Postal Service calls it quits with Staples

The partnership between the U.S. Postal Service and Staples has come to an end.



The program started as a pilot in late 2013 and was eventually expanded to about 500 Staples locations. It effectively placed mini post-offices in the chain’s stores, with Staples’s non-union employees providing some of the same services that the Postal Service’s union employees performed.



The American Postal Workers Union, which represents some 200,000 postal workers nationwide, protested the program, saying that it put the post office on the road toward privatization. The union, which waged a national and very public “Stop Staples” campaign, said it is immediately ending its boycott of the retailer.



The Postal Service said the move resulted from a November order issued by a National Labor Relations Board requiring “the Postal Service to discontinue its retail relationship with Staples,” Darlene Casey, a Postal Service spokeswoman, told The Washington Post.



“The Postal Service intends to comply with that order.”