideas is to outfit postal trucks with sensors so mail carriers can thwart possible biological terrorist attacks. “They can work with Homeland Security to detect things that are in the air,” Rolando says.

Apparently, neither sleet nor snow nor laughable, opportunistic hubris will stop the Postal Service’s insanity.

Published by Rogier

Rogier is a Dutch-born, New-England-dwelling multi-media maven (OK, a writer and photographer) whose dead-tree publishing credits include the New York Times, Wired, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Reason.

One reply on “Government and unions — the nutshell version”

Comments are closed.