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Letter carrier Jacob Taylor, 51, died while working his route in the Dallas area last weekend amid a brutal summer heat wave. Although the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office has not yet released an official cause of death, Taylor’s death occurred during triple-digit temperatures and while working in one of the aging USPS vehicles without air conditioning that remain in widespread use across the country.

Taylor is the second Dallas letter carrier to die within the last three years of apparent heat-related causes. In June of 2023, 66 year old Eugene Gates collapsed while working in 113 degree (45 degrees Celsius) heat. Gates, a 36 year veteran of the United States Postal Service, had been sent a disciplinary letter for the first time in his career shortly before his death, over a “stationary event” logged by the invasive electronic system used by USPS nationwide.

Taylor is also the second postal worker nationwide to have died this month. On June 12, Dan Workman, 59, a mail carrier in Grand Junction, Colorado, was found collapsed in the front yard of a house along his route. Temperatures in Grand Junction had reached 95°F (35°C) that day. Despite the digital surveillance system, Workman reportedly lay unresponsive for nearly two hours before management sent someone to check on him.

These deaths are part of a disturbing annual pattern. Every summer in the United States, logistics and delivery workers die after being subjected to extreme heat with little or no protection. It has become an appalling routine: as temperatures rise, so too do reports of workers collapsing, suffering heat stroke and dying on the job. The National Weather Service has warned that the current “heat dome” over large swaths of the US is producing record or near-record temperatures, with half of the country under heat advisories or excessive heat warnings.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an average of more than 30 workers officially die each year from heat-related causes in the United States. But these figures significantly understate the real toll. Many researchers estimate the real annual toll may be in the thousands, according to the Center for American Progress. More broadly, over 5,000 workers die from traumatic on-the-job injuries each year, while more than 120,000 die annually from occupational diseases, according to the AFL-CIO—a staggering figure that rarely appears in official narratives about “worker safety.”

Taylor’s death might have remained buried were it not for a viral TikTok video posted four days ago by a Dallas resident, @gorgeousellecee, who saw the incident unfolding as she stepped outside to walk her dog. The video shows a crowd gathered around a USPS van, with Taylor unresponsive inside. Later footage from a nearby balcony shows his body being loaded into an ambulance. The video has garnered more than 1.5 million views and 14,000 comments, most of them expressing outrage.

“This is my co-worker. He did not make it 💔,” wrote one user, apparently a fellow letter carrier. “Thank you for bringing attention to our working conditions.”

Another, liked by over 30,000 people, stated: “A/C must be mandatory in UPS, FEDEX and USPS vans. I don’t know how they’ve gotten away with this for so many years.”

Dozens of comments expressed solidarity across logistics companies and anger at the common conditions: “UPS, USPS, FedEx—we don’t have A/C. Our companies don’t care. Money/profits over people. We’ve had two people die in our warehouse. We’re just a number.”

These deaths are the predictable and preventable result of corporate and government policy. The USPS fleet includes over 140,000 Grumman Long Life Vehicles (LLVs), built between 1987 and 1994, all of which lack air conditioning. Plans to replace them with more modern trucks have been repeatedly delayed.

For decades, both Democratic and Republican administrations have allowed the postal infrastructure to decay while systematically pushing privatization under the pretense of “modernization.”

The “Delivering for America” plan, introduced by Trump-appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who resigned this March, and embraced by the Biden administration, was the latest bipartisan scheme to restructure USPS in preparation for a partial or complete privatization. DeJoy, a former logistics executive with deep ties to the private sector, oversaw a massive cost-cutting campaign, the consolidation of mail-sorting operations and the slashing of services.

This has now reached a new stage with the widely reported intent of the Trump administration to privatize USPS—the culmination of decades of attacks on the post office. Next month, Trump’s pick for new Postmaster General, David Steiner, is set to take office. Steiner is a sitting board member of FedEx, one of many private competitors which would be in line to acquire USPS’ assets in any sell-off.

The working conditions in the USPS have been shaped not only by management but by the active complicity of the union bureaucracy. Taylor was a member of Lone Star Branch 132 of the National Association of Letter Carriers. The current NALC contract was imposed earlier this year through binding arbitration with the union’s backing, after workers had rejected it by 70 percent. It enshrined sub-inflation wage increases and did nothing to guarantee safe working conditions during extreme weather. Worst of all, it cleared the path for the privatization of USPS.

NALC President Brian Renfroe made perfunctory remarks on Taylor’s death during congressional testimony Wednesday. “It’s of course a heartbreaking loss that serves as another jarring reminder of the on-the-job hazards that letter carriers face every day,” he said, citing “extreme heat” and “outdated vehicles.”

In the same breath, Renfroe endorsed the basic aims of “Delivering for America” plan and pleaded with Congress to “maintain and improve service” during the post office’s transformation. This is a cynical charade: the union supports the very policies that have made working conditions more dangerous and which are paving the way for privatization.

Meanwhile, postal workers in other crafts are confronting the same betrayal. American Postal Workers Union (APWU) members are currently voting on a tentative agreement that amounts to a surrender document. It includes wage increases that barely keep pace with inflation, grants management sweeping new powers over workloads and scheduling, and includes no provisions to address extreme heat, mandate rest breaks, or guarantee safe working conditions. There is not even a “contract” as such because the language has not been finalized, with the deal workers are voting on subject to final modification.

To put an end to these deaths, workers cannot rely on Congress, OSHA, or the union bureaucracy.

In the auto industry, the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) has initiated a worker-led investigation into the death of Ronald Adams Sr., who was crushed by a crane at the Stellantis Dundee Engine Plant in Michigan. That effort aims to uncover the truth behind the fatality, gather testimony from workers, and build independent oversight by workers themselves.

A similar investigation must be launched in the USPS. The deaths of Jacob Taylor, Dan Workman, Eugene Gates, and countless others must not be forgotten. Rank-and-file postal workers must take the lead in demanding immediate protective measures—air-conditioned vehicles, guaranteed breaks during extreme heat and full transparency regarding all workplace fatalities. This must be linked to a broader fight against the dismantling of the public postal service and against the subordination of workers’ lives to corporate profit.