Posted on 08/05/2014 4:45:07 PM PDT by mdittmar
“We will never shop at Staples until they stop what they’re doing to the post office,” AFGE President J. David Cox Sr. told the cheering crowd of hundreds of postal workers, union activists and allies in front of a Staples store in downtown Chicago.
They gathered there to protest the shady, no-bid deal between the U.S. Postal Service and Staples to privatize the postal service. The rally took place last month and coincided with the American Postal Workers Union (APWU)’s national convention.
“Every AFGE member, every member of the AFL-CIO, every union member in this country is standing with the American Postal Workers. We are not shopping at Staples. We are not selling the United States mail. We are going to stand together in solidarity brothers and sisters,” Cox shouted. He was joined by APWU National President Mark Dimondstein and Rev. Jesse Jackson at the rally. The AFGE president addressed the APWU convention earlier that day.
The USPS-Staples deal established postal counters in more than 80 Staples stores and replaced USPS workers with Staples workers who average only $8.50 an hour. They also have plans to expand the program to Staples' 1,500 stores, which doesn't make any sense because Staples is closing at least 225 stores by the end of 2015. The closing of postal offices and Staples stores will leave many Americans especially those in the rural areas without access to any nearby post office.AFGE and other AFL-CIO unions are boycotting Staples. We have joined several rallies to stop the privatization and protect Saturday delivery. Just like their attempts to close Social Security field offices, these corporate-sponsored “austerity” hawks are trying to eliminate good government jobs and bankrupt workers to the benefit of private CEOs.
In an attempt to derail the boycott, USPS and Staples two weeks ago changed the name of the pilot program to an “approved shipper” program, but nothing else changed.
“We’re not falling for that ruse, and neither are the labor and community allies who have joined with us in this fight,” said APWU’s Dimondstein. “This campaign will continue so long as the USPS tries to replace experienced, uniformed postal workers who are accountable to the American people with low-wage, high-turnover employees who have little training and who are not qualified to handle the U.S. Mail.”
Below are some of the agencies we represent. The list is not comprehensive and it only serves to showcase some of the work we do for our members. There are thousands of officers and employees all around the country constantly working for our members and any work-related issues, it would be both impossible and impractical to list all of their daily efforts and the extraordinary work they do in a couple of pages.
WTF?
Staples did not ‘grab’ this segment of business, someone - **the USPS** - management put out a bid.
If the Union wants to get bent out of shape, maybe they need to look inside their own house before going after anyone else.
Typical,communist terrorist tactic of possession.
I’m glad that there are not any more letters in the English alphabet. Think of how many more useless agencies could be created to use them up. Actually, they are pressing a bit since some of them have gone to 4 or 5 letter acronyms.
The reason why those agencies are all screwed up!!!!
Facts are irrelevant.
Makes sense to me. Both entities are losing money hand over fist and there isn’t nearly enough first class mail to require a full pool of skilled labor. The postal service can still offer specialized services like registered mail, money orders, stamped envelopes, post office boxes etc while allowing routine transactions to be handled by clerks.
There’s not a Staples store close by, I’ll buy something online from them though
The USPS is chock full of poster children for the Peter Principle. SSA likewise.
And what’s with the usps delivering Chinese shipped packages for 10 cents on the dollar ?
On ebay I can get electronic parts from Hong Kong and China for less than a dollar, shipped from over there. Those same parts cost me $6 minimum to ship from one U.S. address to another U.S. address.
Can we say gross subsidy?
Canada Post has been doing the same thing for at least three decades now and the result has been better service and lower costs.
Canada Post has been aggressively targeting online retailers with some success, including an exclusive deal with Amazon. Their slogan is, “Delivering the online world”.
The subsidies are coming from Beijing, not USPS.
Time for the USPS to announce a 5-year going out of biz plan.
Start by canceling Sat delivery and then get to 2 days a month at the end.
If a delivery service operates in an area, they must be available at least 2 days a month to deliver and pick up at each location. It can be by call or regular route, let them figure it out.
Constitutional amendment to cancel the postal service.
I offer my own post office to close first. We have an old post office downtown and a larger one 9 blocks away. Cancel the old one next week.
The only trouble is that the Chinese shipped packages are much slower in arrival(similar to First Class speed). The USPS packages you talk about are shipped much faster.
It’s more of a time/money tradeoff that doesn’t favor China as much as you think.
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