Government affairs

Legislative Updates

NALC opposes efforts to withdraw United States from the UPU

Ahead of the third Extraordinary Congress of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in Geneva on September 24-25, there have been suggestions from the White House that it could pull the United States from the organization if the treaty does not meet the demands of the Trump Administration.

The UPU is a 192 member, 144-year-old agency of the United Nations that is responsible for setting the technical and security standards to provide universal postal services to citizens, businesses, and governments worldwide. For the United States, it allows Americans who are living abroad to send letters and packages back home and for their families to reach them at affordable rates. It provides the infrastructure for the transport and exchange of letters, e-packets and packages that benefits all Americans and their businesses – including payment systems, automated processing systems and advanced electronic data (AED) for customs officials.

Efforts to withdraw from the UPU could have unintended negative consequences on American citizens and businesses and hurt the Postal Service financially. Leaving the UPU would deny ourselves access to this infrastructure and threaten the world’s invaluable system of universal postal services. This would raise costs for consumers, reduce access for millions of American families with overseas ties, and have unpredictable impacts on international mailers.

To that end, NALC opposes any such efforts and President Rolando along with the heads of the APWU, NPMHU, and NRLCA have sent a letter to Congress requesting Members to urge the White House not to withdraw the U.S. from the UPU.

NALC will continue to monitor this issue and keep letter carriers informed on any updates.

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