AMERIKA
‘Glaring crisis’: Postal service blasted for poor policing amid crime wave

Alexandria Jacobson, 

Investigative Reporter
June 4, 2024 

Letter carriers work in the Flatbush neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough in New York City in July 2022. Brooklyn letter carriers have faced physical assaults according to a March Raw Story investigation. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers.

The United States Government Accountability Office has released a critical report about the U.S. Postal Service, bolstering the findings of a recent Raw Story investigation that details a dramatic spike in crime against letter carriers.

The Government Accountability Office found that “serious crime” — including homicides, assaults, burglaries and robberies — nearly doubled during a six-year span, from 656 in 2017 to 1,198 in 2023. Robberies alone grew nearly sevenfold between fiscal years 2019 through 2023, according to the report.

Raw Story found that letter carrier robberies skyrocketed by 543 percent between 2019 and 2022, coinciding with the timing of a 2020 Postal Service decision that effectively benched its uniformed police force of 450 officers. The decision resulted in the officers losing their mandate to patrol the streets where letter carriers deliver the mail and these robberies often occur. They’re now relegated to protecting postal facilities, such as mail sorting centers and post offices.


RELATED ARTICLE: Letter carriers face bullets and beatings while postal service sidelines police

“The rise in serious crime against USPS employees is a very serious issue. Letter carriers have been robbed at gunpoint, putting their safety and the security of the mail they carry at risk,” David Marroni, director, physical infrastructure, for the Government Accountability Office, told Raw Story via email. “Even in cases where there is no physical injury, such incidents can have a negative effect on individual victims as well as the USPS workforce and can result in trauma and stress.”

The Government Accountability Office made three formal recommendations for the Chief Postal Inspector involving better workforce evaluation procedures for its postal police officers and postal inspectors.

In a written response, the Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the Postal Service, agreed to address the recommendations.

RELATED ARTICLE: DeJoy faces pain over postal 'crime wave’

The Government Accountability Office found the Postal Inspection Service lacking in its documented processes, which could “help the Inspection Service ensure it allocates law enforcement resources according to mission needs,” the report said. The report also found the Postal Inspection Service had not assessed the size and location of its postal police workforce since 2011.

“Given the recent upward trend in serious crime against USPS employees, it is important that the agency do so to better ensure its workforce decisions to address serious crime are sound and that its law enforcement resources are aligned with current security needs,” Marroni said. “We will monitor USPIS’s actions to implement our recommendations and hope the agency does so in full.”

Internal discord

Amid this crime spike, the Postal Service and the Postal Police Officers Association union have been embroiled in an unresolved, four-year-long dispute about the use of postal police officers off Postal Service property.

Frank Albergo, president of the Postal Police Officers Association, called the Government Accountability Office’s report “brutal.”

“It shows, quite frankly, the incompetence of the Inspection Service,” Albergo told Raw Story in a phone interview. “They have a mail theft epidemic on their hands, and they have letter carriers being robbed, and they haven't realigned resources at all? I mean, that's amazing stuff.”

Albergo said after reading the report that he is “a little worried, to be honest, because the Inspection Service is not a rational actor at this point.”

“Somehow they're going to figure out that they need fewer officers," Albergo said, noting that only two basic training sessions for postal police officers are scheduled for 2025.

A spokesperson for the Postal Service did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

The Government Accountability Office’s audit was conducted between January 2023 to May 2024, requested by six Democratic members of Congress: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH), Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA).

Connolly told Raw Story via a statement that serious crimes against Postal Service employees have “skyrocketed.”

“Clearly, this is a serious issue that demands the attention of Congress. That’s why we requested this report from GAO and it’s why several relevant pieces of legislation have been introduced already, including the Postal Police Reform Act which I am proud to cosponsor,” Connolly said.

There are two versions of the Postal Police Reform Act, one in each chamber. Another bill, the Protect our Letter Carriers Act, was introduced in March by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Greg Landsman (D-OH) to increase punishments for those who assault letter carriers.

The bill also aims to replace outdated mailboxes and their keys, which are often targeted in robberies. A single Postal Service “arrow key” may open numerous mailboxes, making them an attractive prize for robbers.

“The GAO report offers several important steps that USPS can take right now to better document and prevent crimes committed against postal employees and properties. USPS should follow these recommendations without delay,” Connolly said. “I will continue to work with my colleagues to determine the best legislative path forward to address this glaring crisis and protect our dedicated postal employees.”

Norton, one of the co-sponsors of the Postal Police Reform Act, said the issue of mail crime is “a matter throughout the country,” noting that mail theft remains a “very significant problem” in the Washington, D.C., area.

When asked if the report will spur Congress to act, Norton told Raw Story in a phone interview, “I believe we will be able to get this done.”

“The GAO report does highlight, once again, the need for postal police reform,” Norton said. “Since 2020 the postal police have been confined to their physical facilities. My bill extends the police jurisdiction beyond police property. That's where they need to be.”

Hoyer, the Democratic ranking member on the Financial Services and General Government subcommittee for the House Committee on Appropriations, said it was important for him to join a bipartisan group of legislators to call on the Government Accountability Office to look into the Postal Inspection Service.

“I am greatly disturbed by the recent increase in violent attacks against letter carriers,” Hoyer told Raw Story in a statement. “Congress has a responsibility to ensure the USPS is safe and functional — both for the security of all postal workers and the millions of Americans who rely on mail service.”

The congressional office for Raskin, ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, referred Raw Story to a Democratic spokesperson for the Oversight Committee, who did not respond by the time of publication.

The congressional offices for Brown and Porter did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

CRIMINAL  CAPITALI$M

Study finds discreet shipping used to sell e-cigarettes to minors

Researchers at the U of A found businesses on TikTok are circumventing local, state and federal laws that restrict the individual sale of tobacco products

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

 

IMAGE: 

DISCRETE BUNDLE WITH A HIDDEN VAPING DEVICE

view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY RELATIONS

Researchers at the U of A found self-identified small business owners on TikTok are circumventing a number of local, state and federal laws that restrict the individual sale of tobacco products. Specifically, the researchers found that 45% of the videos highlighted the fact that they did not require identification to verify the purchaser’s age.

“Many states have laws that govern procedures necessary to sell e-cigarettes,” explained lead researcher Page Dobbs, an associate professor of public health in the Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation in the College of Education and Health Professions. “For example, many U.S. states require a tobacco retail license to sell tobacco products, and in the U.S., e-cigarettes are considered tobacco products. The videos we found display people across the world who are selling e-cigarettes. For those sold in the U.S., this displays illegal sales happening on TikTok.”

The researchers analyzed 367 videos on TikTok’s #discreetshipping, #puffbundle and #hiddennic pages, which had a combined 55.8 million views as of 2023. Fifty percent of the videos promoted certain brands in their hashtag, and 45% mentioned a cannabis product such as Cake Bars. Several described that they would bundle (28.6%) or hide (8.7%) the e-cigarette within other products to conceal it from being viewed when opened. This type of discreet shipping was intended to evade detection by the USPS service or parents/guardians who may intercept e-cigarettes purchased by youth. 

Over half (57.5%) of the videos directed users to Instagram or another method (58.3%) using a link or account information to sell the e-cigarette products. Other sites used to complete the sale of the e-cigarettes included Telegram, personal websites and other money transfer services. 

“Parents need to be aware that youth may be buying e-cigarettes through TikTok,” Dobbs said. “Parents can ask to view their children’s ‘For You’ page to see the type of content that is commonly portrayed. Next, if your child receives a bundle of fake nails, eyelashes, lip gloss or even something that seems out of the norm, such as house shoes, open the products and inspect it thoroughly. It may be inside a scrunchy that zips or in the foot of a pair of house shoes.”

Finally, regarding public policy, Dobbs says, “While platforms list their tobacco marketing and sale policies on their website, all content identified in our study violated these policies. Restricting TikTok will not stop people from illegally selling e-cigarettes to youth. Instead, tobacco control agencies can work collaboratively with platforms to use technological advances that will close hashtags, detect illegal activity and identify violations.”

 

---

JOURNAL

Nicotine & Tobacco Research

DOI

10.1093/ntr/ntae081 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Content analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

#Discreetshipping: Selling E-cigarettes on TikTok

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

23-May-2024

Economic Disaster for Working People Awaits If Trump Reelected

And if we take the former president at his word on targeting his political opponents with the DOJ and law enforcement, a spiraling economy more rigged for the very rich than it already is may be the least of our problems.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr., play golf at Trump National Doral Miami golf club on October 27, 2022 in Miami, Florida.
(Photo: Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images)

MAX B. SAWICKY
Jan 10, 2024

In These Times

What could we have to look forward to, or dread, in economic policy if Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025?

The challenge here is separating whatever might germinate in his brain or that of his advisers and which long-standing priorities of the Republican Party remain. We saw the difference between 2017 and 2020. In important cases, Trump deferred to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the Republicans in Congress. He swallowed their prescriptions on judicial appointments, and he helped push through a bill to cut taxes, primarily benefiting the rich and corporations. But in other ways he left the reservation.

The most obvious deviation was his rhetoric about trade deficits, which I am convinced he could never define correctly. (In national income accounting, it’s the excess of imports over exports.) It may sound bad, though it isn’t necessarily.

In any case, we did get very real tariffs. The Trump rhetoric on trade was appealing to manufacturing workers clobbered by outsourcing. Even a progressive hero like Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) ended up embracing Trump’s move to impose tariffs on steel. The Biden Administration itself has declined to reverse all of Trump’s tariffs from his first term.

Simply put, a tariff is a sales tax confined to imports. To say the Chinese “paid” the tariff is a non sequitur, like saying the supermarket pays the sales tax. That makes it more ridiculous for supporters of tariffs to complain about inflation. Like sales taxes, a tariff pushes up the gross prices that you as the consumer pay. The seller who collects the tax (the importer, or the supermarket) simply hands it over to the government.

The anti-China rhetoric has continued from the former president, even though we now have evidence of Trump’s businesses being on China’s payroll. A revival of the trade demagoguery under a President Trump 2.0 will impede trade and increase inflation. New tariffs will push prices up — not a great outcome for everyday working people.
Sign up for our weekend newsletter A weekly digest of our best coverage Email Address

Trump’s trade rhetoric does not sit well with historic Republican policies, nor with its current tribunes in the Koch network’s Club for Growth. But that is the old party. It’s a new day, and not a better one.

Another worrisome area is immigration. As supporters of employers, Republicans have tended to indulge immigration for the sake of recruiting cheap labor. Restricting immigration will make some employers unhappy. “Closing the border” could mean chaos, from the standpoint of routine commerce. The U.S. does quite a lot of business with Mexico.

But once again, it’s a new day. Racism-infected demonization of immigrants has become one of the GOP’s principal selling points. It may even have something to do with reported increases in Trump’s support from voters of color, especially men.

Another new thing will be promises to blow up the “administrative state.” I’m so old I remember President Ronald Reagan appointing Bill Bennett to be Secretary of Education. Bennett had promised to help terminate the Department of Education. Turned out he liked the job too much, and the DoE has endured.

Still, reports of Trump’s team organizing to flood the federal bureaucracy with toadies does not bode well for the enforcement of regulations. These characters may not work themselves out of jobs, but they are likely to lay down before business interests opposed to any sort of regulation in fields such as the environment, food safety, occupational health and safety, and worker rights, among many others.

One example where Trump might have done some good during his presidency but was thwarted by the Congress was in infrastructure. Trump thinks of himself as a builder, so he likes infrastructure. As in his New York real estate career, he thinks you can finance it with funny money. But his administration was too focused on other things to formulate a real plan, and the Koch-y Congress just blew it off.

A bit more obscure will be the fate of the humble U.S. Postal Service. Biden has apparently been too busy to dump Trump’s appointee, the toxic, corrupt Postmaster-General Louis DeJoy. Pressure to privatize the USPS will likely revive as Trump transforms its Board of Governors. The Federal Aviation Administration could face similar threats.

There remain many additional questions. What about Social Security and Medicare? We know the old Republican Party wanted to cut them down. Trump has danced around this. Obamacare would almost certainly be a goner, with Medicaid under dire threat. And we would likely also wave goodbye to Biden’s caps on certain prescription drugs (as meager as they may be).

We might see the future in the form of an expansion of Medicare Advantage, to the disadvantage of the rest of Medicare. This is a way of segregating beneficiaries by income, and letting the better-off and healthier suck resources out of the program for everybody else.

Reproductive rights is an issue that Republicans have figured out requires some caution. The right-wing extremists in Congress don’t care, but Trump is smarter than that. Reforms could come more in the fashion of death by a thousand cuts, rather than one sweeping, national ban. As a result, those seeking abortions in red states will likely have to travel for care. The Feds will not restrain the red states, who, after all, have achieved national political supremacy without the need for voters’ approval.
Chaos makes for less investor and consumer confidence. That could impede economic growth.

Otherwise, I would expect an erratic path for policy, which is what we observed in the first Trump term, except for continuous cruelty directed at immigrants, people of color, LGBTQI persons and women.

The potential for chaos renders predictions about the economy even less certain than usual. The impact of presidents on inflation, economic growth, and unemployment is typically exaggerated, depending on who is talking, and whether credit or blame is due.

Chaos makes for less investor and consumer confidence. That could impede economic growth. A big influence is always the Federal Reserve, which is outside a president’s fingertip control. Efforts to shrink the deficit will reduce employment, but I would be surprised by any heroics in this department from any Congress.

In staking out their own economic platform ahead of this year’s election, Democrats can point to some helpful industrial policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act, but these are not easy to explain, and Democrats are generally not very good at explaining anyway. There are constructive, progressive trade policies which have been pursued that support well-paying manufacturing jobs, but these aren’t easy to explain either.

In general, The Democrats have a lot to crow about with regard to the economy, which should help them in the coming elections, yet the role of the Biden administration’s policies shouldn’t be oversold. Progress in recent years is unambiguous, but progressives had plenty to say about the inadequacies of the U.S. economy in 2016 at the end of Obama’s second term. Medicare was not for all. Unemployment insurance was a mess. Inequality was very much with us. Gun ownership was out of control. The MAGA horde was gearing up. You can make your own list.

Today, structural inequities persist, the housing market is in trouble and we still haven’t built back better. These are all good cases for Biden and the Democrats to run on a clear plan of supporting working people and creating a more fair economy in the coming elections.

Presently all signs point to a good year for the economy, and bequeathing this to Trump at the end of 2024 will help him, just as Obama’s record when he left office helped boost Trump in 2017 and after. Yet trade war theatrics, domestic spending cuts, and saber-rattling, or worse, with respect to Iran would also likely dampen economic outcomes in 2025 and the years ahead, if the former president comes back into power.

If the most dire predictions of a second Trump term with regard to using the Department of Justice and law enforcement to target his political opponents are borne out, economic policy could end up being among the least of our worries.

© 2023 In These Times

MAX B. SAWICKY is a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He has worked at the Economic Policy Institute and the Government Accountability Office, and has written for numerous progressive outlets.
Full Bio >

Trump Claims Presidents 'Have Absolute Immunity,' But Judges Seem Skeptical


"This would be a good time for people to start paying attention," said one watchdog group.


A man protests before former U.S. President Donald Trump's motorcade departs the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse on January 9, 2024 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

JESSICA CORBETT

COMMON DREAMS
Jan 09, 2024

A panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit appeared skeptical on Tuesday as former President Donald Trump's legal team argued that he is immune from criminal charges related to trying to overturn his 2020 electoral loss.

Trump wasn't required to attend oral arguments before the three judges in D.C. but the Republican front-runner to face Democratic President Joe Biden in the November election left the campaign trail to do so, and spoke to reporters after the hearing.

Even though U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland chose Jack Smith as a special counsel for Trump-related federal probes after the Republican announced his 2024 campaign, and Biden has vowed not to interfere or influence the process in any way, the ex-president still claims the cases against him are politically motivated.

"I think they feel this is the way they're going to try and win," Trump said Tuesday, warning of "bedlam in the country."

Echoing some remarks on social media Monday, when he threatened to weaponize the U.S. Department of Justice against Biden if elected, Trump called efforts to prosecute him "an opening of Pandora's box."

Trump also repeatedly claimed that presidents "have absolute immunity" and, while leaving the press conference, declined to address a reporter's question about whether he would tell his supporters "no violence."

Those remarks came after Trump was uncharacteristically quiet in the courtroom, where Smith was joined by aides including James Pearce.

"Never before has there been allegations that a sitting president has, with private individuals and using the levers of power, sought to fundamentally subvert the democratic republic and the electoral system."

When U.S. Judge Karen Henderson, an appointee of former Republican President George H.W. Bush, raised the concern that a ruling in the immunity battle could open the "floodgates" for probes against ex-presidents, Pearce said that he did not expect "a sea change of vindictive tit-for-tat prosecutions in the future," according toThe Associated Press.

"Never before has there been allegations that a sitting president has, with private individuals and using the levers of power, sought to fundamentally subvert the democratic republic and the electoral system," the prosecutor added. "And frankly, if that kind of fact pattern arises again, I think it would be awfully scary if there weren't some sort of mechanism by which to reach that criminally."

Henderson also notably said of Trump during the hearing, "I think it's paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate criminal law."

The panel's other two members are Biden appointees: Judges Michelle Childs and Florence Pan.



At one point, Pan asked Trump's attorney, John Sauer: "Could a president order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? That's an official act, an order to SEAL Team 6."

Sauer responded, "He would have to be and would speedily be impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution."

The judge continued, "But if he weren't, there would be no criminal prosecution, no criminal liability for that?"

While the attorney attempted to respond with claims about "what the founders were concerned about," the judge interrupted:
Pan: "I asked you a 'yes' or 'no' question. Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?"

Sauer: "If he were impeached and convicted first..."

Pan: "So your answer is 'no'?"

Sauer: "My answer is: qualified yes. There is a political process that would have to occur under our Constitution, which would require impeachment and conviction by the Senate."

After Trump's "Big Lie" culminated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol while Congress was trying to certify the 2020 election results, the Republican was impeached a historic second time but then acquitted by the GOP-controlled Senate.

In addition to facing charges related to 2020 election interference in one of the two federal cases led by Smith, Trump has been indicted in a similar case in Georgia. His legal team on Monday sought the dismissal of that case, also claiming presidential immunity.

Along with the four criminal cases, Trump is engaged in legal battles over whether inciting an insurrection constitutionally disqualifies him from holding office again. Still, among GOP candidates, he continues to lead in the polls by big margins, which his lawyer highlighted in court.

As Politico reported Tuesday:

While most of Sauer's arguments seemed aimed at the judges, his presentation was also peppered with political fodder directed at audiences outside the courtroom.

He described Trump as President Joe Biden's "number one political opponent" and "greatest political threat." In one hypothetical, Sauer said denying immunity to Trump would make it possible for Biden to be prosecuted in federal court in Texas after leaving office for failing to secure the border with Mexico.

During his rebuttal argument near the end of the hearing, Sauer declared that Trump was "leading in every poll." That's a point Trump also emphasized at a post-hearing press conference at a nearby hotel.

After speaking with reporters, Trump headed for his plane and sent an email to supporters, writing: "Now that I've boarded Trump Force One, I want to give you an update on my day in court... While I will keep fighting in court to win this rigged case against me, I care more about winning the battle in the court of public opinion. And I am confident that WE are winning that war."

Tuesday's hearing came after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan—an appointee of former President Barack Obama who is set to preside over the trial scheduled for March—rejected Trump's immunity claim last month, writing that "whatever immunities a sitting president may enjoy... that position does not confer a lifelong 'get-out-of-jail-free' pass."

Law Dork's Chris Geidner noted Tuesday that "the panel is expected to reach its decision in short order, given the expedited timeline on which they took the appeal. Sauer, however, asked that the mandate—which would send the case back to Chutkan—be stayed if the court rules against Trump so that Trump can seek further review, both from the full D.C. Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court."

The Supreme Court—which last month declined Smith's request that it skip the appellate court and swiftly weigh in on the immunity fight—has a right-wing supermajority that includes three Trump appointees and Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife was part of the scheme to obstruct certification of the 2020 election results.

Trump and His Political Allies: Fascists and Bullies All


Bullying has now become the trademark behavior of the GOP, the result of Donald Trump’s entrance on the scene in 2015 when he successfully bullied and cowed every other candidate for the Republican nomination for president.


Donald Trump, writes Hartmann as set a tone that has trickled down other Republicans and his army of supporters: "truth doesn’t matter, so long as you can hurt and intimidate somebody for your own benefit or even just for fun."
(Image: AI-generated / StableDiffusion)

THOM HARTMANN
Jan 11, 2024

Common Dreams

Trump dreams of revenge. It’s what fascists do.

Because fascism trickles down from fascist leadership, it’s what Trump’s cult members are dreaming of, too. As are his toady lawyers.

Yesterday, for example, Trump’s lawyer argued before the DC Appeals Court that if Trump became president again he could order Seal Team Six to assassinate Joe Biden or Liz Cheney and nobody could do anything about it. Judge Florence Pan asked:
“You’re saying a president could sell pardons, could sell military secrets, could order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?”

Trump’s lawyer answered that a sitting president could only be held criminally liable for those crimes the judge listed — which is making me wonder if Jack Smith has proof that he was selling pardons and military secrets — if Congress had first impeached him.

In other words, yes, Trump may have sold those missing top-secret documents to Putin, probably sold all those last-day pardons for $2 million each as Rudy Giuliani said, and could even order the assassination of somebody he didn’t like in the future.

And nobody could do a thing about it, according to Trump and his lawyers, because Republicans in the Senate had failed to convict him.

This open embrace of lawlessness should tell us everything we need to know about not just Trump but the GOP that’s backing him up and hasn’t expressed any second thoughts about his leadership of the party or his bizarre “vengeance” campaign for reelection.

We’ve seen the early glimpses of Trump’s murderous soul for years.

When the George Floyd protests erupted in Washington, DC, thousands of Black people were heading for the White House: Trump, his wife, and his son all fled the building for the president’s underground bunker. Word leaked to the press within hours, and Trump was both embarrassed and furious, demanding the execution of the leaker.

That’s right: the execution of the person who told the press that he was hiding from the protesters.

When he organized his bible photo-opportunity at the church across the street from Lafayette Square, he’d demanded that General Mark Milley have the troops affix bayonets to their rifles and carry live ammunition, presumably to shoot protestors. Milley refused, but apparently went along with Trump’s desire to clear the area with tear gas.

The next time, Trump will make sure his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is somebody willing to repeat Nixon’s Kent State slaughter. Somebody he can more easily bully.

On January 6th, Trump tried to bully Mike Pence into making him dictator-for-life. When that failed, he tried to get Pence murdered. Now, he’s at it again, trying to crank up his well-armed followers to bully or even take out President Biden.

Earlier this week, Trump posted to his Nazi-infested failing social media:
“Joe would be ripe for Indictment. If I don’t get immunity, then Crooked Joe Biden doesn’t get immunity.” He added, “By weaponizing the DOJ against his Political Opponent, ME, Joe has opened a giant Pandora’s Box.”


He’s told us he wants to build concentration camps for “millions” of people, including his political “enemies,” and will “root out” those he calls “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

That would be you and me. We shouldn’t worry about Putin or Kim or China attacking the US, Trump tells us, because Democrats are the real threat to America:
“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.”


From Trump separating mothers from their children and trafficking those kids into “Christian” adoption services that have now vanished (along with about 1,000 missing youngsters), to his followers swatting Judge Chutkan and Jack Smith (among others), the bullying fascist mindset has been growing like a cancer in America.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, an infamous bully who once chased then-17-year-old Parkland school-shooting survivor David Hogg down the street screaming epithets at him, bullied her pooch Kevin McCarthy into threatening New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg with a congressional investigation if he didn’t back off from prosecuting her role model, Donald Trump.

Following up, Gym Jordan, notorious for his bullying any witness who appears before his committees or brings up his alleged coverup history, has now been joined by James Comer (accused of abusing a girlfriend and then getting her an abortion), and House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil in demanding Bragg give their committees all the information he’s gathered on Donald Trump’s crimes relating to his paying off porn star Stormy Daniels.

For his part, Bragg is having none of it, pushing back with a statement saying through a spokesman:
“We will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law.”


Bullying has now become the trademark behavior of the GOP, the result of Donald Trump’s entrance on the scene in 2015 when he successfully bullied and cowed every other candidate for the Republican nomination for president.

On Tuesday, we learned that House Republicans under MAGA Mike Johnson are hoping to try to impeach Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. And they want to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for his willingness to testify at an open hearing rather than their closed-door bullying charade.

Bullying flows from the top down in everything from gangs to businesses to political parties.

Humans invent political systems, and we base our inventions on our observations of human behavior. It thus makes perfect sense that when Benito Mussolini invented fascism in its modern form, he was simply patterning it after a behavior he knew well because he’d exhibited it his entire life: bullying.

This understanding parallels the rise of fascism as the political system now most vigorously embraced by the GOP, from rigging courts and elections to using naked threats of violence and even the killing of five police officers to try to stop the peaceful transfer of the presidency from Trump to Biden on January 6th.

As the late Madeline Albright wrote in her book Fascism: A Warning:
“Decades ago, George Orwell suggested that the best one-word description of a Fascist was ‘bully.’”


If we don’t take on bullies — particularly fascist bullies — they keep going further and further until either they win or we fight back and defeat them. The best political example of this writ large was Hitler. He pushed around most of Europe and they kept giving in or trying to appease him, thinking at some point he’d have gotten enough.

Neville Chamberlain thought he could negotiate with a bully and came back from his meetings with Hitler believing he’d achieved “peace in our time.” But, of course, you can never actually negotiate with a bully: you can only contain or defeat them. Which is what FDR, Churchill, and Stalin ended up having to do, at the cost of tens of millions of lives.

From that experience, Europe learned a lesson about dealing with fascist bullies, which is why the governments of the continent are largely united in their support of Ukraine against the murderous bullying of Russia’s fascist leader.

Bullies never stop. And, most importantly, every time they win, they set their sights on the next conquest. Giving in to their demands only creates a newer and more elaborate set of demands.

We have so many of these bullies polluting our political waters today that it’s nearly impossible to get anything done that benefits anybody except the morbidly rich bullies themselves and their friends.

As lawyer and therapist Bill Eddy writes for Psychology Today:
“Bullies don’t negotiate; they make demands, they make threats, and they fight for them. They generally lack the modern skills of win-win... So don’t think of their demands as a form of true negotiation. It’s more like warfare. And you don’t want to give in to that.”


Right now, America is suffering from an epidemic of political bullying.

Billionaires started bullying us in the 1980s at the suggestion of Lewis Powell’s infamous memo, demanding that the top 74% income tax rate be collapsed to 25%; Reagan enthusiastically gave in (as did a few Democrats) and now the billionaires — who are paying 3% income tax rates (not a typo) — just used their political muscle to eliminate funding to the IRS as part of their “negotiation” around the debt ceiling.

The morbidly rich funders of the GOP got their way this week, when Chuck Schumer gave in to Republican bullying and said he was good with stripping $10 billion out of the IRS budget, making it much harder for that agency to catch billionaire tax cheats.

Trump, like all fascist bullies, delights in the bullying behaviors his cult followers emulate. He even went so far as to tell a convention of police officers:
“When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just seen them thrown in, rough. I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice.’
"When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head you know, the way you put their hand over [their head]. … I said, ‘You can take the hand away, OK?’”


He gets pleasure stripping power away from others while causing fear and pain in his enemies’ lives, and the more successfully he can bully high-profile people the more he puffs up with pleasure.

This is a crisis for America now because presidents tend to establish both the tone, tenor, and fashions of the day.

John Kennedy, for example, established an optimistic and forward-looking tone for our country, while Jimmy Carter made it fashionable to be a thoughtful, compassionate Christian and an energy geek. Bill Clinton turned us all into policy wonks, and George W. Bush transformed himself from an AWOL draft-dodging drunk into a warrior. Barack Obama established a tone of thoughtful, elegant inclusion and diversity, celebrated around the world.

Tragically, what Donald Trump showed us is that when the President of the United States is a bully, being a bully becomes cool. And it persists so long as he holds a national platform.

Political bullies, from the soft-spoken Mitch McConnell to the outrageous Gym Jordan, all surfed the wave of Trump’s bullying style. Right wing media has become filled with outrage-puffed bullies, each reveling in being more brutal, oafish, and outrageously fascistic than the last.

Over the past few years, Trump followers delighted in bullying store owners and people in public spaces by refusing to wear masks. Now they’re bullying trans people, pregnant women, public school teachers, librarians, and drag queens. Bullies, being cowards deep down inside, always pick on those they see as the least able to defend themselves.

Bullying is contagious, which makes the GOP’s fascist bullying a whole-of-society crisis.

Multiple studies showed, in the months after Trump was elected, an increase in school bullying. White “Karens” (female and male) around the country found new validation in their attempts to bully people of color, including children. And Trump’s bullying use of the phrase “China virus” led to a huge spike in attacks on Asian Americans.

Trump set the tone for all these bullies: truth doesn’t matter, so long as you can hurt and intimidate somebody for your own benefit or even just for fun. As Glenn Altschuler wrote for The Hill:
“And like all bullies, Trump traffics in personal insults and group stereotypes. He began calling immigrants ‘rapists,’ complained about ‘shithole countries,’ mocked a reporter with disabilities, said the Speaker of the House has ‘mental problems,’ said four American congresswomen of color should ‘go back’ to the ‘crime-infested places from which they came.’
“He’s peddled the racist idea that immigration is an ‘invasion,’ and retweeted the claim that ‘the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.’ He responded to the #MeToo movement by declaring, ‘It’s a very scary time for young men in America.’ He spread a phony conspiracy theory that Joe Scarborough murdered Lori Klausutis, a congressional aide, in 2001.”


Remember Mitch McConnell bragging, “One of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye and I said, ‘Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.’” Classic bullying.

The people whose bullying tendencies drew them to guns and violence have joined the bullies in the GOP as well, with the ultimate bullying event being their assault on our nation’s Capitol on January 6th.

Convicted foreign agent, bully, and Trump toady Mike Flynn, who suggested that a wholesale slaughter of minority Americans a la Myanmar “should happen” here, upped the ante by saying, when presented with a new AR15, “Maybe I'll find someone in Washington, D.C.” Spoken like a lifelong bully.

Our world is in flames, as climate scientists have been warning us would happen for at least five decades, but fossil-fuel billionaires here and abroad continue to bully civilized nations into a suicide pact. Just let them get richer and richer selling their poisons, they say…until everything collapses.

Psychologist Shawn T. Smith, author of Surviving Aggressive People, notes that bullies almost always back down when they’re confronted. Bullies, he notes, are both lazy and cowards; preying on people who fight back is too much trouble and risk.
“[B]ullies and predators,” Smith writes, “…test, …prod, and…scan for vulnerability. When they do, responding quickly is more important than responding perfectly.”


The vast majority of Americans don’t want the world these GOP bullies are trying to impose on us.

Most Americans, for example, would like to have the same kind of healthcare and educational system that Canadians, Europeans, Australians, Japanese, and South Koreans have. Everybody covered, not a single medical bankruptcy, and undergraduate student debt largely nonexistent. They’d like good union jobs, a stable environment, quality public transportation, and top-notch primary schools.

So, why don’t we have what Europe got in the 1940s and Canada got in the 1960s? Because wealthy bullies who don’t want to pay their taxes buy off Republicans who, themselves, are willing to bully the American people and the press.

We have “Jan. 6th” bullies, anti-mask bullies, anti-vax bullies, an entire health insurance industry that bullies us, bank bullies who rip us off, Wall Street bullies stealing everything that’s not nailed down, anti-abortion bullies threatening women, and religious bullies threatening our courts.

And we can’t just “stop talking about Trump”: we must confront this.

It’s like we’re having dinner at an outdoor garden party, and somebody notices a poisonous snake slithering around under the table. Would it be wise to simply refuse to talk about it? Would it even be possible?

Pushing back hard is imperative, otherwise we lose.

It’s way past time for average Americans to fight back: we’ve been bullied enough. Democrats and average Americans must follow Alvin Bragg’s example: stand up and put a stop to it.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

THOM HARTMANN  is a talk-show host and the author of "The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream" (2020); "The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America" (2019); and more than 25 other books in print.
Full Bio >

USPS Isn't Paying 45,000 Rural Postal Workers This Week

The Postal Service is offering salary advances via money order as a workaround

By  Ryan Erik King

Photo: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg (Getty Images)


The United States Postal Service (USPS) has failed to pay over 45,000 rural postal workers due to a catastrophic payroll error. The National Rural Letter Carriers Association (NRLCA), the union representing rural workers, has negotiated a workaround for the Postal Service to provide salary advances via money order. The incident comes as these same workers attempt to decertify the union to form a new representative body.

According to Vice, the USPS identified and resolved the programming issue within its payroll system that caused tens of thousands to go unpaid. However, the issue wasn’t fixed soon enough for paychecks to be sent out in time. The workaround for workers to still be paid for their work is less than ideal, especially going into a holiday weekend. The union laid out the temporary solution in a statement:

“The NRLCA has learned about an egregious payroll error this pay period affecting more than 45,000 rural carriers. We have had multiple discussions with the USPS yesterday and into the night. All affected carriers will be entitled to salary advances on Friday. The proper amounts of what carriers should be paid will be sent to the offices so local managers will not have to attempt to calculate it; they simply need to process the salary advance on a money order, so rural carriers get paid on Friday.”

The USPS Might Actually Get Its $8 Billion To Electrify Future Mail Trucks

The Next USPS Mail Trucks Are Delayed

The money order will be 65 percent of their gross pay as if taxes and other deductions were withheld. Then, the amount will be deducted from the next paycheck which would include the missed payment. With the money order being sent to offices, the rural workers would have to pick up their money order in person. This could be a serious problem if someone is out sick or away on vacation for the Labor Day weekend.

This isn’t the first time that rural workers have been let down by their union. After years of negotiations with the Postal Service, the NRLCA agreed to implement a new algorithm-based pay evaluation system called the Rural Route Evaluated Compensation System (RRECS). The new system resulted in over two-thirds of rural postal workers receiving massive pay cuts. Some workers have had to work extra days and pick up second jobs as their annual pay dropped by up to $15,000. Now, many rural postal workers want better representation.

I was a USPS letter carrier for 44 years. To protect us from extreme heat, the postal service needs to provide more training and air-conditioned trucks.

Story by khawkinson@insider.com (Katie Hawkinson ) •23h

Mike Kurz retired this summer after 44 years as a USPS letter carrier. 

Rebecca Cook/Reuters© Rebecca Cook/Reuters
Mike Kurz worked as a USPS letter carrier for 44 years before retiring this May.
Kurz says he experienced varying degrees of heat-related illness throughout his career.
He hopes the USPS improves conditions by providing training and air-conditioned vehicles.


This as-told-to essay is based on a series of conversations with Mike Kurz, a 65-year-old recently-retired USPS city letter carrier from Elizabeth City, North Carolina about heat-related safety for USPS employees. It's been edited for length and clarity.

When I had to undergo treatment for sepsis in May and take a break from work, I wasn't planning on retiring from my job as a letter carrier for the US Postal Service. In fact, I planned on staying on for another two or three years.

But I'm glad I did because ever since the beginning of July, temperatures have been in the upper nineties. And in the past couple of years, there's been a handful of letter carriers who have died from heat-related illness.

I worked as a letter carrier for 44 years. Throughout my career, I experienced varying degrees of heat-related illness more times than I can count. I can't stress enough how bad it gets in the heat.
I learned the signs of heat-related illness, and it saved me

Throughout my career, I suffered heat-related illness often, with at least one incident every few years.

My most recent incident of heat-related illness happened over two summers ago, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was delivering mail and had to pull over to go into an air-conditioned church because I was dizzy and nauseous, which are two symptoms associated with heat illness. Plus, it was a day with high heat and humidity — and I had no air conditioning in my truck.

I always worried during the pandemic. People were secluded in their houses so if I fainted in my truck or while I was walking outside because of the heat, nobody would be out there to actually see it happen.

Thankfully, that never happened, and I didn't have to go to the hospital that day because I was able to tell the signs before they escalated. I took off the rest of the day and went home.

But some letter carriers don't have the same experience I do to recognize the signs.

Kurz says the USPS should implement further training to keep letter carriers safe in the heat. 

Andrew Kelly/Reuters© Andrew Kelly/Reuters

The USPS must improve their heat safety training and give us air-conditioned trucks

While the USPS has the Heat Illness Prevention Program, we need further education. In order to protect letter carriers from heat-related illness and death, the postal service should improve the quality of their heat-safety training and invite experienced letter carriers like me to lead them.

As the president of my local union branch, I've given several talks on heat safety to employees. Having someone like me come in and talk to them — who has on-the-ground experience — rather than reading from a script that comes from national headquarters, would help improve education. Someone like me could elaborate a lot more thanks to on-the-ground experience.

Some national employees were former letter carriers, but people like the current postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, were not. We get blurbs from the national office, but they're not long enough. And since we've had DeJoy as the postmaster, they haven't explained a lot.

We also need air-conditioned trucks. Many of our trucks have been in use since 1989 and do not come with air conditioning. I've been saying for 25 years we need air conditioning.

The USPS has gotten wise to it and is now building new ones with air conditioning. Several of them are supposed to be electric vehicles or hybrids, too. This will help because letter carriers won't be dealing with heat from the engine either.
Letter carriers have to remember their health is more important than the mail

I also tell my fellow letter carriers to use wet towels on their heads and neck to keep cool. I recommend materials like terry, which works best for cooling. I also often brought several bottles of water with me on shift.

In the last 15 years, I've had two employees at my union branch go to the hospital for heat-related illness because they worried more about delivering mail.

If it's between your health and the mail, you should always prioritize your health.

NIH zebrafish research included in US Postal Service’s “Life Magnified” stamps

NIH/EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

 

IMAGE: "ZEBRAFISH" FOREVER® STAMP FROM THE USPS® "LIFE MAGNIFIED" STAMP PANEL. view more 

CREDIT: USPS®

A microscopy image created by National Institutes of Health researchers is part of the “Life Magnified” stamp panel issued today by the United States Postal Service (USPS®). The NIH zebrafish image, which was taken to understand lymphatic vessel development in the brain, merges 350 individual images to reveal a juvenile zebrafish with a fluorescently tagged skull, scales and lymphatic system. 

“Zebrafish are used as a model for typical and atypical human development. It is surprising how much we have in common with zebrafish,” said Diana W. Bianchi, director of NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which generated the image. “NIH research affects our lives every day. My hope is that this postage stamp will help spur conversations and appreciation for the importance of basic science research.” 

The image was taken by NICHD’s Daniel Castranova, an aquatic research specialist, with assistance from former trainee Bakary Samasa. The research was conducted in the Section on Vertebrate Organogenesis, led by principal investigator Brant Weinstein, Ph.D. The lab is devoted to understanding mechanisms guiding the formation of blood and lymphatic vessels. The image also received top honor in the 46th annual Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition in 2020.

Findings from the microscopy image were published in Circulation Research and featured on the journal’s cover. The work led to a groundbreaking discovery that zebrafish have lymphatic vessels inside their skull. These vessels were previously thought to occur only in mammals, and their discovery in fish could expedite and revolutionize research related to treatments for diseases that occur in the human brain, including cancer and Alzheimer’s.

“Life Magnified” is a set of 20 Forever® stamps (Forever stamps will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce price). This collection includes work from other researchers relevant to the broader NIH community. Two creators lead microscopy core facilities often used by NIH-funded researchers at their universities. Tagide deCarvalho, Ph.D., is director of the Keith R. Porter Imaging Facility at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She created “Moss Leaves” and “Mold Spores.” Jason M. Kirk is director of the Optical Imaging & Vital Microscopy Core at Baylor College of Medicine. He created “Oak Leaf Surface” and “Mouse Brain Neurons.”

###

About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): NICHD leads research and training to understand human development, improve reproductive health, enhance the lives of children and adolescents, and optimize abilities for all. For more information, visit https://www.nichd.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit https://www.nih.gov.

---

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

IN HEAT AND SMOKE, WORKERS FIGHT NEGLIGENT BOSSES
This summer’s smothering air quality from Canadian wildfires is fueling class struggle, as outdoor workers demand better protections for their safety.

This photo taken on June 7, 2023 shows smoke from wildfires in Canada shrouding New York, the United States. 

Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua via Getty Images

BY CAITLYN CLARK

JULY 17, 2023


This story originally appeared in Labor Notes on July 12, 2023.

On June 29, the air quality in Detroit was among the worst in the world.

“Outside it smelled like burnt plastic, almost like trash,” said UAW member Cody Zaremba, who works at a General Motors plant in Lansing, Michigan. He and his co-workers were experiencing coughing, runny noses, watery eyes, and trouble breathing.

But GM didn’t even acknowledge the smoke, Zaremba said, much less offer any protection.

“Everybody just had to go about it their own way,” he said. “We can all see it and smell it. But what are we going to do about it?”

As wildfires, drought, floods, and scorching heat disrupt the supply chain, the logistics industry is starting to worry about the impact of climate change…on profits.

But workers are the ones bearing the brunt—forced to work through extreme weather events, induced by climate change, that are getting more frequent and more severe.

Wildfires in Canada this summer have spread hazardous smoke through the U.S. East Coast and Midwest. Semi-regular wildfires throughout the West Coast have produced what are now known as “fire seasons.”

Outdoor workers like those in delivery, construction, and farming are among the hardest hit. On the frontlines of the climate crisis, some workers are standing up to their employers’ negligence.

‘UPS’S PLAN WAS HOPE’

Teamsters say UPS was unprepared this summer when New York City’s Air Quality Index spiked to a record high of 484 as smoky air clogged the city.

An AQI above 300 is categorized as hazardous. Besides the immediate effects of burning eyes and coughing, particulate matter from wildfires can damage the lungs and heart, triggering asthma and heart attacks.

“The company didn’t do anything. We went out there, business as usual,” said UPS driver Basil Darling, an alternate steward in Teamsters Local 804. “It was only customers who were concerned. Customers offered me masks.”

One co-worker at his hub in Brooklyn was taken to the emergency room after working half the day in the smoke.

Local 804 members did what the company should have done—distributed KN95 masks to UPS workers in Brooklyn and Queens.

This wasn’t the first summer that UPS ignored this problem. Geoff Donnelly, a package delivery driver in Reno, was still making deliveries even after his family had packed up their belongings in preparation to flee the Caldor fire in 2021.

The fire blazed across Nevada and Northern California, burning more than 220,000 acres and lasting nearly two months before it was contained.

“UPS’s plan was hope,” said Donnelly, a Teamsters Local 533 shop steward: “We hope that the fire isn’t coming our way.”

The company lied, he said: “They told me that they had a plan, but they didn’t.” UPS handed out surgical masks, not high-quality N95s—even as the AQI shot up to a record high of almost 700 in Tahoe City, California.

DODGING OBLIGATIONS

When AQI reaches 500, under California OSHA guidelines, employers must not only offer but require employees to wear respirators such as N95 masks. But Donnelly emphasized that UPS suffers no consequences for dodging its safety obligations.

“You can say the company must provide masks or respirators, but if they don’t, there’s no penalty,” he said. “If there’s no penalty, why have the language? What good does it do?”

Like California, Oregon and Washington have passed statewide OSHA guidelines requiring the provision of respirators.

But “workers don’t just need respirators,” said Peter Dooley of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH). “The idea that outside workers are going to be wearing respirators all day is just not realistic.”

“When you work outside, there is really no escape,” said a Postal Service (USPS) letter carrier in Washington state who asked to be anonymous and has worked through both high heat and wildfire conditions. “The actual solution is, if the AQI is 300, 500, we should just be able to go home.”

There are still no federal regulations to protect workers from heat exposure or unhealthy air quality. And since letter carriers are considered federal employees, state-specific OSHA protections don’t apply to them either.
WE KEEP EACH OTHER SAFE

Despite several years of wildfires, companies on the West Coast still lack coherent safety policies on air quality.

Jorge Torres, an electrician with IBEW Local 46, was working on wiring a new Microsoft office compound in Redmond, Washington, last year when the skies got smoky.

The general contractor told workers they could use their sick leave to take the day off if they felt unsafe, or take an unpaid day. The electrical contractor’s plan consisted of providing three face masks for nearly 20 people.

Torres called his shop steward, but was told to wait until the union hall opened at 9 a.m.—two hours later—to be advised on what to do.

Torres decided not to wait. He went around the worksite talking to fellow workers. Everyone wanted to go home, but people were apprehensive about being the first to leave.

After he rallied his co-workers one by one, all 10 workers at his building walked out together and went home. The remaining six members of the electrical crew, who were working in another building, followed their foreman out shortly after.

SAFETY WALKOUT WORKED

Torres made sure to develop a paper trail in the form of text messages to his steward, documenting his initial discomfort with the smoke as early as 7 a.m., and explaining why he and his co-workers had walked out.

“If the union takes the company’s position and tells us that it’s up to each individual, the union is telling its members that the union isn’t there for them,” Torres warned the steward. “[The contractor] can consider the crews of [the building]’s decision to perform a safety stop work as an opportunity for [the contractor] to spend the rest of the day planning out and implementing a robust and clear health and safety plan for wildfire smoke conditions.”

As he drove home, Torres received an update from a foreman—nobody would be docked sick time, and everyone would get a full day of pay. When the AQI remained dangerously high the following day, the general contractor paused work for the entire jobsite.

Other members of his local couldn’t believe they had done it. Torres attributed the surprise to a culture of “passivity, deference, a sense of inability to assert what you need or what you deserve.”

DEADLY HEAT

The dangers of unhealthy air are compounded by extreme heat, another result of climate change.

Last year, as temperatures in the Los Angeles area climbed to the high 90s, 24-year-old UPS driver Esteban Chavez Jr. collapsed in the back of his truck while working and died.

UPS workers rallied to demand fans and air conditioning instead of surveillance cameras on their trucks. In this summer’s bargaining, ahead of an August 1 strike deadline, the Teamsters have won air conditioning in new trucks and the installation of fans and heat shields in existing ones.

Meanwhile in June, 66-year-old Postal Service letter carrier Eugene Gates Jr. collapsed and died on the job in Dallas, where the heat index had reached 115 degrees that day.

According to a Public Citizen report last year, environmental heat is likely responsible for more than 170,000 work-related injuries every year and 600 to 2,000 fatalities, making it one of the leading causes of death on the job.

‘KEEP IT MOVING!’

Amonth before his death, Gates Jr. had received a disciplinary letter for what USPS calls a “stationary event.”

A stationary event occurs when a letter carrier’s scanner registers as standing still for a few minutes—there’s no announced definition of exactly how long. Supervisors harass carriers about these events and push to minimize them.

Basic safety measures any worker should take in extreme heat—stopping in the shade to cool down and drink some water—could register as stationary events.

A scanner message sent out to carriers by management in one Dallas post office, shared with local news by the union branch president, says, “BEAT THE HEAT!!! NO STATIONARY EVENTS; KEEP IT MOVING!”

During a daily “stand-up” meeting at USPS, when supervisors warned about stationary events, the Washington letter carrier quoted above spoke up, informing co-workers that the union contract bans covert surveillance and that any disciplinary action on the basis of scanner data wouldn’t hold up. A supervisor spoke over her, apparently trying to drown this information out.

The Postal Service has touted its heat safety training. But many workers report they never received the training—even though management marked them as having received it. Virgilio Goze, an officer and steward in Letter Carriers Branch 79 in Seattle, has been helping members file grievances over this.

Since postal management routinely pays out grievance penalties without changing its behavior, Goze has gotten more creative in developing remedies. Rather than taking payouts, he combined monetary remedies to get an ice machine for his station. At least it’s “something communal,” he says. “You can point to it and say, ‘We won that.’”

Public Citizen estimates that California’s heat regulations, while imperfect, have reduced injuries by 30 percent. In New York, members of Local 804 are canvassing door to door to help pass the Temperature Extreme Mitigation Program (TEMP) Act, which would require employers to guarantee access to water and shade, and increase rest times for outside workers.

Still, much more is needed. The deadly combination of rising temperatures and wildfire smoke has to be understood as “climate injustice,” says Nancy Lessin, an advisor with National COSH. “This is yet another reason why the labor movement and the climate justice movement need to come together stronger than ever, to look to the future for the kind of prevention needed.”