You can buy staples at Staples, just don’t buy stamps U.S. Postal Service workers are facing a new challenge after the Internet and email cut into the service’s business of mailing letters. Now, office retailer Staples is setting up mailing counters in its stores. Here’s why that’s bad: the counters will be staffed by Staples employees, not Postal Service workers, which means good union jobs will be going to non-union retail workers. “It’s a direct assault on our jobs and on public postal services,” said Mark Dimondstein, president of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union. The Postal Service claims it needs to find new outlets and demand for its products and services, as online options for consumers bleed business from traditional mailing services. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has said the Staples move has nothing to do with privatizing U.S. postal services, and everything to do with creating new demand. The American Postal Workers Union is not opposed to the Staples program itself, but it wants the jobs at Staples postal counters to be held by Postal Service workers, which the union contends have the skills, knowledge and background to provide proper service and more importantly, training for potential hazards and security risks. Postal Service workers face background checks and are fingerprinted. The move is not unique to the Postal Service. Some banks and medical clinics now offer their services in grocery stores and pharmacies, but in this case, one cannot help but be suspicious of the appearance of privatizing a partly public service. In April, community activists and union members across the country picketed 50 Staples stores that are part of a trial program for offering postal services. CSEA members took part in a demonstration in Rochester (see photo, page 2). Staples has said it eventually wants to expand the services to 1,500 stores nationwide. “Are we going to have a vibrant, modern, public mail system, or are we going to let privatizers kill this great institution? If we’re going to have mini-Post Offices in Staples stores, they should be operated by uniformed postal employees, who have taken an oath and are accountable to the American people,” Dimondstein said. June 2014 The Work Force 5
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