I just saw this news on MSN and did a quick search to find out some background on the story.
Unions angered by Postal Service's Staples outlets
It seems the 4 Governors of the Post Office appointed Patrick Donahoe as the Post Master General and he has gone on to create a partnership with private corporations, specifically Staples, to hire minimum wage employees to do Postal Worker Jobs.
Privatization is king even at the Post Office these days.
The article linked above tells us that the Post Office is struggling financially yet fails to mention why.
The Republican controlled Congress, in 2006 mandated that the Post Office prefund, for 75 years, all employee benefits! No private or public agency has ever had to do that!
The Plot to Kill the Post Office...And Its Union Contracts
Rolando lays out the real root of the problem: "The problem lies elsewhere: the 2006 congressional mandate that the USPS pre-fund future retiree health benefits for the next 75 years, and do so within a decade, an obligation no other public agency or private firm faces. The roughly $5.5 billion annual payments since 2007 — $21 billion total — are the difference between a positive and negative ledger."
Included in that 2006 congressional mandate was the banning of the USPS from offering other services, such as copying, faxing, emailing and prepaid card services. I never could understand why my local Post Office's copy machine never worked. I asked one of the longtime employees there and he told me,
"We don't own them anymore."
Recall the furor over the Post Master General's attempts to move them to a 5 day work week and close more than 3,700 locations throughout the US? Donahoe claimed the move would save $3 billion. This same man then tired to cut the employee benefits and remove postal employees and retirees from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program completely.
This latest move is on par to destroy and then privatize the most successful government agency in our history and they're doing it on the backs of Union Employees.
Further background resources:
The Great Postal Giveaway USPS Sends Jobs, Work to Staples
Shock Doctrine at the US Postal Service is a manufactured crisis