Unions angered by Postal Service’s Staples outlets

The following is an excerpt from The Topeka Metro News that quotes Management Professor James O’Rourke about Postal Service retail centers opening in retail stores. To read the entire article visit: Unions angered by Postal Service’s Staples outlets


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 well-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. The deal with Staples began as a pilot program in November at 84 stores in California, Georgia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania as a way make it easier for customers to buy stamps, send packages or use Priority and certified mail.

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James O’Rourke, a professor of management at the University of Notre Dame, said the Postal Service is simply following the trend of other businesses such as banks and medical clinics opening in grocery and drug stores to get more customers and save overhead costs.

“You can’t blame the union for looking suspiciously at this move, but from the perspective of postal management and postal customers, this is all good,” O’Rourke said.

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