SEIU 32BJ, San Francisco Labor Council Join ‘Stop Staples’ Movement

SEIU 32BJ, representing 145,000 union members in 11 states and the District of Columbia, is boycotting all Staples retail stores in the U.S., Staples.com and Staples Advantage, as well as all Staples branded proprietary products.

“We will no longer be using Staples as our union’s office supplier, and we will be actively encouraging our members and allies to refrain from doing business with your company,” SEUI 32BJ President Héctor Figueroa said in a June 11 letter [PDF] to Staples CEO Ronald Sargent.

“It is unfortunate that we must take this action, but we strongly oppose your pilot program with the U.S. Postal Service to establish postal retail units in your stores staffed by low-wage, non-union, non-postal employees,” he wrote.

“The Postal Service is the largest single civilian employer of union middle-class jobs for African Americans, and Veterans (including disabled veterans), and is the largest single civilian union employer. We need more of these types of jobs to strengthen our economy and the middle class, and we will not accept your efforts to undermine them through low-wage privation.”

San Francisco Labor Council

San Francisco Labor Council has also joined the ‘Don’t Buy Staples’ campaign and voted unanimously on June 9 [PDF] to boycott the retail giant. The Council represents more than 100,000 union members and their families in the San Francisco area.

The council’s resolution noted that, “according to the Boston Globe, ‘Doody, the Staples executive, said the company does not want to get in the middle of the fight between the post office and its union, but acknowledged the issue could become a problem if more unions backed the postal workers. He said the retailer will continue to evaluate the situation to determine whether the negative backlash is worth the benefits of the partnership.’”

The San Francisco Labor Council is “urging all our members, friends and family not to shop at Staples stores, and to spread the boycott widely,”