December 31, 2007

Postal Supervisor Uses Own Time to Deliver Packages On Christmas

Cliff DeLude, customer service supervisor, with the support of Officer in Charge Tim Gatz, worked on his own time Christmas Day so that he could receive packages from the Reno station and make express deliveries to people in Fallon. DeLude also took time out of his Sunday morning two days before Christmas to deliver packages around the community. Obviously caught up in the Christmas spirit, DeLude said with a big grin that he delivered packages on his own time "because it's Christmas."  |

Former Postmaster Wins Hostile Workplace Lawsuit - But No Money

Postmaster claimed she was harassed by Postal Managers and Postal Inspector. A  jury found the Postal Service liable for creating a retaliatory hostile work environment, but awarded no compensatory damages. The Court also considered the issue of whether any equitable relief, such as back pay, should be awarded. The Court determined that former Nazareth, PA Postmaster did not prove any loss in wages or benefits resulting from the Postal Service’s unlawful actions to support or quantify an award of back pay. The Court did grant equitable relief in the form of enhanced training for certain Postal Managers and a requirement that USPS post notices of the verdict at Nazareth Post Office, Nazareth, Pennsylvania; Central Pennsylvania Performance Cluster District Offices, and the Philadelphia Metropolitan Performance Cluster District Office.  |

Holiday rush, understaffing mean long lines, safety woes at post office - Lower staffing levels also have postal workers concerned about their safety, especially in the plant. The post office may have fewer workers, but their combined workload hasn't changed much. That imbalance, according to Dan Van Assche, who runs a tray-sorting machine in the main postal facility, often leads to rushing and carelessness - a "nut house," as he put it. When Van Assche, who at 60 has 26 years of experience with the Postal Service, complains about the unsafe pace, management suggests he consider retiring. To make matters worse, workers routinely skip or delay breaks, according to grievances filed by the St. Paul APWU. Those grievances, McCann said, have resulted in "numerous monetary awards," but they have not convinced the Postal Service to change its ways. |

Wineries toast mail law
Postal Worker and family murdered | Daughter Killed Her Family of Six in Washington
 

Letter: Postal Management Says "Do as I say not as I do."

"Every year around the holiday season, a spokesman for the USPS (Al DeSarro), makes a statement on radio and television in regard to giving letter carriers or clerks a gratuity. Parameters are given concerning what, if anything you should give your clerk or carrier. From the perspective of the USPS the public is not intelligent or informed enough to make their own decision as to whether or not to give a gift for the holidays. USPS upper management (supervisors) receives bonuses every year and the public has every right to know the amount of these bonuses. I feel it would be in the public interest to request a full disclosure of these bonuses. The public should have this information available when they make a decision to give (or not) a gift to their clerk or carrier."|

December 21, 2007

Postal Service Updates Its Transformation Plan

The Strategic Transformation Plan 2006-2010, the Postal Service roadmap for the future, has been updated to reflect changes from last year’s passage of the Postal Act of 2006. The law makes a number of changes to postal oversight and regulation, but does not alter the Postal Service’s mission – providing trusted, affordable and universal service. PostalReporter.com: A few highlights from the Transformation Plan: The Postal Service will focus on four critical human resources strategies — engaging employees, developing and managing talent, establishing and maintaining market-based compensation, and managing complement to assure flexibility.  Employee absences from work as a result of on- and off-the-job injuries and illnesses also represent a significant cost for the Postal Service. Employee absences from work will be managed by expanding the Resource Management system from a sick leave tracking system to a comprehensive tool to manage and increase employee availability. By the end of 2007, this comprehensive approach to resource management, which includes a national wellness program, will be measured by the percentage of employees available for duty.  |

EEOC: Postal Worker Has Claim For One-Time Incident of Discriminatory Harassment - A Postal Employee alleged that he was subjected to discrimination on the basis of national origin (Russian American) when his supervisor used abusive and forceful language regarding the employee’s inability to read English. The EEOC found that while single incidents often are not enough to state a claim of discriminatory harassment, in this case the incident was of sufficient severity to warrant further processing because the supervisor used forceful and abusive language in a manner designed to humiliate the employee and said it in the presence of a number of his coworkers. Therefore, the EEOC reversed the Postal Service’s decision to dismiss the complaint.  |

Postal Worker Fails to Convince Appeals Court to Overturn APWU-USPS Settlement - Eddie J. Walter argued before an arbitrator, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that he should not be bound by an APWU - USPS settlement agreement because he personally did not sign it.  They all disagreed.  |

Question: I would like to know whether the APWU remembers NAFTA and GATT. Does the union consider issues such as these when deciding which presidential candidate to endorse?  |

December 16, 2007

Thousands of Rural Carriers Not Paid
The United States Postal Service says 14,000 rural route mail carriers across the country did not get a paycheck this week because of a glitch in the payroll system. The USPS is working to fix the problem and is offering workers a 60 per cent reimbursement of their paycheck until the problem is fixed.  |

 Shelbyville's post office is taking precautions to make sure the potentially deadly MRSA or "staph" infection isn't spread through the mail after two employees became infected with the bacteria. The T-G received a call Thursday from a concerned citizen who claimed that Shelbyville's postmaster Larry Ellis was allowing a postal employee with a staph infection to continue to work, possibly exposing the public to the bug. Ellis said that was simply not the case, but did confirm their facility had reported two cases of the disease.  |

There was something about that "Dear Santa" letter that made Paul Vogt stick it in his bills-to-be-paid box and keep it there for 17 years. Month after month, he looked at it and moved it, yet again, to the bottom of the stack. Unfinished business. Over time, the letter came to represent one of the most treasured episodes of Vogt's 30 years as a mail carrier. |

Homeless get mail with general delivery

'Tis the Season for Tipping

Post office seems to have a new motto

Students work to protect kids who write to Santa

Postal Training Center Opens Doors to Families, Storm Crews
(Oklahoma) The Postal Service's National Center for Employee Development recently opened its doors to local families and electrical crews in need of a warm place to stay. "We don’t normally accommodate children under 18 in our postal housing facility," says Scott Morgan, NCED manager. "Our campus guest rooms are designed for adult postal employees attending courses, with one bed in each room and no connecting doors. But when local hotels were full and referred families without power to us, we were happy to provide a temporary place for people to stay.  |

December 12, 2007-

Mail Carrier Who Claimed School District's Cracked Sidewalks Caused Fall Loses Appeal - A former mail carrier who delivered to the Joseph Badger School District has lost her appeal claiming that injuries she suffered in a 2004 fall outside the school were caused by its cracked sidewalks. She said she was carrying mail and keys while looking ahead to the truck, rather than where she was walking, which court documents say was “pursuant to postal regulations.”|

The Los Angeles District has received approval from OPM to offer Early Out opportunities to “CLERKS ONLY” beginning early 2008. This is a result of planned excessing of over 250 clerks from the Los Angeles District. The following is text of the letter sent out by Yolanda Elders, President,  Los Angeles APWU Local #64 to eligible members advising them of this opportunity.  |

OAKLAND: Arrest in robbery attempt of postal worker

The Washington, D.C., postmark is fading into oblivion, a casualty of the anthrax attacks of 2001. After two postal workers died at a Northeast facility, the Postal Service began farming mail to the suburbs. Now the only way to guarantee a D.C. postmark is to take it in person to a post office and ask a clerk to cancel it by hand. Otherwise, it's a spin of the roulette wheel.  |

Vindication at Valassis?  Advo purchase, first panned, now panning out

From PR Reader: "The Postal Regulatory Commission has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) from organizations and individuals to assist the Commission staff in developing a Report on Universal Service and the Postal Monopoly to be submitted to the President and Congress in late 2008. Section 702 of the Postal Enhancement and Accountability Act (PAEA) requires the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC or the Commission) to submit a report to the President and Congress including the monopoly on the delivery of mail and on access to mail boxes" (note: item was inadvertently left off front page).   |

Every year around this time, as the catalogs and holiday greetings flood my mailbox, I am reminded of New York City’s defunct 27-mile pneumatic tube system. This underground network fueled by pressurized air carried first-class mail in two-foot-long canisters from Manhattan’s General Post Office to postal branches around the city. At its peak of operation, this system’s side-by-side pipes, each about eight inches in diameter, carried more than 10 million letters a day along a route that ran from the main post office. The system, which had its own work force of about 140 men, carried mail at a steady speed of 30 miles per hour.  Pneumatic Mail  |

Retired postmaster delivered joy to residents of New Washington

But Only to PCES and EAS Employees - Executive and management employees who use Payroll Net To Bank — the system that sends their pay directly to their bank accounts — can now view and print their earnings statements online. The new service is available on LiteBlue, where ePayroll will begin storing earnings statements for the latest 13 months, or 29 pay periods, online.   |

The mailers the customers use to return DVDs to the companies often jam in the Postal Service's automatic mail sorters. So instead, 70 percent or so of the DVDs need to be sorted by hand, costing the Postal Service roughly $21 million in extra labor costs each year. The report by the Postal Service's Office of the Inspector General said that over the next two years those added labor costs are expected to rise to $61.5 million. Post Office gives Netflix negative review  |

RETURN TO SENDER: mail center complaints surface