USPS or the U.S. Postal Service will end its Staples collaboration as it will no longer offer its full set of services in the store.
USPS or the U.S. Postal Service will end its Staples collaboration as it will no longer offer its full set of services in their stores.
The USPS or the United States Postal Service first became a U.S. government agency in 1971. Since then, it has expanded and attained quite a renown. It is considered to have the world’s largest civilian fleet. It reportedly operates more than 211,000 vehicles. USPS also has about 620,000 active employees.
Back in late 2013, the postal services released an announcement. In it, they outlined their future collaboration with Staples. The two launched a pilot program.
According to it, USPS would start operating in the chain’s stores. Staples Inc. is based in Brighton, Massachusetts. It is an office supply retailer corporation. Its services have expanded and are available in 26 countries. Staples has more than 3,000 stores worldwide.
Starting with 2013, its stores also had postal mini booths. The pilot program started out on a small-scale. Initial market tests were carried out in Pittsburgh and Atlanta. The Boston suburbs and San Francisco Bay Area were also included in the pilot.
Since then, the USPS -Staples collaboration expanded. However, it also had to face critique and protests. Starting with early 2014, the APWU began contesting the partnership.
The APWU is the American Postal Workers Union. It has been protesting against the said collaboration for almost 3 years. As of 2014, the union has organized rallies, held protests and other similar demonstrations. Its targets were the Staples headquarters and various retail locations.
The sometimes thousands of protestors had a specific slogan. “The U.S. Mail Is Not For Sale!” On Thursday, the union was notified of the following fact.
USPS will no longer be offering its services in Staples stores. The collaboration will end by March 2017. As such, users will no longer be able to mail anything from Staples stores.
However, they will be able to pick up some envelopes. Their size will not matter.
As the deal ended, Staples stores will be removing USPS markings. As it is, the former will be removing all such signage. Postal services will also be discontinued in all the Staples locations.
About 500 of the retailer’s stores offered postal services. By the first week of March, they will have stopped doing so.
Following the announcement, APWU representatives also went to offer a statement. They declared that they will put a stop to the Staples boycott. This decision will be effective immediately.
As such, it will be notifying its allies and supporters of the matter. APWU was joined in its Staples – USPS boycott by a number of other unions.
One such union is the AFL-CIO. This is The National Association of Letter Carriers. The National Postal Mail Handlers Union also joined in the efforts. U.S.’s largest teacher unions were also part of the movement.
Mark Dimondstein, the APWU President, went to offer details. According to him, the union was trying to fight against the postal privatization.
They held that such a process would undermine the post’s services. A privatization process would have brought significant changes. One such change would have the postal services’ quality and security, according to APWU.
Dimondsein applauded the USPS decision. According to his statement, the collaboration should not have been initiated. He states that the Staples postal services quality is not up to the postal standards.
He pointed out that the public should “have confidence” in the postal services and mail.
Image Source: Wikimedia
Michael Turner
