Staples' Announcement a 'Ruse,' Says APWU
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Monday’s
announcement by Staples
that it’s terminating its no-bid deal with
the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and
replacing it with an “approved shipper”
program, “is a ruse,” says American
Postal Workers Union (APWU) President Mark
Dimondstein. “Staples and the USPS are
changing the name of the program,
without addressing the fundamental concerns of
postal workers and postal
customers. If it looks like a duck, walks like
a duck and quacks like a duck,
it’s a duck.” Dimondstein says the Staples
announcement, along with a July 7 letter from
the USPS, “makes it clear.
They
intend to continue to privatize postal retail
operations, replace living-wage
Postal Service jobs with low-wage Staples jobs
and compromise the safety and
security of the mail.” He adds that “This
attempt at trickery shows that the
‘Don’t Buy Staples’ movement is having an
effect. We intend to keep up the
pressure until Staples gets out of the mail
business. The U.S. Mail Is Not for
Sale.” Learn more
here and send a message to
Staples here.
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AFL-CIO Now Blog; photo:
Dimondstein (left) and Nation’s Capital and
Southern Maryland APWU president
Dena Briscoe at April 24 demo; photo by Chris
Garlock