Unions threaten protests, boycotts over Postal Service's Staples outlets

here is the link to the story Postal Union Threatens

The opening of Postal Service retail centers in dozens of Staples stores around the country is being met with threats of protests and boycotts by the agency's unions.

The new outlets are staffed by Staples employees, not postal workers, and labor officials say that move replaces good-paying union jobs with low-wage, nonunion workers.

"It's a direct assault on our jobs and on public postal services," said Mark Dimondstein, president of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union.

The dispute comes as the financially struggling Postal Service continues to form partnerships with private companies, and looks to cut costs and boost revenues. The deal with Staples began as a pilot program in November at 84 stores in California, Georgia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania as a way make it easier for customers to buy stamps, send packages or use Priority and certified mail.

Has not anyone ever looked at the problem of failing bankrupting businesses and cities seriously enough to address the problem? Or is it the mentality that as long as it doesn't affect me I don't give a hoot?

The problem that has happened and the reason behind many corporations moving their factories and head-quarters to other countries is because of the Very High and uncompromising wage and retirement package demands of the Unions.

here is another quote from the article which proves my point. $25 an hour for what? They disrespect and treat customers with contempt. Even the Janitors get paid this minimum postal workers wage.

The union says it's not asking to shut down the program. It wants the counters to be run by postal employees, not workers hired by Staples. The average postal clerk earns about $25 an hour, according to the union, plus a generous package of health and retirement benefits. The Staples post office counters are run by nonunion workers often making little more than the minimum wage.

Companies moved because wages were so high in the US that they were no longer making profits but were in fact paying out to retirement packages more than their profits could handle. A company that exists for 50 years has two sets of retirees collecting pensions while having only one set of active employees doing minimum production output. It is like paying out three times as much in wages but only bringing in one third the money needed to sustain it.

Unions are the reason behind this as they promising the employees an utopian wage scale that never figured into the fact that retirees are living longer and longer lives. Not only that the Unions negotiate the highest wage for the minimum amount of work. The average worker in the US puts out about 4 hours worth of actual work while being paid for 8. Then if they are ask to stay longer they get double time and for two extra hours they only put out 25 minutes of actual work time.

In short Unions and the employees they represent have milked the companies while employed and these low work out put employees continue this milking after retirement at 90% of their current wage and in the end cause the companies to be over burdened with high cash outflow while having a minimum cash in flow.

The current story about the Post office employees union boycotting the USPS deals with private companies shows just how much Unions don't care about the employees or USPS and other companies as long as they get those Union dues. All They want is over paid workers for minimum amount of work. The post offices near collapse under these Union plans is what had drove the USPS to go to private companies where the same work can be done for less and increase profits to help offset the wages of the higher paid Union employees who do less work for the highest wage.

If the USPS doesn't get rid of the Union (and other companies to boot) the whole economic system will collapse under the weight of over paid and under worked union employees.

The USPS current situation was caused directly by human greed of the workers who want it all now and the unions insistence through protest to get what they want for these low work out put employees or we shut it down.

When will they learn you can't have your cake and eat it too?

Unions and the employees who are part of them are the problem. They have driven businesses away from the US markets to other countries and in the end we have no employment opportunities for the next generation.

If we continue to let Unions run this country then it is doomed to failure.

reply to post by ChesterJohn


Wow.

That is just appalling. And they try and defend that?

Are you kidding me? That should be a lawsuit.

Or at the very least, force staples to pay minimum 75% of wages and benefits afforded to workers in the same space.

~Tenth

Somehow I don't feel comfortable entrusting a $5.50 an hour worker with my mail.


I lived down in Central and South America for a while, and they don't have a postal system like us. The system they did have you couldn't trust with much of anything. It made me appreciate the postal system in the US since then I feel the USPS is an essential part of our country and even if it operates at a loss I still think it is worth having.

Where I live just about all the postal employes are veterans many with a disability. I know they give preference to vets with disabilities first then vets, it used to be a job you could count on when getting out of the service or you would at least get on the list. A lot of vets working there wouldn't be able to find work in many other fields some wouldn't be able to at all so I guess without that they would just have to shoot for full disability.

I didn't know it was $25 an hour it makes me wish I had applied back when I got out.

tothetenthpower
reply to post by ChesterJohn

 

Wow.

That is just appalling. And they try and defend that?

Are you kidding me? That should be a lawsuit.

Or at the very least, force staples to pay minimum 75% of wages and benefits afforded to workers in the same space.

~Tenth

Are you being serious? Did you even read the well written OP?

You are part of the problem the OP was talking about.

ChesterJohn


The problem that has happened and the reason behind many corporations moving their factories and head-quarters to other countries is because of the Very High and uncompromising wage and retirement package demands of the Unions.

It's always been that way.

When asked what organized labor wanted, Samuel Gompers (who became the first head of the AFL in 1886) replied "More". This remains the essential purpose of labor unions to this day: to get "more". More than what? More than "market".

People won't work for nothing. Even without unions, companies must offer an overall package (wages, benefits, working conditions) sufficient to attract and retain the workers that they need. The interaction between the company's needs and the workers' alternatives sets the "market wage".

Source

The problem is that the unions have not budged from that mindset. Further in the article there's a statement that basically says that unions are not needed to set a wage for a company that will attract workers. Companies themselves will do that because the wage comes out of the company's payroll that allocates certain wages based on their relevant competition (market wage), not some union till.

There are still pockets in America where unions are still viable, but those pockets are shrinking in tandem to the globalization of businesses. America isn't the financial island it once was. It's also no coincidence that there are now more Government jobs that are unionized than there are private sector jobs, which is probably the main reason the union is all up in arms about what Staples is doing. They're going after the last stronghold that the unions have.

All in all, the entire concept of a union is antiquated and the practice is counterproductive because their bottom line doesn't account for anything outside of the union. If anything, blame union workers for constantly wanting more. Their bank accounts may look nice, but it's at the expense of others.

Being part of the problem myself Sheet Metal Workers local #7, it does seem sometimes union demands seem outrageous to some.
But in reality these stores are taking their work. Essentially taking food off their childrens plate. I'm sure many of you won't see it that way but it is the truth.
Now if they have nothing more than a mail slot to drop mail into I don't see the need for a postal worker. But if they are offering full post office services, then they should have a postal employee.

$25 dollars an hour, why thats 50k a year. Who really deserves to be filthy rich like that? And overtime...the greedy bastards.
Shouldn't everybody work for $5 an hour 18 hours a day 7 days a week?
And a pension on top of that...

Did you enjoy your weekend? Thank the unions for that

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Seriously ? I will be the first to complain about the job and wage issues we are facing but this is ridiculous. First off labor unions are a major part of our problem. Nothing a postal clerk does is worth $25 an hour or more. They should be paid what the job is worth. A burger flipper at McNasties is not worth more than minimum wage. I do not blame the Post Office for this one.

The biggest problem I see is postal clerks making $25.00 an hour in the first place. The post office hemorrhages money and runs at an obscene loss yearly and yet much like always when dealing with inept government management, they grossly overpay their low skilled workers.

Of course they run at a loss, of course they are losing money. Now, I don't agree with what they are doing, if there is a USPS postal center in staples, it should be ran by USPS union employees just........ Those union employees should be making far less than $25.00 an hour.

First, I have to say that every time I send a letter across the country and it gets to where it is supposed to be I am somewhat amazed. IMO the Post Office is the face of the real problems in Government. Too many people getting too much for, too little.

Federal and State Government jobs are hands down the best paying and most secure of them all.

Here in California my Aunt was the Director of Personal for a very large State Agency. When doing an audit on her employees she found one fella that had spent over 2000 hours watching online porn instead of working. She would have LOVED to fire him outright. However it was smarter and less expensive (Due to the grievance process for State Workers) to simply have him pay back the loss by working 2000 hours with no pay.

Now most of us would simply quit and find another job rather than pay back that much time. However the State Retirement package here is so damn incredible he put in the time to keep his retirement.

My family and their friends all have gotten quite comfy on the State Jobs.

tinner07
Being part of the problem myself Sheet Metal Workers local #7, it does seem sometimes union demands seem outrageous to some.
But in reality these stores are taking their work. Essentially taking food off their childrens plate. I'm sure many of you won't see it that way but it is the truth.
Now if they have nothing more than a mail slot to drop mail into I don't see the need for a postal worker. But if they are offering full post office services, then they should have a postal employee.

$25 dollars an hour, why thats 50k a year. Who really deserves to be filthy rich like that? And overtime...the greedy bastards.
Shouldn't everybody work for $5 an hour 18 hours a day 7 days a week?
And a pension on top of that...

Did you enjoy your weekend? Thank the unions for that

No, the USPS knows it must raise revenues and if it doesn't it will colapse under thewieght of the retirement plans that are being paid out annually. The USPS is unsustainable in its current form so it must be reformed.

USPS opening in Staples is more of a convenience move to get more people to use the USPS rather than FedEx and UPS. In this case the USPS must be competitive and if you place union workers in these convenient locations the USPS wont be competitive in price, and people will still use the other sources to get their packages from one place to another.

Why is the USPS costing us more to use than private companies?

Overpaid workers who do very little work and get very good health, dental, retirement and vacation packages. Not to mention they get on the average two paid days off a month in Holidays.

I use FedEx smart mail which is cheaper than the USPS but this service uses the USPS to deliver the packages go figure that one out.

Why is it cheaper?

Because the FedEx employees are have a lower wage and FedEx has a lower overhead than the USPS. The USPS still does the work but for less cost.

the USPS is in it's death throngs. I go to the mailbox once a week and if I manage to get something useful it's very rare. Mostly it's bills for people I have never heard of so I just throw it away. Seems to be a new way to live go to the hospital and give them a fake address then there's nothing to worry about. On the other hand we have gotten a few checks for people we have never heard of that we can cash no problems if we choose to.

Ever go to a post office. Many of the clerks act like serving customers is asking to much. They seem to be paid to chit chat with other employees and occasionally handle customers.

Funny thing is I think the ability to send a letter across the country is worth a buck. All my bills are on auto pay online so I doubt I send out a dozen letters a year.

I love how Unions love to use their power to send their employers into bankruptcy.