MADISON, Wis. — Members of the Wisconsin branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) rallied in Madison Saturday for safer working conditions for postal workers.
Rob Kosier is president of the NALC Milwaukee branch. When fellow postal worker Aundre Cross was killed in 2022, he said it left a lasting impact.
“People didn’t want to work at that office no more,” he said. “They still have issues at that particular office with people wanting to go there and deliver mail.”
White Cross’ case is working its way through the court system, Kosier said fear still lingers in the industry.
“That uncertainty from everybody is what the big issue is,” he said. “Am I next? That’s the problem.”
Dawn Ahnen, president of the state branch, attended the rally too.
“To think that my brothers and sisters on the job are being attacked or killed when they’re trying to work for the American people, it’s beyond words,” she said.
Ahnen said postal workers are trained in situation awareness: knowing when to speak up or call 911 if something seems wrong. Ahnen herself is a military veteran, trained to handle a variety of dangerous situations.
She said she never thought she’d be in danger as a postal worker.
“We had those kinds of trainings for those kinds of situations [in the military],” Ahnen said. “But I never ever thought that I would have to worry about gun safety, or being attacked, or having those kinds of trainings at this type of job here at the post office.”
The NALC also has an emergency response team to help handle difficult situations such as death, suicide, attacks and other crises concerning postal workers.
BaLynda Croy, a member of that emergency response team, said it’s not enough.
“It is too much as a carrier to be worried about my coworkers, to be worried about myself, to be concerned about us not being able to do what we do every day,” Croy said.
That’s why the NALC is advocating for the passage of the Protect Letter Carriers Act. It would provide funding to increase safety measures for postal workers and impose stronger penalties on people who commit crimes against them.
“There needs to be accountability,” Kosier said. “These people need to understand if you are going to harm us, if you are going to steal from us, there’s going to be some repercussions.”
Ahnen said it all stems from a love for their job, and a love for the communities they work in.
“We are trying to have everybody stand with their letter carriers as we stand with them every single day delivering their essential mail,” she said. “We want them to keep an eye on the letter carriers as we keep an eye on the community for them.”
The United States Postal Service responded to the rally with the following statement:
“We respect our employees’ rights to express their opinions and participate in informational picketing while off the clock. Through our Delivering for America investments, we have built capacity into our processing, logistics, and delivery infrastructure to meet customers’ evolving mail and package needs. We are executing on strategies to pull together the people, technology, transportation, equipment, and facilities into a well-integrated and streamlined mail and package network. We have worked hard in past 3 years to stabilize our workforce. We have converted more than 191,000 pre-career employees to career status since January 2021.”