Council Endorses Staples Boycott

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)The Metro Council Monday night unanimously endorsed a boycott of Staples. “We are asking all Council affiliates, allies and supporters to immediately take their business elsewhere,” said Council president Jos Williams. Options include locally-based Guernsey or Office Depot. The Council is also urging area union locals and community groups to pass a resolution supporting postal workers and then send Staples a letter showing that support. This campaign by the APWU is being coordinated nationally by the AFL-CIO. “The U.S. Postal Service has struck a no-bid, sweetheart deal with Staples to operate postal counters in 82 Staples stores and to provide nearly all the services U.S. Post Offices provide,” said Dena Briscoe, president of the APWU Nation’s Capital and Southern Maryland Local. “We believe the American people have a right to Post Offices staffed by highly-trained, uniformed postal employees – employees who have taken an oath to safeguard the privacy and security of their mail.” Williams added that “We also object, in principle, to short-sighted business arrangements that replace good, living-wage jobs with high-turnover, low-wage jobs, as the USPS-Staples deal does.”