With assaults and robberies on the rise, postal workers rally in Baltimore for better protection
Increasingly fearful for their safety on the job, dozens of letter carriers rallied outside a Baltimore post office Tuesday afternoon for better protection.
Tony Vaughn, president of Baltimore’s chapter of the National Association of Letter Carriers, which represents around 3,000 letter carriers in the region, said over the past two years that there have been 14 robberies and assaults of letter carriers in Baltimore and an additional nine around the state, most at gunpoint.
“In this job, you see the good and you see the bad and you get to know a community,” said Vaughn, who has delivered mail in Baltimore for 39 years. “But recently it has gotten more and more dangerous for us to try to do our jobs.”
Brian Renfroe, national president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, and Donald Matson, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, also spoke at the rally outside the post office on East Fayette Street in the Jonestown neighborhood.
The unions, which have organized similar rallies across the country in recent weeks, are backing the Protect Our Letter Carriers Act introduced in March by Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick. The legislation would provide $1.4 billion a year to the postal services to install high-security collection boxes opened by electronic keys that letter carriers say would be faster and safer to use. The bill would also direct the U.S. attorney general to appoint assistant U.S. attorneys in all 94 U.S. judicial districts to lead investigations and prosecutions of crimes against postal service employees, assets and facilities.
Maryland Reps. Steny Hoyer and Glenn Ivey, both Democrats, have co-sponsored the bill.
“It’s not just happening in Baltimore City. It’s happening all over the state, and we’re fed up,” Vaughn said. “We love our jobs. We love working for the postal service, but we’re fed up.”
