[P]ostal workers in 140 cities across the country rallied this week against a White House proposal to privatize the U.S. Postal Service.

While members of the American Postal Workers Union did not hold rallies in Vermont cities, protests were held Monday throughout northern New England, including in Concord and Manchester, New Hampshire, as well as in Brockton, Massachusetts, and two locations in Maine.

The protests were in response to President Donald Trump’s proposal to restructure the Postal Service with the goal of taking it private, arguing the USPS continues to lose money and display an inability to adjust in the age of digital commerce.

Trump has repeatedly said that the Postal Service loses “many billions of dollars a year” and that this is in large measure a result of not charging Amazon enough for its deliveries.

The president is not wrong when he says the USPS has been losing billions, with the Postal Service reporting that just between April and June 2018 it had a net loss of $1.5 billion.

But the Postal Service says that this loss is due to a Bush-era mandate that has required the agency to pre-fund 75 years of retiree benefits to employees who haven’t been born yet, which costs the USPS about $5.5 billion every year.

In spite of the losses, as an independent agency the Postal Service doesn’t currently receive tax dollars for operating expenses, which are funded through the sale of postage and shipping services.

The White House has argued that privatizing the agency would provide greater freedom to raise mailing rates and to negotiate pay and benefits with employees. The White House said the agency could “no longer” financially “support” the current mail delivery six days a week, and that privatization of the Postal Service could include cutting costs by delivering mail fewer days a week and to more centralized locations.

After his initial report in June, Trump established a task force to look into the question of privatizing. The task force was scheduled to release its findings in August, but nothing has been released so far.

Jamie Horwitz, a spokesperson for the American Postal Workers Union, said in a statement that privatizing the USPS, which currently delivers six days a week to 157 million U.S. addresses, would lead to ballooning prices for customers, and could potentially result in closing thousands of post offices across the country.

“Left unsaid is that any selloff would lead to both higher prices and service cutbacks for customers. When the UK privatized postal services for example, rates rose 80 percent and many post office branches were closed,” Horwitz said.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has long been a supporter of expanding the Postal Service’s role and a fervent opponent of privatization.

In a letter Sanders sent to Trump in June, he said that the Postal Service does need to be re-evaluated, but that the negative impact of privatizing the USPS would be mostly felt in rural states, like Vermont, and by lower income people across the country.

“There is no question that the Postal Service needs to become more entrepreneurial to meet the changing needs of the digital revolution, but the answer is not to make mail delivery slower,” Sanders said. “The answer is not to radically downsize or privatize the Postal Service. The answer is not to eliminate good-paying jobs. The answer is not to devastate rural communities by closing their post offices, closing mail processing facilities or ending six-day mail delivery,” he wrote.

In the letter, Sanders outlined his plan to to revamp the Postal Service, including a recommendation that it be allowed to provide basic financial services, such as small loans and bank accounts, and other consumer products and services.

Sanders said privatizing the Postal Service would lead to cuts to to the mail delivery to the most expensive places to reach, usually in the most rural areas.

“If you are a low-income person living at the end of a dirt road, the truth is it is not profitable to send mail to you,” he said. “That’s just the fact. So if the goal of the Postal Service is just to make money, tens of millions of people will see a decline or a doing away with basic mail services.”

Both Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., echoed Sanders sentiments on Trump’s privatization plan.

In a statement, Leahy spokesperson David Carle said the senator has strongly opposed any movement to privatize the USPS.

“Americans in Vermont and in rural areas across the nation rely on the Postal Service to reliably deliver to their homes, farms and businesses. Support for this essential mission is bipartisan in Congress, and Senator Leahy believes that any serious effort by the White House to privatize the USPS would meet strong bipartisan opposition in Congress,” Carle said.

The Trump administration’s recommendation to restructure the USPS came as part of a broader plan to cut the size of the federal government, which would require congressional approval before it could take effect.

Such approval is viewed as highly unlikely.

Two hundred nineteen members from both sides of the aisle in the House have co-sponsored a resolution calling for the USPS to remain “an independent establishment of the Federal Government.” An identical resolution in the Senate has 41 co-sponsors.

Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said in a statement said that the Postal Service is far too important to rural Americans to be left to a private company and that it is paramount that Congress work to fix the USPS.

“Privatizing mail service is a bad idea and an unnecessary solution to the financial issues facing the organization,” Welch said. “Instead, Congress should work on a bipartisan solution that stabilizes the U.S. Postal Service, authorizes new revenue streams and preserves six-day delivery.”