{"id":9971,"date":"2015-02-05T08:19:25","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T13:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=9971"},"modified":"2015-02-05T08:19:25","modified_gmt":"2015-02-05T13:19:25","slug":"apwu-to-vigorously-oppose-staplesoffice-depot-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2015\/02\/05\/apwu-to-vigorously-oppose-staplesoffice-depot-merger\/","title":{"rendered":"APWU to \u201cVigorously Oppose\u201d Staples\/Office Depot Merger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Washington<\/strong><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u2013 The American Postal Workers Union announced today that the 200,000\u2013member organization will \u201cvigorously oppose\u201d the merger between Staples and Office Depot.\u00a0\u201cWe will urge the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to block this monopolistic and unlawful merger now, just as they did 17 years ago,\u201d said APWU President Mark Dimondstein. \u201cAnd we call on Congress to weigh in with the FTC and the Department of Justice to stop it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA Staples takeover of Office Depot would lead to higher prices for <a href=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/1aa-APWU-small.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-7249\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/1aa-APWU-small.gif\" alt=\"1aa-APWU-small\" width=\"295\" height=\"182\" \/><\/a>consumers and store closings that would affect employees and customers alike,\u201d Dimondstein said. \u201cThere are new grounds to block this combination as well,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>In the past year, over the objections of the APWU, consumer organizations, civil rights advocates and teacher groups, Staples has begun offering mail services at its retail stores. In doing so, Staples has replaced highly-trained USPS workers with its own unskilled, low-wage employees. Concurrently, the USPS has reduced hours in some post offices and encouraged customers to use Staples stores instead.<\/p>\n<p>In documents obtained by the union, the Postal Service outlined plans to transfer USPS work to Staples in order to reduce employment and hours of service to the public in neighborhood post offices. \u201cThe transfer of living-wage jobs to low-wage, poverty-level jobs is not in the public interest,\u201d Dimondstein said. \u201cStaples is an anti-worker corporation, and we don\u2019t want to see its reach expanded. We will vigorously oppose this merger. It\u2019s bad for workers and bad for consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>APWU will begin reaching out to allies in the civil rights and labor communities to join the union in opposing the merger.<\/p>\n<p>Since January 2014, the American Postal Workers Union and its allies have been staging protests at hundreds of Staples stores in opposition to the retailer\u2019s deal with the U.S. Postal Service to offer postal services. A boycott of the office-supply store, which began in April, is ongoing.<\/p>\n<p>For more information visit<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stopstaples.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Stop Staples.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington\u00a0\u2013 The American Postal Workers Union announced today that the 200,000\u2013member organization will \u201cvigorously oppose\u201d the merger between Staples and Office Depot.\u00a0\u201cWe will urge the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to block this monopolistic and unlawful merger now, just as they did 17 years ago,\u201d said APWU President Mark Dimondstein. \u201cAnd we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","category-apwu-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9971","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=9971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9972,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9971\/revisions\/9972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}