OLYMPIA, Wash. – Four Northwest postal workers are taking dramatic action to bring attention to cuts to mail service. They’re staging a hunger strike this week. It’s part of a national campaign by unionized post office employees.
David Yao of Seattle has been with the Postal Service for 26 years. He stood outside the main post office in Olympia Monday wearing a t-shirt that said: “Hunger Strike Back.”
“Congress is starving the postal service and the idea of a hunger strike is a metaphor, a good metaphor for what’s happening, what we’re trying to tell the public,” Yao says.
Yao and his fellow hunger strikers are drinking fluids, but swearing off solids for four days. They will picket outside post offices throughout Washington this week -- including in Vancouver, Pasco, Wenatchee, Seattle.
The U.S. Postal Service faces multi-billion dollar shortfalls and has proposed eliminating Saturday mail delivery.
Copyright 2012 Northwest News Network
Copyright 2012 Northwest News Network
