Racial Inequality at the US Postal Service

Edited by Lewis Loflin

Follow @Lewis90068157

The website www.colorlines.com September 28, 2011 headline reads, "USPS's Largely Black and Female Workforce Rallies to Save Jobs". The USPS still struggles with financial problems in 2020.

"Government Job Cuts Threaten Black Middle Class" proclaims www.npr.org on 2012/05/09.

Jacobin Magazine in 2019 proclaims, "Defend the Post Office, Defend Black Workers."

The U.S. Postal Service proclaims:

A new era of opportunity for African-American workers began in the 1940s, when U.S. Presidents – spurred on both by civil rights organizations and war-time necessity – began using their powers of office to encourage equal opportunity in the workplace. In the 1960s the number of African-American employees promoted to supervisory positions grew exponentially, and African Americans were appointed as postmasters of the nation's three largest Post Offices - New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. By the end of the 20th century African Americans comprised 21 percent of all postal employees, serving at all levels of the Postal Service.

And another quote:

About 39 percent of all post office workers are minorities, and 21 percent are African-Americans, according to William Burrus, the former president of the American Postal Workers Union. In July 2010, Burrus told NPR the story of how he first gained employment in the postal service when he got out of the Army, and about how lucrative these types of careers were to those in the black community who were seeking employment in the 1950s.

All of this came at a time when millions of jobs were lost to China, automation, and as mass immigration drove wages through the floor.

Blacks who had the least opportunity of all workers suffered the most when millions of jobs went to Mexico and China - or when immigrants drove them out of entire industries.

Over half the labor force earns under $30,000 a year and 40% under $20,000. The 2019 Chinese Corona Virus disaster will destroy what little gains the working poor obtained from 2016-19.

Government jobs are highly coveted over often lower paying private sector jobs. The imposition of race into the issue creates more racial animosity.

There is something wrong when the Post Office becomes synonymous with Black workers. It should never be synonymous with any race. This takes the focus off workers in general suffering under misguided government policies.

Any time a business or industry doesn't have the politically correct proportion of minority employees, the government assumes racism even if there's no proof of it. The numbers are simply proof of racism.

We hear constant complaints that the black unemployment rate is double that of whites at 15.1 percent (October 2012) versus 8 percent for whites. Never mind that by shear numbers far more whites are unemployed than blacks.

Where I live in Bristol Virginia-Tennessee our region lost tens of thousands of jobs. From 2008-2016 our labor force shrank by 20,000.

See Working Poor in Southwest Virginia Bristol.

But what happens when an industry has 25 percent of it's workforce as black while blacks make up about 12 percent of the population? Why is it not racial discrimination against whites, but would be racism if only 12 percent were black? It's social justice if whites are victimized.

As the New York Times says, "African-Americans in the public sector earn 25 percent more than other black workers, and the jobs have long been regarded as respectable, stable work for college graduates, allowing many to buy homes, send children to private colleges and achieve other markers of middle-class life that were otherwise closed to them."

But that is true of most whites as well. Private sector workers across the board have been hammered across the racial spectrum, but going off on racism derails the argument from the real issues of immigration, globalism, and automation.

Instead of employing the usual white racism excuse, look at reality. Vast numbers of blacks never finish school. In particular for many black males have criminal records, are in jail, or on probation. Many have a poor work ethic with few usable jobs skills. They never had access to jobs to build a work ethic.

They have been pushed out by Hispanics who simply displace them from the same low-skill job market. The same people demanding open borders and amnesty couldn't care less that the ill-effects of this hits blacks the hardest.

Government racial discrimination under a system of set-asides and race' quotas have left blacks disproportionately dependant not just on welfare, but government jobs. As the government plantation is forced to wind down, blacks will be more vulnerable than ever.

Ref. As Public Sector Sheds Jobs, Blacks Are Hit Hardest New York Times November 28, 2011