Labor-Community Caravans Head to DC Thursday 6/28 to Support Postal Community Hunger Strikers

Community-Labor United for Postal Jobs & Services (clupjs.com) 917-402-4755

Cars, buses and vans of labor and community activists will form a Caravan to Washington, DC, in the early hours of Thursday, June 28, to join a mushrooming national hunger strike to save postal services and jobs.

The nationally organized hunger strike was initiated by Community and Postal Workers United, spearheaded by postal workers in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Denver, Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Jersey and New York. (See CPWUnited.com.)

The caravan will start at 4 am in Newburgh, NY, where hunger striker and Mid-Hudson APWU President Debbie Szeredy will lead a delegation of postal workers and community leaders heading to DC. Debbie will explain the hunger strike and the fight to save the post office.

Next stop will be the James A. Farley General Post Office in New York City, at 8^th Avenue & 33^rd Street. A 6 am support rally and send-off is planned by Community-Labor United for Postal Jobs & Services (CLUPJS.com), with support from the National Conference of Black Trade Unionists, a coalition of public sector unionists from APWU, NALC, AFSCME District Council 37, the Transport Workers Union Local 100, United Federation of Teachers, and SEIU District 1199. Other participants include the South Bronx Community Congress, Parents to Improve School Transportation, and the Chelsea Tenants Council. Some of these groups will have delegations joining the caravan to DC.

A Newark, NJ rally will take place at 7:30 am, hosted by the People’s Organization for Progress (POP), with members of the APWU, Mail Handlers and Letter Carriers.

The caravan will roll into Philadelphia at 9:30, for a rally organized by postal workers, longshore workers, Occupy Philadelphia, and other groups.

The caravan’s last stop before entering Washington will be in Baltimore, at 10:30 am. The Baltimore All-People’s Congress will hold a press conference and send-off rally, together with community and labor leaders and organizers.

On arrival in Washington, the caravanistas will join a national press conference of Hunger Strikers and their supporters, and help launch two days of protest and civil disobedience aimed at US Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, and his rightwing supporters in Congress.

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