4/24 Postal Workers Staples National Day Of Action Against Privatization- Bay Area Protests April 24, 2014

Postal Workers Staples National Day Of Action Against Privatization- Bay Area Protests April 24, 2014
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www.stopstaples.com

Postal Workers Staples National Day Of Action Against Privatization- Bay Area Protests April 24, 2014-Corrupt Blum-Feinstein Connection
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www.stopstaples.com

BAY AREA EVENTS:

SAN FRANCISCO
Time: 10:00 AM
Address: 1700 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94109
SAN LEANDRO
Time: 1:00 PM
Address: 15555 East 14th Street #200, San Leandro, CA 94578
CAMPBELL
Time: 3:30 PM
Address: 500 East Hamilton Avenue, Campbell, CA 95008

APWU Pres Mark Dimondstein Calls For Defense Of The People's Post Office
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_06Asbv49fU&feature=
On April 4, 2014, Mark Dimondstein president of the American Postal Workers Union spoke in Chicago at the Labor Notes convention on how to defend the People's Post Office. He also discussed the union's new effort to establish a public postal bank system for millions of poor and working people who do not have access to the commercial banks.
For more information on APWU go to www.apwu.org
Production of Labor Video Project www.laborvideo.org

Staples’ selling postal products without USPS workers stirs fears of privatization
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/staples-sellin...
The Federal Diary
Joe Davidson
Staples’ selling postal products without USPS workers stirs fears of privatization

By Joe Davidson, Thursday, January 16, 5:59 PM E-mail the writers
With its steep financial challenges, the U.S. Postal Service desperately needs to find innovative solutions, including new ways to deliver services to the public.

A pilot project with Staples stores around the nation does that.

But feeling ignored in this equation are postal workers left watching as their jobs go to private employers who can pay their employees less, even as postal employment plummets.

The largest postal employee union and a U.S. senator say the pilot also is a step toward privatization of the USPS, an assertion the postmaster general vehemently denies.

Here’s the story:

The Staples pilot project, called the Retail Partner Expansion Program, began in October. Eighty-two stores nationwide, though none in the D.C. area, have sections resembling mini-post offices. They sell a variety of products and services, including stamps, Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express and package handling. Staples doesn’t offer registered mail, money orders, stamped envelopes or post office boxes.

“Our goal,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in an interview, “is to provide universal access to products and services, and if we can do that through agreements with companies like Staples . . . we need to do that. . . . It gives us an opportunity to grow the business.”

That’s cool, as far as the American Postal Workers Union is concerned, but why not have postal employees work those counters in Staples? “I can’t dictate to Staples what their hiring policies should be,” said Donahoe, who is chief executive of the Postal Service.

But can’t USPS say it wants a postal employee to sell postal products at a postal counter in Staples? “It would never be my intention to do that,” he said. “That’s their business. . . .That’s their call.”

It’s the wrong call, APWU President Mark Dimondstein said.

“This is a direct assault on our jobs and on public postal services,” he said in a statement. “The APWU supports the expansion of postal services. But we are adamantly opposed to USPS plans to replace good-paying union jobs with non-union low-wage jobs held by workers who have no accountability for the safety and security of the mail.”

Carrie McElwee, a Staples spokeswoman, would not discuss the pay or union status of the company’s workforce.

Dimondstein also fears that the Staples experiment foreshadows a privatization of the U.S. Postal Service. He is concerned about maintaining “the infrastructure of the Postal Service that belongs to the people of this country.”

The APWU is willing to go along with the Staples project if it uses postal employees, “but we also have to be very careful that the private companies don’t become the Postal Service, because those private companies can be here today and [not] be here tomorrow,” Dimondstein said by phone. “We don’t want private companies making decisions about what’s best for the public good and the public service when their bottom line is simply profit.”

Donahoe said the Staples project is good for the public and for postal employees, too.

“My goal is to grow the business,” he said. “If we grow the business, that benefits 490,000 career employees and another 100,000-plus non-career. It’s good for everybody.”

The number of postal workers has fallen by about 44 percent since 2000, Donahoe said. TheBureau of Labor Statistics has projected these declines in the postal workforce between 2012 and 2022: postal mail sorters, processors and processing-machine operators, 30 percent; mail carriers, 27 percent; and mail superintendents, 24 percent. Postal finances are improving, but the Postal Service lost $5 billion in fiscal 2013.

Donahoe said privatization “would be a crazy idea. I think the Postal Service as structured is a great service provider. . . . Why would we ever put anything like that at risk?”

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), chairman of the federal workforce subcommittee, doesn’t think USPS provides great service, and he also warns against privatization. Tester said he doesn’t object to postal products being sold in stores, but he was critical of Donahoe for seeking to shut postal facilities, which Tester said would delay deliveries.

Delivery standards are a personal issue with Tester, an issue he wants addressed in postal reform legislation that has bounced around Capitol Hill for years.

“I’ve been late for house payments” because of poor delivery resulting from the closing of processing centers, he said in an office interview. He said his wife mails payments a week earlier than previously.

“What I see this postmaster general doing is shutting down post offices, then saying let Staples do it,” Tester said. “Well, guess what: I don’t have a Staples.” Tester farms wheat outside Big Sandy, Mont., which has 600 residents.

Donahoe “can say whatever he wants,” Tester said, “but I think he wants to privatize. And I think there’s plenty of people in Congress who agree with that. I don’t.”

Previous columns by Joe Davidson are available at wapo.st/JoeDavidson.

Corrupt Blum-Feinstein Privatization Scheme To Profit In Sell Off Of US Post Offices
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inspector-general-criticizes-usps...
Inspector general criticizes USPS relationship with real estate representative CBRE

By Lisa Rein, Published: February 20 E-mail the writer
The U.S. Postal Service is putting itself at financial risk by allowing an outside real estate firm to negotiate sales and leases of postal property on behalf of the mail agency and prospective buyers and renters at the same time, a watchdog warned this week.

The practice, called “dual agency representation,” has the potential to create conflicts of interest for CBRE, with the result that the real estate company might not maximize revenue for the financially ailing Postal Service.

“CBRE conflicts of interest could lead to financial loss to the Postal Service and decrease public trust in the Postal Service’s brand,” USPS Inspector General David C. Williams said Wednesday in a “management alert” that strongly recommends that the arrangement be scrapped.

The Postal Service and the firm have been targeted by critics for the selling off of historic post office buildings, at what preservationists say have been relatively low prices and without adequate public notice or effort to adhere to federal preservation guidelines.

The chairman of CBRE’s board of directors is Richard C. Blum, who is married to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a fact that has heightened scrutiny of the relationship between the Postal Service and the real estate firm. Wednesday’s report did not address the historic buildings or Blum.

In the report, the inspector general urged postal officials to switch to arm’s length transactions, in which CBRE would represent only the agency. The change, the report said, would ensure that contract terms do not give too much financial control to buyers or to sellers.

“We do not believe allowing the arrangement is in the Postal Service’s best interest,” Michael A. Magalski, deputy assistant inspector general for support operations, wrote to postal officials.

“When representing the Postal Service, it is important for CBRE to be focused on maximizing revenue when negotiating sales and leases of Postal Service properties and reducing costs when negotiating leases of properties for the Postal Service to occupy,” Magalski wrote. “This focus is compromised when it is also representing the interests of the buyer, lessee, or lessor.”

Postal officials told Magalski that they do not plan to stop the practice of dual representation, arguing that it gives them wider exposure to potential buyers or renters and ensures healthy competition. Such arrangements also are allowed under CBRE’s contract with the General Services Administration, postal officials said.

“The Postal Service appreciates the time and effort that the [Office of Inspector General] invested in preparing the Management Alert, however, it does not agree with the OIG in this instance,” Sue Brennan, a Postal Service spokeswoman, said in a statement. Postal officials believe that “following their recommendation is not in the best interests of the Postal Service.”

She said the agency “has put in place reporting and consent requirements to minimize any risks associated with conflict of interest.”

But the inspector general said “no consensus exists as to the benefits associated with a dual agency arrangement.”

In a statement, CBRE said the company “undertakes to maximize the value of each asset disposition” for the Postal Service, whose properties have “consistently” been sold at or above the appraised value provided by a third party.

“All properties are sold on an arm’s length basis after broad exposure to the market,” the company said.

Wednesday’s report is the latest in a string of controversies involving the Postal Service’s contract with CBRE, a $7 billion Fortune 500 company the agency made its exclusive real estate agent in 2011. The Postal Service leases about 24,000 post offices and other properties and owns about 9,000 more.

The company said that Blum, as its “non-executive” chairman, plays no role in day-to-day operations and was unaware of the contract with the Postal Service when it was awarded. His investment firm owns 41 / 2 percent of CBRE’s outstanding shares.

Feinstein’s office has said the senator does not discuss her husband’s business decisions with him — and that Congress has no role in choosing which companies do business with the Postal Service.

Williams is also conducting a detailed audit of postal real estate transactions handled by CBRE, “given the multiple roles CBRE plays for the Postal Service and within the real estate industry,” the report said.

Opponents of the sales of historic post office buildings got nonbinding language in the recent federal budget that supports blocking further sales until the Office of Inspector General completes its probe of the agency’s process for transferring ownership of its buildings.

The contract with CBRE requires the firm to notify postal officials of any actual or potential conflicts of interest within five days of a request for or ordering of contract work.

The company has submitted 10 “dual agency” disclosure letters detailing transactions in which it represented both the Postal Service and potential buyers or renters, the inspector general said. It represented both parties in three of those transactions before the contract with the Postal Service was changed in June 2012 to allow for dual representation.