Washington, DC— Today, Congressman Paul Hodes called on the United States Postal Service to present a plan to fully reimburse postal workers for the wages they have lost as a result of managers manipulating their timecards. Several weeks ago, an investigation uncovered a scheme at five New Hampshire postal stations to manipulate workers’ timecards, and the individuals responsible for these actions have yet to be held accountable.
“It has been weeks and the hard-working employees at these post offices are still waiting for answers,” said Congressman Hodes. “The USPS should immediately present a plan to ensure that workers are immediately reimbursed for their lost wages, and that appropriate disciplinary action is taken. Those individuals responsible for cheating New Hampshire families out of hard earned wages must be held accountable.”
Earlier this year, Congressman Hodes wrote to the USPS Inspector General asking for an investigation into claims that management at the Milford Post Office, Manchester South Station, and Manchester West Station had manipulated time cards to cheat workers out of wages to which they were entitled. The investigation revealed that management at these stations and at the Somersworth and Salem post offices had in fact engaged in these practices and denied New Hampshire workers the wages they had earned.
The full text of the letter is below:
Dear Postmaster General Potter,
A United States Postal Service (“USPS”) Office of Investigator General (“OIG”) investigation revealed on October 15, 2009 that managers at 5 New Hampshire postal stations were manipulating time sheets in order to underpay workers. I request information on the USPS’s plan of action to respond to this OIG report, whether the USPS plans to reimburse workers, and what steps USPS is taking to ensure that this type of manipulation does not happen again.
In May of this year, I wrote to USPS Inspector General David Williams requesting that his office investigate claims that the United States Postal Service had altered letter carriers’ timesheets on an electronic time system for the last six years. His investigation subsequently revealed that management altered time entries which, according to a letter from Mr. Williams, “resulted in the removal of straight time, overtime night differential and penalty overtime causing employees to be underpaid.” These managers stole time from letter carriers at five New Hampshire postal stations, even as they worked on Christmas Eve.
The USPS must properly reimburse workers for the wages that were taken from them and hold the managers who engaged in these deceitful, unethical practices accountable for their actions. The postal workers in my district deserve answers, and they deserve to be reimbursed for the wages that they have earned. The USPS must put practices in place to make sure that electronic time system manipulation does not happen again, and that those individuals who cheated letter carriers out of hard-earned wages are held accountable. I request that you present a plan to accomplish these goals, and look forward to your reply.
Managers are never held responsible. We had a new district head who decided that all carriers could be mandatoried to work overtime even on days off. Totally contrary to the contract. I told one supervisor that it was stupid and they were going to end up paying big bucks. Oh no she said they’ve done this before and it’s totally legal. Two years later, it cost the PO millions in grevience money. Any repercussions on management who implemented it? No. Another time our postmaster was on a detail. He was in a big meeting and was caught playing a game on his cellphone. He was kicked off the team and returned to our office. A year later he was promoted to a larger office where he gets $30000 a year more. Meanwhile they nit pick about every minute a carrier uses.
When I was doing Collections for years on end, I was entrusted with my own password to do my own end of tour “paperwork” on the Postal computer. Sitting there one night, waiting for my entries to come up to show I had not missed any stops, I glanced at some of the paperwork on the stuporvisor’s desk. What was my name doing on there? I delivered how many hours of what route??? What an eyeopener that was. Lie and cheat and steal to justify the yearend bonus. Don’t believe me? Start watching for yourself.
the key words in the above article are accountability.. managers and supv are not truly held acct for their mistakes. i work in a one man station that gets alot of business. my office is not on any closure list yet i am being financially sabotaged. i go days without stock. my office should have been turned over to me so i can order my own stock and stamps but it never was. i have 30 years in po.. 20 plus in window service.. why wasnt it turned over to me? sales are down due to me having no stamps..i actually had to put a sign in the door saying “no 44 cent stamps at all”… cause i didnt have any.. this was after breaking coils and selling them as individual stamps.. no envelopes to sell, no post cards, no post card stamps, no 2 cent stamps, no 1 cent stamps. thank god i have loyal customers who if they could waited til i got the above stock.. 3 days..
no punishment for management that created this.. why???
the key words in the above article are accountability.. managers and supv are not truly held acct for their mistakes. i work in a one man station that gets alot of business. my office is not on any closure list yet i am being financially sabotaged. i go days without stock. my office should have been turned over to me so i can order my own stock and stamps but it never was. i have 30 years in po.. 20 plus in window service.. why wasnt it turned over to me? sales are down due to me having no stamps..i actually had to put a sign in the door saying “no 44 cent stamps at all”… cause i didnt have any.. this was after breaking coils and selling them as individual stamps.. no envelopes to sell, no post cards, no post card stamps, no 2 cent stamps, no 1 cent stamps. thank god i have loyal customers who if they could waited til i got the above stock.. 3 days..
no punishment for management that created this..
Pat McGroin, your brains must be in your groin too!
Uneducated and Affirmative Action…please explain how the two apply to USPS employees getting cheated.
What are you trying to say with your code words?
Obviously, you are not very educated yourself in thinking that the meaning of your ignorant code words cannot be understood by those whom you are applying them to.
If you work for the postal service, you obviously are quite “uneducated” yourself.
well it happen to me! we had three paydays in October, and postmaster forgot to pay me.I dont think she likes me..?? I just got it on 23-09 check.. how crazy is this.. they taxes the hell out of me.
The easiest way to curtail the practice of shaving time from employees is to give employees real time access to their clock rings. That increases the chance of detection and stopping it.
Dont hold your breath senator!!!!!
Since when are the uneducated, nepotistic, affirmative action granted Postal supervisor scum held accountable to anything? Privatize this evil, bureaucratic, money losing nightmare now!
Hey congressman – you probably will not be re-elected even if you kiss obama’s butt and those of postal peeps. May as well go in a corner and whine alone.
It just shows to go you that when management acts fairly and kindly with employees, the employees help to cover for them when they goof. But when they are dishonest and hateful, the employees will eventually get their time to turn on them as they should. In the Southeast, contract says Rural carriers get 1 day for training when more than 100 boxes are added to their route. 2 days when more than 200 boxes are added….etc. The local ivory tower tries to cheat us by saying the day only means Carriers need to have some training minutes on “a day”, not 8 hours. In other words, if you put your case labels in on Friday, that is your training time for learning a route when 199 boxes are added on the street. By that standard, when a Sup needs a day off, an hour of rest in the breakroom the day before should be sufficient?
I’m sure the person(s) responsible will miraculously disappear only to reappear in another state or station with the same job as before. Discipline = slap on the wrist.
In central Pa. it still goes on. We have found that
OIC postmaster was not paying an Employee for penality
overtime. We have requested all timecards in 2009. We can show that this OIC has falsefy records on many occassion but nothing has been done. In fact his poom has give him a promotion. We have dicuss this with our union and the post inspectors and nothing has been done. I believe that the OIC and his poom should be accoutable out of there bonus or go to them
say it time for them to go. May we need to notify the congressman and he will get the investigation moving. Please help us Congress Hodes.
Yea, Right. They never held accountable a supervisor who assualted an employee with a karate chop and they told the victim that the supervisor was still his superior. Police refused to press charges and victim after getting a restrainting order against the supervisor heard that Labor Relations personnel was sending a request to the Chicago legal dept to see what they could do about that. OIG refused to investigate upper management action in the case even when it was pointed out the written lies in the threat assessment report.
If those involved fall off the face of the earth, well, Good Riddance. Then they suggest that I step up as a supervisor. WHAT?
The checks are in the mail.