I am a 6 year mail carrier and wanted to add my thoughts to the debate over the Post Office.
Many of the Post Office's financial problems can be blamed on the union and 3 steps could help return the Post Office to a strong financial position.
The pension system is strong but cash flow is poor. Let people with <7 years retire early, with slightly reduced pension benefits, and instead of filling the vacancies condense letter delivery to 5 days/week with packages 6/week. CCA's (*City Carrier Assistant, a position that is similar to a substitute teacher, but for mail carriers) should do the 6th day delivery.
Make the mail carriers wage a true salary and develop street standards. As it is now, mail carriers are paid hourly, but guaranteed 8 hours a day. On light mail days, carriers still get paid for 8 hours, but anything over 8 hours is either payed as overtime, or the rest of the route is handed off to a CCA. What makes this worse is that there are no "street standards," meaning that a carrier can take as long as they want for a route and supervisors have no ability to reprimand or discipline. Anyone who's a postal emoyee knows this system is INCREDIBLY abused! Mail carriers should be salaried, and if any of their route is handed off to a CCA, the CCA'S wage should be deducted from the carriers salary. This would end the rampant abuse of the system.
Reform the training system! All carriers start out as CCA's, they become a Regular Letter Carrier only after someone retires and their route opens up. CCA's soon find out they are the regular carriers bitch and many don't last over a year. Training a new CCA costs about 10k. Listing all the problems with their model of hiring and training would take more time than either you or I have, but the simple solution would be having it all be on the job training in the office of the persons employment.
There are so many other changes that should be made but these are the biggest.
I love what I do and I believe that the Post Office is one of the last great American blue collar jobs.
One last thing that we all should appreciate is that the mail is the last true form of private communication. This should be appreciated now, and even more so in the future as privacy becomes increasingly rare. I wouldn't want the last from of private communication to be in the hands of Jeff Bezos.
Thanks for reading, if there are any other postal pedes here I'd love to hear from you!
I am a 6 year mail carrier and wanted to add my thoughts to the debate over the Post Office.
Many of the Post Office's financial problems can be blamed on the union and 3 steps could help return the Post Office to a strong financial position.
The pension system is strong but cash flow is poor. Let people with <7 years retire early, with slightly reduced pension benefits, and instead of filling the vacancies condense letter delivery to 5 days/week with packages 6/week. CCA's (*City Carrier Assistant, a position that is similar to a substitute teacher, but for mail carriers) should do the 6th day delivery.
Make the mail carriers wage a true salary and develop street standards. As it is now, mail carriers are paid hourly, but guaranteed 8 hours a day. On light mail days, carriers still get paid for 8 hours, but anything over 8 hours is either payed as overtime, or the rest of the route is handed off to a CCA. What makes this worse is that there are no "street standards," meaning that a carrier can take as long as they want for a route and supervisors have no ability to reprimand or discipline. Anyone who's a postal emoyee knows this system is INCREDIBLY abused! Mail carriers should be salaried, and if any of their route is handed off to a CCA, the CCA'S wage should be deducted from the carriers salary. This would end the rampant abuse of the system.
Reform the training system! All carriers start out as CCA's, they become a Regular Letter Carrier only after someone retires and their route opens up. CCA's soon find out they are the regular carriers bitch and many don't last over a year. Training a new CCA costs about 10k. Listing all the problems with their model of hiring and training would take more time than either you or I have, but the simple solution would be having it all be on the job training in the office of the persons employment.
There are so many other changes that should be made but these are the biggest.
I love what I do and I believe that the Post Office is one of the last great American blue collar jobs.
One last thing that we all should appreciate is that the mail is the last true form of private communication. This should be appreciated now, and even more so in the future as privacy becomes increasingly rare. I wouldn't want the last from of private communication to be in the hands of Jeff Bezos.
Thanks for reading, if there are any other postal pedes here I'd love to hear from you!