U.S. Postal Service may be privatized. Why should you care?

“U.S. Mail: Not for Sale” was the message at a Monday rally against the privatization of the U.S. Postal Service.

Macon’s rally was one of many being held nationwide on Columbus Day as postal workers say turning the United States Postal Service private could harm the quality of mail delivery. President Donald Trump’s administration proposed in June restructuring the postal agency as a way to improve the bottom line in an ever increasingly technical world.

Turning over the USPS to a private company could mean higher costs for customers and negatively impact postal employees through lower wages and layoffs, said Don Griggs, president of the Georgia State Association of Letter Carriers.

“If they privatize the postal service we know that it will affect jobs, but not only that it will affect the service we give,” he said. “A lot of the rural areas would not get the service.”

About 15 people held signs at the rally held at the corner of Mulberry Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard outside the district office of U.S. Congressman Sanford Bishop, D-Ga. It will be up to U.S. representatives to decide whether to put a halt to plans to privatize.

Privatizing also could lead to reducing the days of delivery, which could impact when people get medicine or packages from Amazon, said Antonio Banks, vice-president of the Macon branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers.

The Wall Street Journal reported in June that a task force’s plan said the USPS would need to show it can make money before there would be any private investment.

The USPS had a net loss of $2.7 billion for fiscal 2017. The postal service’s operational expenses are paid for through the fees it charges for services.

The White House proposal said the, “USPS is caught between a mandate to operate like a business but with the expenses and political oversight of a public agency,” according to the Wall Street Journal.