USPS Leadership Claims to Value All Its Employees — Not Really!
USPS Leadership Claims to Value All Its Employees — Not Really!
By Dee Perez
NAPS Northeast Region Vice President
Winter Storm Hernando started Sunday, Feb. 22, and ended Monday, Feb. 23. Hurricane Sandy in 2012 was the latest comparable storm to hit Long Island.
The historic East Coast blizzard affected New York City, Long Island and states from Virginia to Maine. Providence, RI, set an all-time snowfall record of 32.8 inches. East Providence and North Kingstown received 33.5 inches; Warwick reported 36.2 inches. Long Island’s NY-2 District recorded a record 29.5 inches in Babylon.
The weather forecast predicted this pending blizzard for an entire week; it was all the Weather Channel talked about. Long Island was in Hernando’s crosshairs — this storm’s bullseye. New York Governor Kathy Hochul and local municipalities urged everyone to stay off the roads and declared a state of emergency.
Our Postal Service leaders should not have taken this lightly, but they did. I received an email early Monday morning from the company that delivers my newspaper that read, “Due to Monday’s challenging road conditions, deliveries may happen later Tuesday or, in some areas, Wednesday.”
Yet, the Northeast Region’s NY-2 District was kept open all day. The unanswered question remains, “Why, with the surrounding districts closed, did NY-2 remain open?”
NY-1 announced a delayed opening at 9 a.m., then amended the announcement that it was closed for business. But NY-2 remained open — “not bending their knee” to the storm.
This simply means, in a contextual sense, that local USPS leadership did not consider whether it placed its so-called “valuable employees” in an unsafe situation by declaring business as usual. This leads me to conclude our true value to USPS leadership is less than what they say.
In my opinion, this was a major blunder that reeked as if it was done solely to not pay hardworking craft and EAS employees a day of administrative leave — in other words, a day of salary. I don’t have the exact data, but, from what many EAS employees have told me, most employees did not show up for work; most offices were closed the entire day.
Not one office delivered mail this day. Would you like to know why?
Transportation notified leadership on Sunday, before the storm’s arrival, they would not be sending their people out in the weather. Also, they did not know how many drivers would come to work. This very significant information meant offices would have no mail to deliver.
Therefore, why would it be a good business decision to inform your so-called valuable employees to come to work when USPS leaders above each MPOO already knew there would be no mail to deliver? Also, would it be safe to even attempt delivery in this situation?
Did local Postal Service leadership meet with local safety leadership to discuss this business decision on Sunday? Did they even ask local safety leaders for their opinion? Are they discussing pending adverse weather conditions with their safety partners as part of the local USPS leadership standard operating procedure going forward?
These issues are why I always have said and will continue to say the Postal Service is not a business, despite how leadership tries to brainwash you into thinking it is.
Every business in my town and the one in which I work were closed. I couldn’t even order a slice of pizza! Real businesses were closed this day due to the weather forecast because, unlike our leaders, they value their employees.
Today, postal employees in NY-2 spoke out loudly against local leadership’s business decision because we are a service — not a business! Because there was no mail to deliver, we should not have risked any employee going to work to do absolutely nothing.