Back-to-school shoppers beware: The boycott of office supply giant Staples continues.
Despite a murky announcement recently that the U.S. Postal Service and Staples had ended a program to set up mini-post offices in the company’s retail outlets – costing postal worker jobs – the American Postal Workers Union says it’s just not so.
“Staples and the USPS have made it clear,” said APWU President Mark Dimondstein. “They intend to continue to privatize postal retail operations, replace living-wage Postal Service jobs with low-wage Staples jobs and compromise the safety and security of the mail.”
APWU has called for a boycott of Staples and has encouraged educators and parents, especially, to go elsewhere to purchase their school supplies (but not Walmart!). Staples has launched a major marketing effort directed at teachers. According to a 2010 study by the National School and Equipment Association, public school teachers spent more than $1.3 billion out of their own pockets preparing for the school year.
Earlier this summer, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association voted to support the Staples boycott. Both are NYSUT affiliates.
A list of union-made school supplies from Labor411.org:
Paper Products:
• International Paper Co.
• Mead Lined Paper
• Roaring Spring Environotes Index cards
• OfficeMax Paper
• Office Depot Paper
Notebooks and Binders:
• Acco/Mead; Day-Timer Organizers
• Roaring Spring Pocket Folders
• Roaring Spring Composition Books
• Roaring Springs Wirebound Notebooks, including Environotes, Imagine, Genesis, Enviroshades, Emoticon, Lifenotes and Maxim
• Roaring Spring Legal Pads, including Boardroom, Enviroshades, WIDE, Enviropads and Envirogold
Bags:
• Filson Bags
Pens:
• Parker Pen Company
• BIC Pens
Student and Teacher Supplies:
• Scotch Tape
• American Tape Co.
• Master Lock
• Kleenex Tissues
• Puffs Tissues
• Martin Weber Art Supplies
• Roaring Spring Art Supplies
• Clauss Scissors
Breakfast:
• Aunt Jemima
• Jif Peanut Butter
• Smucker’s Jams & Jellies
• Minute Maid Juice
• Mott’s apple sauce
Lunchbox:
• V8-Splash.
• Slim Jim
• Nabisco Wheat Thins
• Farmer John lunch meat
• Oroweat bread
Clothes:
• Oshkosh B’Gosh
• Ben Davis
• Hugo Boss
• Russell Athletic
• All USA Clothing
• Union Line
• Windjammer