It is a part of the Federal Government, established by Congress, and the employees are federal employees. The main difference is that it has not, up to now, ever dipped into the public money from taxes to pay for any of its operations, because it always generated enough revenue from operations to fund itself. with the decline in revenues from loss of volume due to technology advances, it no longer can support its infrastructure or operations.
The Unions have been good for the employees, but like everything else, if the operations do not support the benefit package, then something needs to change.
The retirement funds have been conservatively administered, requiring more funding than in the private sector, and the unions are now, in my opinion, asking for the postal service to rob from Peter to pay Paul like they have in the private sector. A big mistake. It has remained solvent to now because of the conservative accounting principles. However, there is insufficient revenue to continue the past practices, and the solution is not to rob the pension plans of their funds to continue the benefits.
Just my $0.02.
So - the last decade +, the reported red ink/deficits the USPS has been running have been funded by what? Loans? From who? That money doesn’t just come from nowhere.