First Class
The U.S. Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat
- 2020’s presidential election, along with the COVID-19 outbreak, exposed the essential role that the U.S. postal system plays in American society, the electoral process, and our national well-being.
- The pandemic permanently changed how we work. Many will continue to work from home even after vaccines are distributed.
- As a result, our dependence on the mail will remain a huge part of daily living. Enormous numbers of people rely on mail to receive stimulus checks, medicine, information, mail ballots and the numerous goods were now ordering. (Online shopping has gone through the roof!)
- With a major election coming up in 2022, the post office will remain in the news given our continued reliance on mail-in ballots.
- The book is timely in addressing Biden’s policy choices for the U.S. Postal Service.
- This includes: a discussion about the financial pressures placed on the USPS to maintain universal service; how to preserve the postal infrastructure to protect voting rights; and how to make banking services and the internet more broadly accessible.
- This book is a natural fit for activist booksellers at independent stores who were passionate about the #BoxedOut campaign and the importance of the USPS to their business.
- Younger audiences have used social media platforms, such as Tik Tok, to display respectful and playful portrayals of mail carriers. We're seeing this in glossy magazines, as well.
- Book will appeal to those who celebrate the USPS’s egalitarian mission to serve all equally irrespective of race, class, sex, or residency status.
- The book will appeal to those invested in workers' rights and unions. The American Postal Workers Union has endorsed this book and we will work with them to spread awareness about this project.
- The book was commissioned by Ralph Nader and the Center for Responsive Law as the centerpiece of their forthcoming advocacy and education campaign to save the US postal system, which will be timed to launch in conjunction with the release of the book.
- Nader & the Center for Responsive Law are sponsoring the mailing of copies to all 535 members of Congress, along with union leaders, media, and influencers.
Christopher W. Shaw is an author, historian, and policy analyst. He has a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of Money, Power, and the People: The American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic (University of Chicago Press, 2019) and Preserving the People’s Post Office (Essential Books, 2006). His research on the history of banking, money, labor, agriculture, social movements, and the postal system has been published in the following academic journals: Journal of Policy History, Journal of Social History, Agricultural History, Enterprise & Society, Kansas History, and Journalism History. Shaw was formerly a project director at the Center for Study of Responsive Law. He has worked on a number of policy issues, including the privatization of government services, health and safety regulations, and electoral reform. He has appeared in such media outlets as the Associated Press, National Public Radio, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, New York Post,Village Voice, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Buffalo News, among others. He lives in Berkeley, CA.
Named by The Atlantic as one of the hundred most influential figures in American history, and by Time and Life magazines as one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century, Ralph Nader has helped us drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water, and work in safer environments for more than four decades. Nader was instrumental in the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC), and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). Many lives have been saved by Nader's involvement in the recall of millions of unsafe consumer products, including defective motor vehicles, and in the protection of laborers and the environment. By starting dozens of citizen groups, Ralph Nader has created an atmosphere of corporate and governmental accountability. Nader's recent books include Breaking Through Power with City Lights, Unstoppable, and The Good Fight. His Animal Envy, A Parable was published by Seven Stories Press in the fall of 2016. Nader writes a syndicated column, has his own radio show, and gives lectures and interviews year round.
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