First-Ever Layoffs Loom at Postal Service

I'm on the Hiring List so things can't be too bad.

We could save a lot of money, and the automakers id the Post Office went to electric vehicles. The Post Office has the largest fleet of vehicles. Imagine the automaker who contracts with the post office to manufacture all electric vehicles for the fleet.

We would save money because there would be no fuel, no oil changes, none of the petroleum products that choke down an engine.

The vehicles would have no emissions, so our air would be cleaner.

The vehicles would spend less time in the shop.

We would still be able to deliver mail six days a week, which would save many jobs, not just clerks and carriers, but plant personnel, RCAs, dispatch drivers, et al. There is more to Saturday delivery than what really meets the eye.

Right now, the technology exists to run a vehicle solely on electricity. 400 miles to a charge, speeds up to 80 MPH (not that we need that on a route, but its there), and power to climb even the steepest hills with a full load of mail.

I'm 48 years old and have 27 years service (counting 6 yrs military time). I started as a city carrier in Binghamton, NY (8 years and was a regular), and then transferred to a level 18 where I was a clerk/carrier. I've been a Postmaster since 2001 (level 15, 18, currently 16--salaried, no OT). Here's my take:
*There are too many supervisors. When I was carrying, there was one for every 15-20 carriers. However, let's face it...there are that small percentage of employees who will do the least amount of work that they possibly can (used to be called slugs). And who got punished for it..the good workers. Sure, we got the pivots and OT, but occasionally you would like to get home on time. I almost missed the birth of my daughter because of a supervisor (yes he was a useless 'slug'). However, I have often found that for every 'slug' employee, there is a great one not too far away.
*Management & Union need to meet halfway. Sounds easy, but no one wants to blink first. Greivances will be the downfall of the postal service. Doesn't matter who wins, the money lost is postal money.
*Postal employees need one Union (ok, two with the Rural Union--what a strange contract they have). As a clerk/carrier (PTF) I was considered Postal putty....used wherever I was needed. That was fine by me. I'd rather do any job rather then sitting at home not making any money. We need to get back to this mentality. Let's stop worrying about 'crossing crafts', and get the job done by working to get the job done. Most clerks, carriers, and plant workers that I've talked with would like to get 40 hours a week.
*Here's one that will get stanch hearted NALC Union Stewards blood pressures up. Make the city routes evaluated. Not saying that carrier's wouldn't be compensated for pivoting. Give all full regular routes a FAIR (hear me route evaluators?) evaluations using a year's worth of data. That year's worth of data means using bad weather data and yes, even heavy volume days. While rural evaluations are not perfect, my rural carrier's don't complain when they have the 7-7 1/2 hour days in the summer, and are heading home around 2:00pm.
*Offer a VER with an incentive! I received one....$1200 a month with no review when I hit 55! C'mon. I can barely survive what I make now. Surprisingly I don't make 6 figures....nowhere close. If HQ wants to ensure the older generation will bite for it, make it worth while. However, realize that losing the older employees means losing valuable working knowledge. Younger (the me) generation needs to step up to the plate and continue the work of keeping the postal service as the #1 government service.
*Have rural EMA looked at every month to 6 weeks. Let's pay the carriers for the abuse on their vehicles and the fuel prices. Hold on, that works the other way as well. Now that prices are under $2 a gallon, EMA needs to be dropped substancially. I would also like to see CBU units at the end of a lot of streets (thereby eliminating mileage).
Just long hours (50-55)for a job that for the most time I do enjoy. Even on the worst day it's still the best job.
Oh, and yes, keep the window open for retail delivery/acceptance, but let's get rid of Saturday delivery.

i beleive the post office can save alot of money, by reducing the number of postal employees who claim they cant do their job and are on light duty. they sit around and get paid to do basically nothing. i feel if you cant do the job you get paid to do, then you should go home, also if the p.o stops giving surpervisor yearly bonuses, also paying these employees who cant pass the test for supervisor, supervisor pay. and last i would like to comment on carriers who are on the clock to do work for the post office 10-12 hrs a day but not doing post office work. they instead are on the street doing their own personal business ( cleaning and catering business) and managment allowing this and falsefing clock rings to cover this activity up

Since I was injured on the job and am now a rehab clerk, I've been told if I am laid off that I would still receive my regular salary--This seems hard to believe.
I've been told that the projected layoff time will be in January. Has anyone else heard this?
I may be on limited duty status, but I do my best to do my job the best I possibly can. The last thing I want is for someone to think I am not doing my job well using my lack of physical capabilities as an excuse. As I mentioned in an earlier comment I go home every evening with a painful swollen leg and each morning wonder if I will be able to make it through the next day.
I've also been told that the entire layoff scare is just a big untrue rumor. There is no way the postal service would conduct a layoff.
So the big question is, Is the layoff rumor true or one big fat ugly lie to get people upset enough to do their jobs more efficiently?

I was injured in an accident while on my route, crushed leg, broken arm, and concussion. I spent a long time in the hospital and eventually made it back to work on limited duty. I am not able to go back to my mail route due to restrictions. I am presently reassigned to another post office as a rehab clerk. I have been told that if/when layoffs occur that the rehabs are on the list to be eliminated. I have also been told that since I was injured on the job that even if I do get laid off, the postal service still has to pay me my salary. That would be fine except knowing how the postal service operates, there would have to be a catch to it. I do my best to work hard and to do a good job at what ever I am told to do. I do not want anyone to be able to say that I don't do my job very good because I have a physical problem. Because of that I go home every night with a swollen and very sore leg and every morning I start the day wondering if I will be able to get through another day. The only reason I would welcome a layoff for me would be the relief of the pain. It just seems totally unbelievable that they would lay me and others like me off and still pay us. Then again, it is the Postal Service. They are not known for their management skills. If anyone knows about the layoff situation with any certainty, I would sure like to know(I can hear others saying, yea you and 2 million others). I know other rehab clerks are wondering as well. If I am going to be laid off I would like to have some sort of knowledge of it so I could apply as a door greeter somewhere if I need to.

More and more people are turning to payday loans in these trying times to meet their bills on time, like the mortgage, credit cards, or keeping the electricity on, the cars running, and food on the table. Things have been made even worse with mass layoffs going on. Adobe laid off 600, Viacom let go 850, NBCU let 500 go, and then telecommunications giant AT&T clipped 12,000 people off its workforce. These are despicable things, but they are the lesser of evils, if they keep these companies afloat. In the wake of this downturn, the banks, which were in part to blame for this turn of events, have also taken measures. Consumers have been bearing the brunt of most of these actions, which is ironic because it is precisely the consumers whose tax dollars were used to keep the large banking institutions out of trouble. Banks have been making credit more and more difficult to obtain, even to those with good credit. Fees for ATM use and overdraft or late payments have increased, in essence taking to the cleaners the very people who paid to keep these institutions out of the tank. However, some good may come of this, and it is a hard learned lesson. We, as a culture, have to learn about being more responsible with our debt, and with our credit use.

Not again. We are destroying our planet. Global warming, beaches and the whales. What's next?

Continue to run the company into the ground then ask the Government for a $25 billion dollar bail out. Heck, everybody else is doing it.

Look, WE have nearly 600,000 employees! Average pay $50,000 (which is conservative). Instead of laying OUR co-workers off, and adding to OUR nation's problem! Have a pay cut of 10% across the board, until OUR nation gets on it's feet again. 10% X 50,000= 5,000. $5,000 X 600,000= $3,000,000,000 (that's $3Billion). Let's be a role model not the problem!

It looks to be inevitable that gas prices will not stay down for the long haul. If the USPS cannot get the authority to make (at least temporarily) some sort of agreement to lock in prices on the futures market as private companies are doing then $4.00/gal. gasoline in a deep recession will be a disaster.

Are we forever to be at OPEC'S mercy? Talking about alternative fuels is critical but it that's no solution at crisis time.

Just turn the d*** lights off when you leave!!

I have been in the postal service for a little over 10 years. I was a clerk for 10 years and just recently switched to carrier. I have worked in all types of facilities, plants, large stations, and now a small AO. One thing is consistant, lack of window clerks. I keep seeing management abolishing clerk positions saying there is no need for them but yet they will only have one clerk on the window with the customers lined out to the door. You cannot make money if you do not sell a product, since our revenue is earned from stamp sells you would think the first thing they would do is staff the window, with knowlegable salespeople to sell our stamps. I cannot blame a customer for walking out the door as soon as they see our lines and going elsewhere. People want to be able to mail a package with someone that can guide them and make sure they are doing everything right. Now that the new APC is in action they eliminated the small one stamp machines(because of a deal they made with IBM) so our loss is starting to add up. All those tour 2 jobs, cfs units, decoding clerk that are looking for a home should be placed on the window and sell the heck out of the stamps. Its simple, the more stamps sold, the more letters mailed the more profit we make,which make customer and employee happy. The post office can have a chance of survivng if who ever the embezzling, money hungry upper management is would step down and let an experienced sales person walk in and emplement selling out product.

I have been reading most of the comments at this web site concerning postal lay offs and the current situation with the post office losing money.
Many of the suggestions made are clearly from the viewpoint of self preservation.(Make cuts, but not in my area.)Types of comments.
I too beieve that some cuts are warranted in all levels of the post office.
On the management levels there are too many managers and quite a number of them are redundant. They perform the same function as the other managers in the immediate area,and therefore are not needed. Worse yet, they often assume that the other managers in the area are already covering something that needs to get done, and therefore do not check on it until 10 minutes after it needed to be done or a craft person brings it to thier attention. Also in many cases, 204B's are being used to manage and push the mail through when managers, who are supposed to be doing that job already, aren't.
This takes away from the craft workforce available on any given night to get the work done, and increases the management numbers, of which there are already too many.
Management, however, is by far not the only problem.
In the areas of waisted gas, routes, space and equipment, many benefits could be achieved.
In the area of deliveries, mail delivery on Saturdays should be suspended, NOT DISCONTINUED, until the current economic crisis has passed. It could then be resumed as normal.Thereby saving fuel costs.
Currently when I am loading trucks, I see many containers half full of mail or less. I also see many of these same containers going to the same locations on trailers that are far less than fully loaded.
To address these problems I would suggest that CONSOLIDATION UNITS should be formed in all locations that process the bulk of the mail for thier surrounding areas.
All the mail in these facilities, before being shipped out, shoud be brought to a central area to be combined with other like kind mail being shipped to the same locations. This way trailers could almost always be shipped 100% full with each container, likewise, being filled to capacity. This in turn would reduce the number of trailer routes necessary to move the same amount of mail. This would also reduce the number of routes contracted out and the amount of gas used in shipping the mail.
I believe that it might also protect some postal employees jobs at the same time by useing those people who were in danger of being layed off, to start up the consolidation units.
This plan protects postal worker jobs but still saves the post office money in the areas of fuel costs and outside contracting.
Lay offs may save money in the short term, but they do nothing to address the problems that have caused the current situation. Until these are addressed lay off's will only be the tip of the iceberg with ,I fear, eventual privitization being an ever more present threat in the future.

Kieth, Minneapolis

The P.O. needs to hire more temp employees and eliminate all the o.t.

Too much work is being wasted in maint. We are sent to school then told we can not work on the equipment, for example, elevators. We also have way too many duplicate routes. This work represents hours wasted that could be forth on repairs that are now being contracted out, for example, chiller servicing. Our building mechanics are slowly being contracted out of their jobs. The sad part of this is that most of the building mechanics are close to retiring and therfore enjoy sitting around on their butts all day and sleeping at night as their work is being given to companies like KONE and Johnson Controls. I am dumbfounded at this logic, why pay a contractor $90 or better an hour plus their parts that are marked up over cost when we have able and knowledable bodies just sitting around that can do the work in house. Might I also point out that proper preventitive maintenance is not happening on millions of dollars in building equipment. Chemicals are not being allowed to be used in the chillers and boilers therfore shortening the life of the equipment. Fork lift batteries are having unfiltered tap water put in them when the idustry standard is to use distilled water. roof leaks are let go till further damage happens increasing the final cost of repairs. Powered industrial trucks are let given any attention until major costly issues arise. Employees are not held accoutable for damage done by carless drivers both in and outside of the buildings, light poles and barriers hit, door knocked off of hinges, elevators damaged, walls and overheads damaged,etc... We need to do a major overhaul in maintenance and begin to hold employees accountable for their actions. Management also needs to be reduced and those that are over maint should have a maint. background. Those in tool in parts should also have a mechanical background. A technician should be able to tell a MOS clerk what he needs by name and the clerk should have some type of idea what the part actually is instead of saying "if you don't have a post office part number I cannot find the part." I am also amazed at how much waste is generated instead of reusing or repuposing materials when equipment is changed out. I can continue to satte all the waste that I have witnessed in the usps from the maint side of the house but that would require a full 50 page minimum report. I guess I see all this because I am one of the few who came straight off of the street into maint and have yet to be corrupted by this system.

So here we go

#1 for the people who say that we should cut Saturday delivery what about about monday holidays. I suppose that means that on Tuesday we would have what four days worht of mail now thats not to bright is it. Also cutting one day out of delivery means a reduction of 20% of all carriers after all why do carriers need a U-man.

#2 To the people who are saying that "keying out is bad" that leaving routes vacant is bad. If your route is down in volume and your going to have less case time what do you expect that your just going to be able to sit around for however long that duration is and not have any work. "pivoting" helps keep jobs period.

#3 This one would help the P.O. out alot. Hold people accountable. Its to easy for someone to just take their time. When I was a PTF I was given the worst of the worst and yet I still came back to the P.O. on time. Why is it that regulars couldnt do this. Yes I may be younger but you make more money.

I am a postmaster--in a small office. Everyone is saying that management is not doing anything--let me tell you, I start my day at 630am, and end at 6:00pm, 5 days a week, I am exempt, I get paid for 8 hours a day. I do not have a supervisor at this time. I have 2 carriers if I do not go out on the street and look them up daily, they could be anywhere but on the route--these are supposed to be experienced carriers---with the union's support, they are the worst carriers I have ever worked with. I too started off as a carrier, and still carries mail as needed. I also have two buildings, my rural carriers are in one building and my city carriers are in another, 2 finance units---which means that for every report I do 2, every service/safety talk, I do 2, with separate finance units, I count 2 sets of stamp stock. I can only speak for myself, but my days are long, I have enough to keep me busy, and I earn every penny I get paid---I have been in management for the last 9 years, and do not get the bonus that you guys keep talking about. As a postmaster, I do not get COLA, but we get a performace increase that is based on how the office meets the goals, including sick leave, and my performance. I'm sure you are all away of how some employees abuse the sick leave, so, that eliminates a percetage of what I have to look forward too. With revenue in my office down, that eliminates more--there is also no contractual increases. You talk about micro-management---it does not stop at craft level, I believe that management is truly micro-management by upper management. I do agree that the need to trim the fat in the postal service, in management and in craft. I have quite a few members of my family that works for the postal service through out the country, in craft and management positions, and when we get together, we all seem to be on one page-- with the same complaints---the bottom line is that most postal employees take their jobs for granted---so, now we are discussing layoffs---some are needed both in management and craft.