WATSONVILLE >> Approximately 50 people lined both sides of Main Street in front of the Watsonville post office Sunday to rally against calls by the Trump administration to privatize the U.S. Postal Service.

The rally was one of more than 150 organized by branches of the National Association of Letter Carriers throughout the United States Sunday. The protests stem from remarks made by President Donald Trump during a swearing-in ceremony for U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick where Trump floated the idea of privatizing the Postal Service and having it operated under the umbrella of the Department of Commerce, citing financial losses in the agency in recent years.

However, the proposal has not been met well by members of the National Association of Letter Carriers. In literature distributed at Sunday’s event, the union warned that privatizing the postal service would jeopardize 7.9 million jobs, raise shipping costs and reduce services to 51.5million households and businesses, particularly those in rural communities where private carriers do not deliver.

Union members also claimed that such proposals were illegal and against the Constitution, where Congress is granted the power to establish postal policy under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7. In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the Postal Reorganization Act, making it an independent agency rather than a cabinet department which it had been for 98 years prior.

Watsonville’s rally was organized by the National Association of Letter Carriers Chapter 857 and featured nearly 50 people wearing red shirts and carrying signs that read “Fight Like Hell” and “Save Our Postal Service” and chanting “Hell no to privatization!”

Angela Nunez, a treasurer with the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 857, said there was a lot of uncertainty from the federal government regarding privatization of the U.S. Postal Service.

“Our union is trying as hard as we can and will try to keep the service going,” she said.

One thing Nunez said the union was waiting to see was who would take the mantle of postmaster general following Louis DeJoy’s February announcement that he would be stepping down. She encouraged people to call their congressional representatives to let them know how important the postal service is.

“It is gonna be a big change if they do privatize,” she said.

Union secretary Patricia Fernandez attended with her husband, Eddie Saldana, to raise awareness of what could potentially happen to the Postal Service.

“We come here to let people know what is going on with the postal service and just want to let people know that we are here and we are supporting our Postal Service,” she said.

Saldana said the post office has provided vital services, namely delivering mail to residents rain or shine for more than a century.

“Shutting it down would be shutting down a lot of jobs, a lot of people who still use the mail to receive their checks, their bills, their medication,” he said.

Adella Batin, who has worked for 33 years as a bookmail clerk, said the post office does everything from deliver mail six days a week and parcels seven days a week, processes passports and delivers items at no cost to residents.

“If we go away, a lot of the services are gonna go away,” she said. “We hope that the government makes the right choice.”

Additional rallies had also been scheduled for cities like San Jose, Monterey, San Francisco, Fresno and Santa Rosa.