Making the Point in Pittsburgh

Members of Pittsburgh Metro Area Local paid visits to the three largest Staples stores near Pittsburgh on Jan. 22 to protest the retail supply chain’s decision to open postal retail units staffed by non-USPS employees.

The Pittsburgh delegation hand-delivered 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 letter said.

Replacing professional postal workers with low-wage, non-union Staples workers, they told the managers, will lead not only to the demise of the Postal Service but to the destruction of thousands more middle class jobs in communities across in the nation.

More than a dozen of the 80+ pilot sites are located in Pennsylvania. The others are located near San Francisco or in or around Atlanta and central Massachusetts. If successful, the program could be expanded to all of Staples 1,600 stores nationwide.