WASHINGTON (AP) — The opening of Postal Service retail
centers in dozens of Staples stores around the country is being met with
threats of protests and boycotts by the agency’s unions.
The new
outlets are staffed by Staples employees, not postal workers, and labor
officials say that move replaces good-paying union jobs with low-wage,
nonunion 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 dispute comes as
the financially struggling Postal Service continues to form
partnerships with private companies, and looks to cut costs and boost
revenues.
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the program has
nothing to do with privatization and everything to do with customer
service and driving up demand for the agency’s products.
"We have
no interest in privatizing the Postal Service. We are looking to grow
our business to provide customer convenience to postal products,"
Donahoe said.
Staples spokeswoman Carrie McElwee referred questions about union concerns to the Postal Service.
The deal with Staples began as a pilot program in November at 84 stores in California, Georgia,
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
Union
leaders fear that if the Staples program is successful, the Postal
Service will want to expand it to more than 1,500 of the company’s other
stores. That could siphon work and customers away from nearby
brick-and-mortar post offices, taking jobs from postal workers and even
leading traditional post offices to close.
Union leaders have been
visiting Staples stores to meet with managers, asking them to share the
union’s displeasure with upper management.
The union plans to
hold "sustained" protests this month at Staples stores in the San
Francisco and San Jose, Calif., area that would be expanded elsewhere.
The
union says it’s not asking to shut down the program. It wants the
counters to be run by postal employees, not workers hired by Staples.
The average postal clerk earns about $25 an hour, according to the
union, plus a generous package of health and retirement benefits. The
Staples post office counters are run by nonunion workers often making
little more than the minimum wage.
The Postal Service increasingly
has looked to work with the private sector to help increase business.
In November, it announced a lucrative deal with Amazon to begin package
delivery on Sunday.
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