I just saw an article at AmericanOverlook.com that called for the firing of a black supervisor for throwing parcels into the back of a truck. (See end for article link)
And as someone who has worked for the post office for thirty years, I am amazed at the ignorance and racism displayed by a lot of the people who left comments.
They all seem to think that one person is all that is wrong with the Postal Service and that all problems would be solved by firing her.
B.S.
What's wrong with the Postal Service has NOTHING to do with one person being black or white. It has ALL to do with honor and respect on a national level...
and time and money.
How so?
The truth is...
For financial reasons, the USPS doesn't want to spend the money to hire enough people to give them the time to do a job right.
So they often break the contract and do carrier and clerk work themselves...
While waiting for older workers to retire, so they can hire new workers at less benefits... meaning less cost to the USPS.
Wanting to spend less is probably a good business practice - unless you break a legal contract you have in good faith agreed to, to do it.
And the USPS breaks the contracts they have agreed to daily and continually.
The unions only recourse is to file grievances, which take a long time to work through to resolution.
But they do finally work out.
Last year the USPS paid hundred of thousands if not millions of dollars to union members for breaking contracts they agreed to in good faith.
In the office I work at alone, I believe the USPS last year paid nearly a quarter million dollars for continuously breaking the contract.
Yet this year...
They are doing a very similar same thing, and will eventually have to pay out again.
They do so because...
There is no immediate accountability -financial or otherwise - for management doing wrong i.e, for breaking the contract.
They may indeed see paying a big grievance settlement as being less of a financial loss than paying overtime costs to union members who have good benefits.
What they don't figure into that...
Is the total loss of respect employees have for them for breaking the contract whenever and wherever they want to.
Whatever the reason they do what they do, although the national level had to pay, locally there was no one held financially responsible for the quarter million dollar loss at this one office.
The only thing that happened was some management got eventually shifted around to other areas where their "negative accomplishments" were not known.
What is the end result for the public?
They still sometimes see the results of postal service management that does not honor their word nor commitments.
In my own life I have had the experience of seeing a supervisor delivering mail to my own house way after dark.
When I asked him what he was doing he said, "Don't even ask!"
So the next time you have a problem with your mail,
and management says "It was the carrier's fault..."
Take it with a grain of salt.
It might have been THEM delivering your mail...
Once again breaking contracts that were agreed to on a national level.
The bottom line is what can be done about a postal service...
That is not respected because it won't keep it's word?
The answer is to begin the process of
Rebuilding that honor...
And restoring that respect.
If you and the people who commented negatively in the original article want a better postal service, contact your elected representatives and tell them to order USPS management to HONOR the contracts they have agreed to...
All the way down the line, from top to bottom.
NOTHING will ever get better until that is done.
Because upper USPS leadership KNOWS the contract is being broken thousands of times daily across the nation... costing them MILLIONS!
They may plead ignorance when they are called out, but don't believe it. If they don't know they are losing millions of dollars a year for breaking contracts they agreed to, then they are so out of touch with reality maybe they deserve to be removed from leadership positions for either stupidity or outright lying.
Better service can only be built on HONOR and RESPECT.
Right now, the USPS has NONE. You heard me right: ZERO. Right now there is no respect nor honor - and there can be none until the contracts we now have are honored in full, and on a daily basis.
What is wrong with the Post Office is wrong AT THE TOP, what they get away with, and with what they allow their middle and lower level management to get away with.
Right now the word of management is not worth anything...
Less than zero...
Because they don't honor their word they gave when the entered into legal contracts with the unions.
I had one tell me just yesterday she didn't care if I filed a grievance on her for doing clerk work or not.
She said that because she knows any repercussions for her doing clerk work will be minor and very slow coming.
But the repercussions do eventually come.
I am reminded of a supervisor who told a union officer last year "You just go ahead and file your LITTLE grievance," and then laughed at him.
The union man did file, and though it took over a year to come to an end, that is the local grievance that cost the national Postal Service nearly a quarter of a million dollars.
And that is just one grievance at one post office.
Other post offices are going through the same thing.
So it MUST be condoned by national postal management...
Or else, I guess, they just missed it somehow.
What happened to the supervisor that said what she said and laughed at the Union and the Contract?
She was promoted to Postmaster at a different post office.
And as I said, management is doing the same thing again right here, and it will eventually cost them again.
Will they never learn to honor contracts they agree to????
How does this effect you?
The contracts labor has signed with USPS management are legal and binding...
Much like the written marriage vows most people make and sign to when they get married.
If you had a marriage partner that constantly broke your wedding vows and cheated on you daily, over and over again...
Not to mention cost you millions of dollars and cause you to lose the honor and respect you once had in the public's eye...
Would you respect them?
Right now I don't know of ANY member of a Postal Union - be he or she Democrat or Republican - who respects Postal management... locally or nationally.
But we cannot divorce them.
We can only file "little" grievances and hope that upper management come to their senses
and realize that without honoring the contract there can be no respect...
and without the respect gained by doing what USPS legally agreed to do...
Service to the public is bound to continue to suffer.
And people will continue to wonder why.
But I have just told you why.
There is no need
To wonder
anymore.
The only thing to wonder about...
is what repercussions I will face
For telling the truth.
For along with being honorless
There is one other trait
Postal Management seems to have on all levels.
They are incredibly
Vindictive.
They have millions of dollars at their disposal
And they have already proven
They're not afraid to waste it.
All I have...
is a little pen...
And a Union standing behind me,
That has always treated me respectfully and honorably...
No matter what my color.
When they retaliate...
All I can do is file
a little grievance...
And
Tell you about it.
Will Bevis
Gadsden, Alabama
8/23/2015
Link to Americanoverlook.com article:
http://americanoverlook.com/...
.