{"id":7576,"date":"2014-05-15T15:59:06","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T20:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=7576"},"modified":"2014-05-15T15:59:06","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T20:59:06","slug":"post-offices-close-early-send-customers-to-staples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2014\/05\/15\/post-offices-close-early-send-customers-to-staples\/","title":{"rendered":"Post Offices Close Early, Send Customers to Staples"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sign on the Door Says It All<\/h1>\n
Post Offices Close Early, Send Customers to Staples<\/div>\n
\n

May 15, 2014 – Hours have been cut at 16 post offices within a five-mile radius of the San Francisco Staples store that has a postal counter, according to information obtained by the APWU.<\/p>\n

A sign on the post office door [see image below] directs customers who arrive after the new 5 p.m. closing time to other post offices \u2013 and to the Staples store.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is more evidence of the true purpose of the Postal Service\u2019s dirty deal with Staples,\u201d said APWU President Mark Dimondstein. \u201cUSPS management is telling customers to get postal services at Staples, while making it more difficult to get services at traditional post offices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe message is clear: Postal bosses are trying to privatize major portions of the United States Postal Service, our great national treasure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

An app on www.usps.com<\/a> shows 37 post offices within a five-mile radius<\/a> of the Staples store at 1700 Van Ness Avenue. Hours were cut back at 16 of the stations beginning on May 4. Two other nearby offices are scheduled for curtailed hours beginning on June 8. Hours were also cut at several post offices near Staples stores with postal counters in and Santa Clara and Marin County, CA.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe in expanded service and longer hours,\u201d Dimondstein said. \u201cClosing the door at 5 p.m. means customers can\u2019t stop at the post office after work \u2013 a prime time for conducting postal business.<\/p>\n

\u201cCutting post office hours while encouraging customers to visit Staples \u2013 or other retail outlets \u2013 is sabotaging the future of the Postal Service, as well as postal jobs,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In a Jan. 19 Associated Press<\/a> article, Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe denied that Staples stores would replace any of the 33,000 traditional post offices. And in a video message to employees, he said the Staples deal \u201cgives customers more choices on where and when they can purchase postal products and services.\u201d<\/p>\n

But reducing the hours of operation at post offices inconveniences customers, limits their choices, and pushes them into Staples stores instead of post offices, Dimondstein said.<\/p>\n

The union says the Staples deal will replace good, living-wage jobs with low-wage, high-turnover jobs at the office-supply chain, a charge the Postmaster General denies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Postmaster General isn\u2019t being truthful,\u201d Dimondstein said. \u201cAfter driving customers away, postal management will conduct a study of traffic in post offices and find that it\u2019s gone down. Then, they\u2019ll claim to have the evidence they need to justify closing post offices,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPostal customers have a right to post offices that are open when they need them, staffed by workers who are accountable to the American people,\u201d Dimondstein added. \u201cWe intend to make sure they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Postal management didn\u2019t notify the APWU of the change in hours and the resulting change in union members\u2019 assignments, San Francisco Local President Geoffray Dumaguit wrote in a May 7 letter to the San Francisco Postmaster.<\/p>\n

\"send-customers-to-staples\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sign on the Door Says It All Post Offices Close Early, Send Customers to Staples May 15, 2014 – Hours have been cut at 16 post offices within a five-mile radius of the San Francisco Staples store that has a postal counter, according to information obtained by the APWU. A sign on the post […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apwu-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7578,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7576\/revisions\/7578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}