AFGE Boycotts Staples
June 25, 2014
Categories:
Workers' Rights
The U.S. Postal Service is adding more low-wage jobs to the economy by outsourcing work to low-wage employer Staples and replacing USPS workers with Staples workers who average only $8.50 an hour. The USPS-Staples deal, which established postal counters in more than 80 Staples stores with plans to expand the program to Staples’ 1,500 stores, doesn’t make any sense also 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.
“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,” AFGE said in a boycott statement to Staples CEO Ronald Sargent.
America needs more middle-class jobs, not poverty-wage ones. According to a new report from the National Employment Law Project, the bad economy has replaced good jobs with bad ones during the past four years. Low-wage industries like fast food and retail lost two million jobs during the recession but have added 3.8 million ones while higher-wage industries lost 3.6 million positions but have added only 2.6 million.
AFGE also believes that the American people have a right to post offices staffed by highly-trained employees who have taken an oath to safeguard the privacy and security of their mail. AFGE is asking AFGE members, their friends and family members to boycott Staples and take their business elsewhere in protest of this anti-worker deal. AFGE fully supports the American Postal Workers Union in its fight to protect living-wage jobs and the highest possible standards of customer service.
