500 Rally to Save Post Office in NYC March 17

More photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/drdunk_greg/sets/72157629249642028/

OPERATION ZIP CODE BEGINS

500 Postal Workers & Allies Demonstrate Outside Manhattan PO To Fight Post Office Cutbacks and Their Effects on Communities

AND SAY “NO TO UNION-BUSTING, RACISM & PRIVATIZATION”

On Saturday, the 42-year anniversary of the Great Postal Strike of 1970, 500 people protested outside of Manhattan’s main post office against closings, layoffs and cutbacks of the centuries-old system.

Called by the coalition called Community-Labor United for Postal Jobs and Services (CLUPJS), the rally was the opening shot of Operation Zip Code, a campaign to stop the 1% plan to privatize the post office.

The spirit of that strike, which pushed back racism by raising wages of postal workers and combatting hiring discrimination, was rekindled by Saturday’s 20-block march that began at Union Square and stopped along the way at a post office on 15th Street.

From the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island and every borough, protesters came from different zip codes where they are fighting various survival struggles, including re-opening or keeping open their post offices.

Organizers say the next phase of the campaign will be to re-open mail processing centers that are now being closed, and cited the delegation in the rally from Frederick, MD — where the shutdown of a mail processing center has sparked a community struggle — as the leading edge of this fight.

On the same day that Occupy protesters battled police to re-take Zucotti Park, rally organizers solidarized themselves with the tactics of the dynamic movement, with Johnnie Stevens of CLUPJS saying that the fight to re-open processing centers will require “Operation Zip Code’s to become Occupation Zip Code.”

Speakers at the rally included Occupy Wall Street activists; representatives from postal worker and other unions including NALC Branc 36, APWU, CWA Local 1180, Teamsters Local 808 and TWU Local 100; and community groups such as the Chelsea Coalition on Housing, Picture the Homeless, National Action Network Youth Move, the South Bronx Community Congress and La Peña del Bronx.

With similar demonstrations against postal cuts scheduled for March 31 and April 6 all organizations are also planning for MayDay 2012 as the next big step in the fight against the 1%.

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