For Labor Day 2015, take a minute to stick up for postal workers (and your US Postal Service) and to stick it to Staples, a union-busting, privatizing, super-exploiting monopoly that would have been right at home in the Robber Baron era of the late 1800s.
Why you should:
Staples is trying to hijack the USPS, setting up little fake post offices in store after store, staffed not by trained union postal workers but Staples kids. The chain's business model calls for paying minimum wage, holding workers (even techs and managers) under 25 hours a week to avoid paying any benefits, using computer algorithms to change workers' schedules on a day to day basis. Top postal management is complicit, using their deal with Staples as an excuse to cut the unionized postal workforce, close more local post offices in rural areas and poor city neighborhoods, and erode service standards.
Why else you should:
Financed by Bain Capital, Staples pioneered the idea of the office superstore chain, which has driven thousands of smaller, local office supply and office furniture stores out of business around the country over the last 25 years. Now Office Max is dead and Staples is moving to absorb Office Depot and become a true monopoly with no real competition.
How you can help:
First, sign the online petition linked here. Usually online petitions are weak weapons, but the Federal Trade Commission is holding hearings right now about whether or not the Staples/Office Depot "merger" should be permitted. They need to hear from everyday folks and not just the big and middle-sized corporations who have been testifying about how the merger will affect them.
Second, spread the word. If you are on Facebook, copy this text (including the url) and paste it on your Facebook wall. Repost it in online labor, education and other progressive groups you belong to.
Thank you for defending, the USPS, your Postal Service, for standing up for postal workers and for being a 21st Century trust-buster!