For Immediate Release – May 10, 2016
Contact: Roger Kerson, roger.kerson@gmail.com, 734.645.0535
Advisory for Thursday, May 12, NYC
Field Hearing on U.S. Postal Service
Does New York City Need Postal Banking?
Scores of Major Banks Call Manhattan Home – but Many Low-Income Neighborhoods Still Underserved
New York – A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service, a coalition of 130 organizations, will convene a field hearing in Harlem on May 12 to examine choices now facing the U.S. Postal Service: Build on the heritage of universal, nationwide service and expand to meet the needs low-income communities with new services like postal banking– or continue to shrink with reduced service, facility closings and job cuts.
Who: Letitia James, New York City Public Advocate; Gale A. Brewer, Manhattan Borough President; Nellie Bailey, Founder and Director Harlem Tenants Council and Program Host of WBAI’s “Beyond the News”; Sarah Ludwig, New Economy Project; Prof. Michelle Holder, Assistant Professor of Economics, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Minister Deidre Fisher Kemp, New Light Baptist Church; Julio Pabón, President, South Bronx Community Association; Marian Sammons, health advocate, Visiting Neighbors; James Parrott, Chief economist and Deputy Director, Fiscal Policy Institute; Jeremy Mohler, Communications Specialist, In the Public Interest
What: New York City field hearing on the future of the U.S. Postal Service
When/Where: Thursday, May 12, 6:00 pm, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 521 W. 126th St., between Broadway and Amsterdam.
“The local post office is a pillar of so many neighborhoods – innovations like basic banking services can benefit the community while strengthening the Postal Service for the future,” said Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer.
Witnesses at the May 12 New York City field hearing, the third of five hearings being held across the nation, will discuss the incredible contrast between the powerful banking companies that serve New York City’s business elite and the growing lack of financial services in the city’s low-income neighborhoods. As a result, low-income families pay high fees to high-cost check-cashing services, which have operations all over the New York metropolitan area.
The U.S. Postal Service can remedy this condition by following the recommendations of its own Inspector General and offering low-cost financial services at post office facilities.
Or USPS can continue down a path of service cuts, declining standards and facility closings. Witnesses at the May 12 field hearing will discuss how downgraded delivery standards are negatively affecting small businesses, senior citizens relying on timely delivery of medicine, and other postal customers.
The May 12 hearing also will provide details about job cuts at the Postal Service during the past decade as well as proposed future reductions in employment. These job cuts have had – and will continue to have — a severe impact on veterans and minorities, for whom the USPS has long been a pathway to secure, middle-class jobs. The USPS workforce reflects the communities it serves across the nation, and USPS is a major employer of not only veterans, but also disabled veterans.
# # #
A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service is a coalition of more than 130 local and national civil rights, environmental, faith-based and labor organizations united to advocate for a great public postal service, including non-profit postal banking and other financial services. For more information, please visit http://www.agrandalliance.org.