Does anyone know how the mail carriers in rural areas of Missouri bid for routes? I just found out today that they do that. In our local post office seven rural carriers did not show up for work today. I had miss-delivered packages. Any information would be very much appreciated. Happy holidays!
Every route should have a regular and a relief carrier assigned to it.
The problem there is that the relief position is not that great, no guaranteed hours, you might only work one day a week, but they still want you to provide a RHD vehicle and be available to work. It's extremely difficult to work a 2nd job as a relief carrier. There is also no automatic conversion to career, you could be a part timer for a decade before a route opens up, and none of that time spent counts toward retirement.
They can also work you 12 hours a day for up to 13 days in a row, holidays, weekends, with no holiday or weekend pay. Seems to be one extreme or the other. At best you are going to have a schedule that's never the same week to week, but you will almost surely work every Saturday and Amazon Sunday. Don't get me started on the Amazon...
There is a nationwide relief carrier shortage, and our union pretty much only caters to the rights of the regular. They also make it pretty much impossible to fire someone that sucks at their job, and FMLA abuse is pretty widespread. I'm very pro union, but with no ability to strike, they have no leverage, so the postal unions are largely worthless.
WOW... great response and great information. I have lived where I live for decades. This is the first year that I've ever had any issues with USPS. I know that you all are definitely overworked. I knew things were going south when two local post offices amended their hours... only open 4 hours a day. This last time for my 3rd miss-delivery I was supposed to get three different packages and believe it or not they were delivered by three different mail carriers. The package in question ...the last 1.. being delivered to the wrong address. Also I've never gotten any of my miss deliveries back.
That's a tough situation, unfortunately. It is theft, but it's pretty much impossible to prosecute. Insurance is really your only recourse.
How does someone abuse FMLA?
They figure out that they can get paid for not working.
We had one that was out for the better part of three years for a shoulder injury. Would come back periodically for a few days at a time, so their sub wouldn't get the benefits of holding down their route (sick leave).
Had another sub that slipped on the ice and sustained an injury. They were next in line to convert, spent most of a year in recovery, then when it comes time for their full time position to open up, here they are, healthy as a horse.
I found out later that those two have the same doctor. That's an awful lot of coincidences.
Another carrier had full cancer treatment, surgery, chemo, all that, back to work in less than a year.
It’s called the Friday Monday Leave Act where I work.
I’ve heard of cases where an employee knows they’re going to quit and claim to be sick, use up all of their sick time, go out on FMLA, and then resign. This screws the employer because they can’t fill your position since you’re technically still an employee.
But FMLA doesn't work like that. It's not like just calling in sick. Because there are laws involved both a doctor and HR have to sign off on it. Eating up leave is common across the fed space. It's usually planned for by management. HR can post the job announcement at any time to start the hiring process even if they wait to send an official job offer to the candidate. Although almost every job I've had has had overlap so that the outgoing employee can train the new one.
If health insurance wasn’t tied to a job, this would probably be a less frequent occurrence.
Ohhh that explains why they keep leaving a slip in my mail box for every package.
Just to be clear I have no neighbors. Just leave the package. I’ve said this many times to the post master.
This is the third time this has happened to me in the last 6 months. I also have very few neighbors with one actually a 1/4 mile away. My mis- deliveries were not even on my street. And I never got any of the back.
r/usps
I had no idea there was a subreddit for USPS. I didn't even think to check. Thank you.
If you ask the postmaster they'll tell you.
A person not working on Christmas Eve? Oh the humanity…