'Stop Staples’ Campaign Gets Off to a Strong Start

(This article appears in the March-April 2014 edition of The American Postal Worker.) 

A trial program that put postal counters in 82 Staples stores — staffed with low-paid, non-union Staples employees — is a ‘direct assault on postal jobs and public postal services,’ the union has declared.

The ‘Stop Staples’ campaign got off to a strong start in January and February, and preparations are underway to keep the pressure on.

In mid-January, hundreds of locals and retiree chapters sent delegations to Staples stores across the country to deliver letters of protest to store managers. The visits were intended to put Staples management on notice that postal workers are serious about the campaign to win the jobs for postal employees. 

Next, the focus shifted to California, one of four geographic areas with postal counters. On Jan. 28 APWU members held spirited protests outside Staples stores in San Francisco and San Jose. “We’re here to let the American people know that it’s the people’s post office and we can’t let Postal Service management put postal retail units inside private, for-profit stores at the expense of the American public,” Western Region Coordinator Omar Gonzalez told a San Francisco television station.

APWU members were joined in the protests by members of the National Association of Letter Carriers, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, community residents and others.

Union members followed up on the Jan. 28 events with protests at multiple Staples stores several times a week.

Next up: A National Day of Action and intensified protests at Staples stores in Pittsburgh, Atlanta and central Massachusetts, the other areas where Staples stores have postal counters.

“If postal management and Staples consider the pilot successful, the program may be expanded to the chain’s 1,600 other locations, and agreements between the USPS and other big retailers may follow” APWU President Mark Dimondstein said. “We’ve got to make sure every postal employee understands how serious the threat is.”

“The Staples pilot is a major step toward privatizing retail services,” he added. “If we don’t stop it here, mail processing, transportation, maintenance and other operations will soon follow. We can only stop these privatization plans if we work and fight together.”

Arizona Congressman Calls It What It Is 

In a Jan. 17 letter to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-AZ) blasted the Staples deal.

“I write today to express my concern with the ongoing effort to dismantle and privatize the United States Postal Service,” he wrote. “My constituents and I are concerned that the pilot Retail Partner Expansion Program, which has placed postal service retail counters inside select Staples locations since November, is an aggressive step toward privatization. The fact that the employees staffing the counters at Staples are not career postal employees is especially worrisome.”

In Pennsylvania, State Senator LeAnna Washington (D-4) expressed concern about the program in a letter to U.S. Sen. Bob Casey. “I am worried that this type of program will lead us to a wholesale privatization of the USPS, which is something I cannot support,” she wrote.

Support has also come from the labor movement. The national AFL-CIO has voiced support for the APWU’s campaign, as have the other postal unions, and AFL-CIO State Federations in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island have urged Staples to utilize postal employees at its postal counters.