Union calls on Postal Service to address high turnover

May 18, 2023 by

Local members of the Postal Workers union held an event in Eagan to support a nationwide campaign for better staffing and service across the USPS.

Two local chapters of the American Postal Workers Union rallied together last month outside the Eagan Post Office, helping launch a nationwide campaign to address staffing shortfalls that, union members say, are driving down morale, creating unsafe working conditions and threatening the Postal Service’s reputation.

Union members want the agency to hire more workers and take steps to improve retention of new recruits. That means curtailing abusive treatment from management and finding ways to make workloads more manageable, St. Paul Area APWU President Dave Cook said.

“We get them in the door and they’re working six or seven days a week, sometimes 10-, 12- or 14-hour days,” Cook said. “And at that point they burn out and decide it’s not worth it.”

Cook’s union represents workers who sort mail and staff the counters of local post offices, as well as those in the regional processing plants like the one nearby in Eagan. The local planned the rally in partnership with APWU Local 7019, which represents employees at one of four Postal Data Centers nationwide, based in Eagan.

Postal union leaders recently issued a call to action, hoping to ramp up public pressure on Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and members of Congress to address the staffing crisis, which has resulted in service delays and long lines at many post offices.

“Service problems are widespread, and no corner of the country has been spared,” American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein.

That is a direct result, union members say, of the agency’s inability to retain newly hired workers.

An audit by the USPS Office of Inspector General found that so-called “non-career” postal workers – the agency’s term for new hires – had a 58.9% turnover rate in 2022, up from 38.5% in 2019. The top reasons workers cited for quitting were a lack of respect from supervisors and too many hours on the job.

Dave Cook is president of the St. Paul-area branch of the APWU.

And if it seems like lines at your local post office are getting longer, you’re probably right.

The number of retail counter clerks and workers who distribute mail to letter carriers has dropped by over 12% since 2006, from roughly 79,000 to 69,000 nationwide. At the same time, the number of labor-intensive packages delivered by the USPS has skyrocketed, and the number of delivery points served by the USPS has increased by 12.8%.

“Constant turnover, constant training, the short staffing has created such a morale problem in the back of your local post offices, your processing facilities that the public doesn’t even see,” Cook said. “That hurts the service.”

But more customers are beginning to take note.

Although an overwhelming majority of Americans still have a favorable opinion of the USPS, the most recent poll released by the Pew Research Center in March 2023 found the agency’s favorability rating had slipped to 77%, down from 91% in 2020.

“We are in a snowball effect right now, and it just gets worse by the month,” Cook said. “We need to turn that tide.”

Union leaders have little faith DeJoy, appointed postmaster general by former President Donald Trump, will act on their allegations of widespread abusive behavior among management in the agency.

Aaron Young

“You’ve got some bad apples in management, and we have some people who walk in every day feeling like they’re walking on eggshells,” Local 7019 President Aaron Young said.

But Young and other labor leaders are holding out hope that Congress will act. They have been pushing federal legislation that would hold the Postal Service to more rigorous service standards, hoping to force the agency to recruit and retain staff necessary to meet them.

“They need to restore the service standards that they had back in 2012,” Young said. “Unfortunately, we have a postmaster who came from the private sector. So he’s trying to treat it like a business and look only at the bottom line. He’s not taking into account the service to people who have depended on it for so many years. It’s really disheartening.”

Cook said the Eagan rally was “just the start” of a larger, nationwide campaign.

“Postal workers across the country have taken a stand, and we are working with our congressional leaders to hopefully get laws that will create better staffing,” he said. “The public wants the post office, and we want to give them a better post office.”

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For some local union members, Trump’s attacks hit close to home

October 30, 2020 by

David Hallas has worked at the Gerdau steel plant in St. Paul for 18 years.

David Hallas was watching TV on an early-September night when one of President Trump’s campaign ads caught his eye.

“It was popping on the screen every 5 minutes,” Hallas remembered. “All of a sudden I’m like, wait a minute!”

That was the moment Hallas glimpsed footage from Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to the Gerdau Ameristeel plant in St. Paul last year. Across the screen scrolled a big, bold tagline: “JOBS.”

Hallas, a member of United Steelworkers Local 7263, has put in 18 years at the Gerdau plant, and he was in the crowd for Pence’s event. But the company has since announced plans to shutter the St. Paul facility, making the tagline a gut punch to the 222 union members who lost their jobs June 30.

“It just shows that they’re so disconnected from working people,” said Hallas, one of 40 people still working at the plant through March. “They have no idea what’s going on, and they’re willing to use workers as props.”

For Hallas, voting Trump out of office this year is an opportunity to hold the president accountable for his failed promises. He’s one of many local union members who have seen firsthand the failures of Trump’s reckless, divisive and often-inept approach to the highest office in the land.

For many union members, this election feels personal.

Students living in fear

Since Trump took office in January 2017, Camila Carroll has seen an increase in anxiety and trauma among her students at Highland Park Middle School. A member of the St. Paul Federation of Educators, Carroll teaches English language learners. Many of her students come from immigrant and refugee communities.

“They don’t know if there’s a day when mom or dad or another family member will be taken away,” Carroll said. “I know because they tell me how scared they are.”

At his campaign rallies Trump regularly degrades refugees and their impact on local communities, drawing wild cheers from his supporters. The hateful rhetoric creates “hard conversations” with emotionally vulnerable students, Carroll said. “No one should have to go through that,” she added.

Some of her students’ family members have been swept up in the administration’s immigration raids. “More of our students have had family members separated” since Trump took office, Carroll said.

“I listen to the stories of when they watched their dad get deported,” she said. “And we don’t have the resources we need as a school to give them the mental-health supports they need to deal with such a traumatic event.

“It’s happening right here in our own backyard.”

Workers at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis, members of AFGE Local 1969, rally for a fair contract. AFGE has been in talks with the Trump administration for two years, with no agreement.

Veterans deserve better

Tom Edwards served in the U.S. Navy for 15 years before taking a job at the post office and joining the American Postal Workers Union. Now retired and living in West St. Paul, Edwards relies on the VA for his health care, which he described as “second to none.”

When local members of American Federation of Government Employees Local 1969 who work at the VA began sounding the alarm about efforts to undermine the VA, including understaffing and attacks on workers’ rights, Edwards took notice.

To the former postal worker, the story sounded all too familiar.

“The VA is just like the post office to them,” Edwards said. “The money that goes into the VA, the private sector wants it. They want all those billions of dollars that could be made with privatization of both of those facilities.”

Connie Beissel feels the same way. She retired in March after a long career as a member of Branch 9 of the National Association of Letter Carriers, and was so upset with the administration’s attacks on the post office that she committed to volunteering at Labor 2020 phone banks twice a week.

“This election became personal to me when the current administration said that he didn’t trust the Postal Service and Letter Carriers in particular,” Beissel said. “Although I am now retired, I still consider myself a Letter Carrier, and I still have a loyalty to ensure that the U.S. Postal Service survives for another 250 years.”

Failure by any measure

By any policy measure, Trump’s first term in office has been a disaster for working people. But it has been a windfall for corporations and the richest 1% of Americans.

The $2 trillion tax cut passed in 2017 slashed corporate tax rates, prompted a surge of stock buybacks and delivered huge benefits to offshore investors and CEOs. But there’s no evidence to support the president’s claim those corporate profits would trickle down into workers’ paychecks.

The Trump administration renegotiated NAFTA, and has claimed the era of corporations “offshoring” U.S. manufacturing jobs was “over.” In fact, the opposite is true. A report issued in August by the Economic Policy Institute found nearly 1,800 factories shuttered between 2016 and 2018. And St. Paul’s Gerdau facility will soon be added to the list.

And then there’s Trump’s failure to lead a competent, nationwide response to the pandemic. Enhanced unemployment benefits for millions of Americans have run out, while America’s essential workers have been left to fend for their own health and safety by Trump’s Department of Labor. All the while, U.S. billionaires have watched their wealth grow by $845 billion, and Wall Street has hardly missed a beat.

There are plenty of reasons to vote Trump out of office, but for union members like Edwards and Carroll, it’s just as important to see Trump – and all that he stands for – defeated.

“Many of the students I’ve had, who I’ve connected with around these issues, they’re going to use their voice and they’re going to go vote,” Carroll said. “It gives me hope they are seeing the difference they can make in the world.”

Edwards recalled Trump’s quip at a campaign rally here in Minnesota that if he loses the state, he’s never coming back. “When I heard that,” Edwards said, “I decided I’ll be darned if I’m not doing everything in my power to make it happen.”

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In meeting with Smith, postal employees pledge to ‘go the extra mile’ to ensure mail-in ballots count

August 18, 2020 by

Tina Smith meets with postal employees outside the Eagan distribution center.

As U.S. Sen. Tina Smith met with postal workers, letter carriers and reporters outside the sprawling mail distribution center in Eagan today, a pickup truck exiting the facility slowed to a stop near the crowd. The driver lowered her window and barked out a brief message for Smith before speeding away.

“Thank you, senator!” she yelled. “Give him hell.”

That’s exactly the treatment new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has received from Smith and other Minnesota DFLers over the last month, as structural changes at the USPS have slowed down mail delivery in many parts of the country and, just 11 weeks from Election Day, cast doubt on the agency’s ability to accommodate a vote-by-mail surge during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I have been hearing from many, many of my constituents about mail that is late, that is unreliable,” Smith said after an inspection of changes at the Eagan facility. “And that’s not the fault of the people who work so hard inside that building. That is the fault of the chaotic approach and rapid-fire change we’ve been seeing at the federal level.”

In response to criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, DeJoy issued a statement shortly before Smith’s scheduled tour, announcing that the Postal Service would put further restructuring plans on hold through Election Day.

“That doesn’t give me any great confidence,” Smith said, adding that she worries DeJoy shares President Donald Trump’s “politicized” view of the Postal Service. “It makes me wonder what their true intentions are.”

The USPS Board of Governors, stacked with six Trump appointees, tapped DeJoy to serve as postmaster general May 6, and he took office in June.

For DeJoy, who has contributed millions to Republican candidates and over $1.2 million to the Trump Victory Fund, it was his first job with the public Postal Service after a 35-year career in the private shipping industry. He and his wife recently held investments of between $30 and $75 million in companies that compete directly with USPS – a blatant, but not illegal conflict of interest.

Union leaders warned DeJoy’s appointment was like putting a fox in charge of the hen house, and he has done little in the last two months to prove otherwise.

In July, DeJoy announced processing facilities like the one in Eagan would hold onto mail not sorted in time to meet strict distribution schedules, a move he described as necessary to curb overtime pay. Previously, drivers and postal workers would work in tandem to move as much of the day’s mail off the shop floor before closing the truck gate, ensuring timely, dependable delivery.

Todd Elkerton, president of the APWU’s St. Paul branch, speaks during a press conference outside the Eagan facility.

“We were taught if that mail doesn’t go out the next day, we were going to get in trouble,” said Todd Elkerton, president of the American Postal Workers Union in St. Paul. “Now we’re seeing it happen. It’s being directed from above. And we’re really having a hard time dealing with it.”

Meanwhile, the Postal Service has removed 671 sorting machines from stations across the country, leading to further delays. And photos of mailboxes ripped off the streets in several communities spread widely on social media last week, prompting more public outrage.

The Eagan facility has lost seven sorting machines since the restructuring began, Elkerton said. It’s not the first time he has seen machines “tarped” – or taken out of service – during periods of low mail flow, but it is more than Elkerton has ever seen at once.

So far, postal workers in Eagan have been able to keep disruptions in mail service to a minimum. But the facility was understaffed before the restructuring, and the sorting machines Eagan lost were capable of processing nearly 5 million pieces of mail per day. Elkerton and Joe Malkush, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers in St. Paul, said that doesn’t bode well for the inevitable increase in mail volume.

Smith and other federal lawmakers from Minnesota have demanded DeJoy reverse the changes, alarmed by reports from constituents whose medications have been slow to arrive by mail.

Rep. Angie Craig, a DFLer who represents Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District, sent a letter to DeJoy and Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie, Jr., earlier this month, noting that the VA fills nearly 80% of veterans’ prescriptions by mail.

Joe Malkush, president of the St. Paul letter carriers union, say if his members can deliver the mail on time for the holidays, “we can do it during the election.”

“I will not stand by and watch these recent attempts to politicize, dismantle and delay postal services, which put the lives of more than 330,000 veterans every day at unnecessary risk,” Craig said. “The politicization of the Postal Service is a grave disservice to the hardworking employees of the Postal Service and puts American veterans in harm’s way.”

In May, Craig and 4th District Rep. Betty McCollum voted with other House Democrats to keep the agency afloat during the pandemic with $25 billion in emergency funding, part of the HEROES Act. Trump and Senate Republicans have balked at the amount.

The president has acknowledged the emergency funding would improve the agency’s ability to handle mail-in voting, which he opposes. “They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business.

Further stoking election-related fears, the Postal Service sent letters to 46 states warning that mail-in ballots may not be delivered in time to be counted. But local postal employees said they remain confident every ballot cast through the mail here will be delivered to election officials on time – “even if we have to go the extra mile,” Elkerton said.

Delivering the mail, Smith quipped to reporters, is embedded in postal employees’ DNA.

“We do it during Christmas,” Malkush added. “We can do it during the election.”

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As mail volumes plummet, unions push Congress for relief

May 1, 2020 by

(file photo)

Perry Schmidt is used to delivering between 1,200 and 1,300 pieces of mail along his route each day. Now, the St. Paul letter carrier is delivering between 400 and 600.

He’s not alone. As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the country, the volume of mail handled by the U.S. Postal Service cratered, prompting the agency to warn Congress it will run out of cash sometime this summer.

“It’s hard to say if we’re ever going to recover from this,” said Schmidt, a member of Branch 28 of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC).

But postal unions aren’t going down without a fight. They have launched an all-out lobbying campaign (click here to sign their petition to Congress), warning supporters that, unless the USPS receives a lifeline in the next COVID-19 stimulus bill, critical public services could disappear. Among them:

• Prescription delivery. The Postal Service delivers about hundreds of millions of prescriptions to American households each year. In a pandemic, with people trying to limit their exposure to public places, that service is vital.

“As more and more people are at home, they have to get their prescriptions, and they have to get them on time,” said Todd Elkerton, president of the American Postal Workers Union’s St. Paul local. “That’s a big deal.”

• Voting by mail. Many states, including Minnesota, are considering measures to allow voting by mail as a result of the pandemic. That won’t be possible if the agency goes under.

• Rural service. President Trump has made no secret of his preference for privatizing the Postal Service, going so far as to convene a task force to make recommendations on the subject. That would be disastrous for many remote and rural areas of the country.

USPS typically delivers 470 million pieces of mail each day to all 159 million addresses in the country. Private companies likely would deliver only where they can turn a profit.

“We’re the lifeblood of these small communities,” Elkerton said. “Without a post office, there’s really not a town in some of these areas.”

In addition to providing temporary relief to the USPS, federal lawmaker should repeal the law requiring the agency to prefund its retirees’ health benefits 75 years in advance.

The prefunding mandate was a poison pill that privatization advocates successfully attached to a bigger spending bill in 2006, designed to make the Postal Service appear bankrupt. But no other public or private employer is subject to a prefunding requirement of the kind.

“If you took off the prefunding mandate, it would look like we were actually making money,” Elkerton said. “But it’s a hard thing to explain in sound bites. It’s hard to get that point across.”

Of course, their jobs aren’t the only thing USPS workers have to worry about right now. As essential workers during the pandemic, they risk coming into contact with the novel coronavirus every day.

Anxiety spread throughout the agency after two USPS workers from the same station in New York died after contracting COVID-19.

So far, Minnesota is faring better. At of last week, among 13,000 postal employees in Minnesota and western Wisconsin, which make up the agency’s Northland region, just four had tested positive for the virus, Elkerton said. Minnesota’s USPS workers had seen just one positive case.

“There’s a lot of fear and anxiety, but really we’ve kind of beaten the odds here,” he said.

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Wednesday is Public Post Office Day in Minnesota

November 25, 2019 by

Postal employees rallied against privatization outside the Minneapolis post office on Tax Day last April, reminding the public that the USPS receives no tax dollars for operating expenses. Sale of postage, products and services entirely funds its operations.

Gov. Tim Walz issued a proclamation last week declaring Wednesday, Nov. 27, Public Post Office Day in the state of Minnesota.

The proclamation, signed by both the governor and Secretary of State Steve Simon, is a token of the state’s gratitude for the U.S. Postal Service and its employees as they brace for a busy holiday mailing season.

Aaron Young, president of Local 7019 of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), began lobbying Walz’s office for a Public Post Office Day in Minnesota after learning Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington signed a similar decree last year.

“I was very grateful to Gov. Walz that he did this for us,” Young said. “Hopefully, other states can follow our lead.”

Many post offices across the state are expected to print and display Walz’s proclamation Wednesday, Todd Elkerton, president of the APWU’s St. Paul-area local, said. He called it a well-timed gesture to postal workers and letter carriers.

“Our members work a lot of overtime, trying to deliver the packages and letters for Christmas,” he said. “So it’s great that we’re appreciating the workers that deliver the mail during the holiday season.”

But the proclamation also comes at a pivotal time for the agency.

Postmaster General Megan Brennan has announced plans to retire Jan. 31, 2020. Members of the Postal Service Board of Governors, who are appointed by the president, have begun the process of appointing Brennan’s successor.

The APWU and other postal unions fear President Trump will push the board to appoint someone who shares his hostility to the agency’s public mission.

Last year, Trump formed a task force on postal reform that recommended selling the USPS to corporations for private profit. Unions warn that would result in higher shipping and mailing costs, reduced service and the end of guaranteed delivery.

The U.S. Postal Service delivers 470 million pieces of mail each day to all 159 million addresses in the country. In contrast, private companies likely would deliver only to areas where they can turn a profit.

Trump’s privatization plan has stalled since its unveiling earlier this year, but union members, Young said, worry that could change if a privatizer replaces Brennan as postmaster general.

“A lot of people get depressed when they hear this constant push out of DC for privatization,” Young said. “It seems like it is inevitable, like we’re not going to be able to stop it.”

But the APWU, the National Association of Letter Carriers and other postal unions aren’t giving up so easily. To keep the USPS public, unions are enlisting public support, gathering over 33,000 signatures (and counting) on a petition to “stop the postal sell-off” and ensure the new postmaster general doesn’t support privatization. (Add your name to the petition here.)

Unions are also lining up support in Congress and from elected officials like Walz.

“This proclamation, it gives people hope that we can stop the privatization push,” Young said. “It doesn’t have to be an inevitability.”

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Workers put Trump on notice: ‘The U.S. mail is not for sale!’

October 8, 2018 by

Craig Barrett, who said he has delivered mail for “16 winters” in St. Paul, rallies with fellow Postal Service employees on a national day of action.

Postal Service employees are bringing their unions together to push back against President Trump’s plans to privatize the federal agency.

And their solidarity is paying off.

Letter carriers, postal workers, mail handlers and other USPS employees in Minneapolis — and in communities across the country — rallied today with supporters, putting Trump and federal lawmakers on notice that the U.S. mail should not be for sale.

“As long as we can fight, we’re going to keep fighting to keep our Postal Service going strong,” said Harold Harvey, a member of St. Paul-based Branch 28 of the National Association of Letter Carriers, as he walked an informational picket line outside Minneapolis’ downtown post office.

Todd Elkerton, president of the American Postal Workers Union’s St. Paul chapter, noted the Postal Service is the only federal agency mentioned in the Constitution. “We believe the threat is real,” Elkerton said. “This will be the first time in U.S. history the president has come forward with a proposal to privatize the Postal Service.”

Several signs suggest Trump’s privatization push already is losing steam.

The president can’t sell off the Postal Service without the approval from Congress, and in just three months since Trump pledged action on the issue, a majority of House members and 42 senators have signed onto resolutions in support of keeping the agency under federal control. Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith and all five DFL House members are among the resolutions’ co-sponsors.

It may be no coincidence, then, that the recommendations of Trump’s hand-picked task force on postal reform, delivered to the White House in August, have not yet been released to the public.

Workers who rallied in downtown Minneapolis today said they fear privatization would drastically reduce mail service — especially in rural areas of the country — and cost many of the agency’s 500,000-plus employees their jobs. They pointed out the USPS is the nation’s second-largest employer of military veterans, and union jobs at the post office offer family-sustaining job opportunities to people of all educational backgrounds, races and ethnicities.

Sara Huebner was earning $12 an hour as a vet tech when she applied for a job delivering mail in St. Paul nearly six years ago. The college graduate said she gave up working in her field — “It was a livable wage versus a non-livable wage,” she said — but now worries privatization could send her back to square one.

Fellow St. Paul letter carrier Matt Falbo agreed. He pointed to Amazon as the employment model potential buyers might look to copy with the USPS.

Work at the post office “is good, honest work, and it could all go away if it’s privatized,” Falbo said. “They’ll cut our benefits. They’ll cut our pay. Everything we’ve fought for all these years will start going away.”

Trump and other supporters of privatization claim the Postal Service is broke and a drain on the federal budget, but neither claim passes the truth test. The agency is a self-sustaining, independent establishment of the federal government that does not receive taxpayer funding and relies solely on revenue derived from the sale of postal services and products.

Meanwhile, the Postal Service and its employees continue to enjoy overwhelming support from the Americans they serve. The most recent Pew Research Center poll, released in February 2018, showed that the USPS has an 88 percent favorability rating.

“The mail has been around for 200-plus years,” said Craig Barrett, who has delivered mail for 16 of those years. “It’s something everyone throughout the country relies on, and we’re here to fight for it.”

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Postal unions call National Day of Action to stop privatization

October 3, 2018 by

Postal Service employees and their customers will rally across the country Monday in opposition to President Trump’s proposal to privatize the U.S. mail.

The National Day of Action has support from all four postal unions, including the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) and the Postal Workers (APWU).

In the Twin Cities, union members and supporters will rally over the noon hour Oct. 8, outside the Minneapolis Post Office, 307 S. 4th Ave.

Trump announced his interest in turning over the USPS to private hands in June, and his administration later directed a task force to look into overhauling the mail.

That committee has yet to release its report, but the idea of privatization already has drawn formal – and bipartisan – resistance in Congress.

Last month, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith joined 26 colleagues from both parties in co-sponsoring a resolution to keep the U.S. Postal Service under the control of the federal government.

“It is the sense of the Senate that Congress should take all appropriate measures to ensure that the United States Postal Service remains an independent establishment of the federal government and is not subject to privatization in whole or in part,” the resolution said.

A similar resolution in the House has drawn 197 co-sponsors, including four from Minnesota: Reps. Betty McCollum, Tim Walz, Rick Nolan and Collin Peterson.

Fully privatizing the Postal Service would require Congress to act, and the early, bipartisan support for the resolutions indicate Trump has a steep hill to climb if he pushes forward on the issue.

But postal unions aren’t taking any chances. They warn that privatization would increase prices for consumers, threaten service in rural parts of the country and undermine good jobs.

What’s more, privatization is a solution in search of a problem. The USPS is self-sufficient; taxpayers do not subsidize its operations.

“Privatizing the Postal Service is not in the public interest or the interest of postal workers and would be nothing more than a raid by corporate pirates on a national treasure,” the APWU said in a statement.

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Deal with Postal Service lands Staples on labor’s ‘Don’t Buy’ list

June 3, 2014 by
St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper speaks at the Stop Staples rally in Roseville.

St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper spoke at the Stop Staples rally in Roseville on a nationwide day of action April 24.

staples-dont-buyThe boycott of Staples is official. The AFL-CIO last Friday approved the American Postal Workers Union’s request to add the office-supply retailer to the national federation’s list of endorsed boycotts.

The APWU and other postal unions launched the “Stop Staples” campaign earlier this year, after the U.S. Postal Service announced plans to expand a pilot program placing service counters inside Staples stores.

The counters are not staffed by sworn USPS employees, but by Staples employees who, when working full time, earn about $18,000 per year – and receive little training on how to handle the mail.

Postal Workers, Letter Carriers and other union members at a rally outside Staples in Roseville, part of a nationwide day of action April 24, decried the pilot program as a privatization scheme that threatens both middle-class jobs and the security of the mail.

With the recently approved boycott, postal unions are taking the “Stop Staples” campaign to the next level.

“Our brothers and sisters in the labor movement are key allies in this struggle and we greatly appreciate their support,” APWU President Mark Dimondstein said. “The ‘Don’t Buy Staples’ campaign is an essential component of the movement to stop the dirty deal between the U.S. Postal Service and Staples.”

St. Paul Area APWU President Todd Elkerton said Staples is already feeling the heat.

“In the Boston Globe on May 21, in an article titled ‘Postal union targets Staples over mail service program,’ a Staples executive is quoted as saying that Staples is not interested in getting in the middle of a fight between the post office and its union,” Elkerton said. “It goes on to say this executive acknowledges that it could become a problem if more unions backed the postal workers.”

All four unions representing USPS workers – the APWU, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Postal Mail Handlers and the Rural Letter Carriers – have backed the “Stop Staples” campaign, and the AFL-CIO’s boycott will tap into the consumer power of 56 nationwide unions representing 12.5 million members.

Teachers, in particular, will play a key role in the boycott, Elkerton hoped. According to some estimates, about one-third of Staples’ revenue comes from the sale of school supplies.

The American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.5 million teachers nationwide, is expected to consider a ‘Don’t Buy Staples’ resolution at its national convention in July.

“We greatly appreciate the expressions of solidarity from the teachers’ unions,” Elkerton said. “Educators and all union members will be key allies in this campaign.”

web.staples-staples

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Postal workers to Staples: ‘The U.S. mail is not for sale!’

April 30, 2014 by

web.staples-staplesU.S. Postal Service employees from the Twin Cities rallied with supporters April 24 outside a Staples store in Roseville, part of a nationwide day of action opposing plans to put USPS service counters inside Staples locations across the country.

Already, 82 Staples stores in Georgia, California, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts house USPS service counters, and postal administrators hope to expand to other locations – and, potentially, other retail chains – if the pilot program is successful.

But union members at the rally decried the pilot program as a privatization scheme that threatens middle-class jobs and undermines the security of the mail.

Supporters of the Stop Staples campaign march outside the Roseville location during a nationwide day of action.

Supporters of the Stop Staples campaign march outside the Roseville location during a nationwide day of action.

All four unions representing USPS workers – the American Postal Workers Union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Postal Mail Handlers and the Rural Letter Carriers – are united in opposition to the program.

“For a while we splintered, but we’re standing together on this,” said Dan Garhofer, president of St. Paul-based Branch 28 of the Letter Carriers.

“If you pick on one of us, you get all of us,” added Mike Zagaros, president of Branch 9 in Minneapolis. “That’s what unions are all about.”

Increased access – at a cost

The Staples plan won support from Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe as a way to increase public access to postal services, but postal union members raised several objections at the rally.

Allowing Staples employees to do postal work, they said, undermines the security of the mail. Uniformed postal workers swear an oath to protect the safety and security of the mail. They must pass a background check before being hired, and, once on the job, they go through trainings that equip them to uphold their oath.

Additionally, workers say the pilot program threatens USPS jobs, which offer middle-class wages and benefits, in favor of low-wage, high-turnover jobs like the ones at Staples.

“This is an attack on the postal unions,” Zagaros said. “This is an attack on the middle class. This is an attack on good-paying jobs.”

AFSCME Council 5's Eliot Seide pledges support for postal workers.

AFSCME Council 5’s Eliot Seide pledges support for postal workers.

Community support

The rally drew about 100 people, including U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, a DFLer from Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, and Mike Obermueller, the DFL-endorsed candidate in the state’s 2nd District.

Ellison called the Postal Service “the great American melting pot” when it comes to providing middle-class employment, and he noted its commitment to hiring military veterans upon their re-entry into the workforce.

The strong turnout, Ellison added, was proof postal workers are not alone in the fight to stop Staples. “May America always stand with the post office,” Ellison said. “You are not alone. We are with you. Do not put our mail up for sale.”

Representatives of other unions, including the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, also pledged support for the Stop Staples campaign.

“We want the profits from the Postal Service to go back into the Postal Service, not some CEO’s pocket,” Minnesota Nurses Association President Linda Hamilton said.

Added Eliot Seide, director of Council 5 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees: “Staples can sell paperclips, but they can’t sell the mail. We won’t stop until Staples gives up its claim, and the mail is handled by professional postal employees.”

St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper speaks at the Stop Staples rally in Roseville.

St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Bobby Kasper speaks at the Stop Staples rally in Roseville.

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Letter to the Editor: State Fair trip provides another sign of postal privatization

September 30, 2013 by
The Minnesota State Fair’s on-site post office had a new look in 2013 (right), ditching the U.S. Postal Service logo present a year earlier – and stoking concerns about privatization of the postal service.

The Minnesota State Fair’s on-site post office had a new look in 2013 (right), ditching the U.S. Postal Service logo present a year earlier – and stoking concerns about privatization of the postal service.

Our Minnesota State Fair prides itself in offering new things to be found on the fairgrounds each year. But this year, I found one of the State Fair’s new offerings distressing – and insulting – to me.

I have regularly attended our “Great Minnesota Get-Together” since childhood, and for as long as I can remember the U.S. Postal Service has maintained an on-site post office, providing fairgoers with complete mailing services as well as offering special souvenir cancellations. It also provided St. Paul postal workers with choice temporary assignments.

Those days appear to be over. This year the eagle on the decades-old USPS mailbox was covered over with the corporate competitor UPS logo.

Postal management’s plan to privatize the people’s post office marches on. From the fair to our neighborhoods – one distribution center, one post office, one union job and one mailbox at a time.

You can help prevent further erosion, preserve a people’s post office and protect union jobs by asking your congressional representatives to support The Postal Service Protection Act (S.316 in the Senate and H.R. 630 in the House).

– Mike Mazurkiewicz

The writer is a retired St Paul postal clerk and former editor of the newsletter for members of Local 65 of the American Postal Workers Union, “The Postmark.”

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