CA Locals Make the Rounds

APWU leaders in California recently finished visiting dozens of Staples Outlets near San Francisco to deliver the union’s message: Opening postal retail units staffed by non-USPS employees is a disservice to postal workers and the nation’s mail service.

Members of the Redwood Empire Area Local paid calls to the office supply company’s outlets in San Rafael, Novato, Sonoma, and Ukiah to present letters to the store managers expressing the union’s disapproval of the company’s privatized postal staffing arrangement. “Only U.S. Postal Service postal employees are fully accountable to the public, and sworn to uphold the sanctity of the mail,” the letters said.

The APWU delegation making the visits included Redwood Empire Area Local President David Ospital, Executive Vice President Dave Swaney, Secretary-Treasurer Tracy Blakely, Clerk Craft Director Larcye Wright, and Tom Harm.

A delegation from the East Bay Are Local visited 13 other Staples outlets in the region last week.

More than 30 of the 80+ pilot sites are located in California. The others are located in or around Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and central Massachusetts. If successful, the program could be expanded to all of Staples 1,600 stores nationwide.