Council Endorses Staples Boycott
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
(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.”