Professor Gives Staples Campaign an A+

The Stop Staples campaign deserves straight As, according to one California professor. 

During a July protest outside a store in Cupertino, CA, APWU retiree Ernest Johnson spoke with a professor who had been given a Staples gift card by his students.

The campaign must have had a huge impact on the educator, said Darla Gilgannon, a retired APWU clerk at the protest: The professor bought a few items to show his appreciation to his students and donated the remainder of the gift card to the protesters and told them to use “for the cause.” It all happened so fast that the protestors were unable to catch the benefactor’s name.

“He had $19 left [on the gift card] and said, ‘The students would appreciate that I got something, and gave the rest to Save the Postal Service!’” Gilgannon recalled. “His heart was really in the right place. He gets to go back and share the fact that his students got to help out and save our post office.”

Most importantly, the professor said that he would never shop at Staples again.

“The kind of stuff that happens out here is amazing,” said Gilgannon, who is secretary of the East Bay Local, and has been attending Staples protests almost daily, since January 2014.