Through the revolving door
Thomas D. Conway, Manager of Government Relations for the USPS, has been named executive director of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers. As DMNews.com points out, “Mr. Conway was actively involved in drafting the 2000 legislation that allows the preferred-rate discounts for nonprofit mailers.”
Conway Appointed Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers Executive Director
Hearing today for NM Lobbyist nominated for BOG
The following story is from New Mexico Politics With Joe Monahan:
“Governor Barnett?”; Senate Takes Up His Postal Board Bid
Mickey Barnett is on his way to being Governor. No, not that Governor. But now that I’ve got your attention…Barnett, one of the R’s who played a prominent role in bringing to life the GOP Guv candidacy of John Dendahl, is about to get his own taste of being a Governor. Despite a push by his foes to thwart him, Barnett is expected to win approval tomorrow from the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee to become a Governor of the U.S. Postal Service and later, the full Senate. We broke the story of his nomination back in March.
Pro-hunting group upset at Humane Society stamps
Buckmasters, a hunting advocacy group, is asking members to complain to the Postmaster General and Congress about what it calls “anti-animal use rhetoric on postage stamps”.
“Anti-animal use”? Hard to say exactly what that’s supposed to mean, but the stamps themselves are pretty tame- and they don’t say anything about hunting. One shows a baby seal, the other a rooster.
I can hardly wait till someone starts selling a stamp that really does push a controversial message. (Or sues because their message is turned down by Zazzle or the USPS).
Thanks for the revenue, valued customers!
Postalmag.com asks “What Has Capital One Been Doing With Its Negotiated Service Agreement?”, and answers by providing a laundry list of web sites and news stories about the company’s less than savory business practices.
Coincidentally, yesterday’s mail brought me no less than three separate letters from Capital One. I’ve probably received a hundred of these things in the last year. As a postal employee, I’m glad we’re getting all that revenue. As a consumer, though, I’d be concerned that Capital One thinks I fit their “bottom feeder” customer profile, except for one thing- all the offers use the unique address on my web site registration. Which means that the company apparently is mining web site registries for business addresses to spam.
Exactly why the company thinks it makes sense to continue sending me offers year after year when they get no response is mystifying, but I guess it’s what you’d expect from a company that needs to send billions of letters to get its discounts.
What Has Capital One Been Doing With Its Negotiated Service Agreement?
Revenue forgone appropriation advances, with strings attached
For a little comic relief, check out the language in HR 5576, an omnibus appropriations bill that contains, among many other things, the USPS payment for providing free mailing services for the blind. The House reached a unanimous consent agreement on Tuesday that provides for no further general debate on the bill. Now keep in mind that this appropriation isn’t a gift to the PO- it’s a partial repayment, in arrears, for services the USPS is required to provide for free.
Congress is apparently incapable of simply paying its tab and getting on with things, though- it feels the need to attach some strings before writing the check. There are several, but the best is saved for last: “Provided further, That none of the funds provided in this Act shall be used to consolidate or close small rural and other small post offices in fiscal year 2007.”
Which I guess means we can close as many big post offices as we like?
Something fishy about the Mystery Shopper program?
That’s the accusation made by a reader at Postalmag.com.
I don’t know about fishiness, but one thing I’ve always been curious about is the correlation between Mystery Shopper scores and retail sales. Do we have numbers that prove that the program actually gets us more revenue? Exactly what is the level of increased retail revenue at offices with high scores?
Standardize This! (Massachusetts edition)
Lest we be accused of picking on the South, here’s a retail standardization candidate from Massachusetts. This one is in Middlefield, in the Berkshires.
Middlefield Town Center Post Office_0093 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Standardize This! (continued…)
Another classic post office that could use some retail standardization. I’m assuming there are no murals or bas reliefs on the walls in Louvale.
Laid off injured worker says “It can happen to anyone”
(The following commentary comes from Dan Sullivan, who frequently contributes to the 21st Century Postal Worker. Opinions expressed are those of the author. To submit a commentary to postalnewsblog.com, email us at postalnews@gmail.com)
by Dan Sullivan
The piece of vinyl siding was hidden beneath 3 inches of snow when Mike Vinci accidentally found it while delivering mail in Caledonia, NY.
It was like stepping on a sheet of ice.
“My feet went straight up in the air,” he remembers. ” Like an idiot, I hung onto the mail and landed on my elbow.”
Mike finished his mail route that day. But the pain wouldn’t go away.
“I worked for almost a year with shoulder and neck pain, not knowing I had damaged two discs in my neck and partially tore my Achilles tendon in my left ankle.
“I went out of work in February of 1992. It took eight months to even get an OWCP claim number and my first comp check. I had $75 to my name.”
Mike had more than money problems.
It turns out he needed surgeries to repair his ankle and neck. But, like the wheels of justice, the bureaucracy moves slowly. After his ankle surgery, it took another three years to get approval from the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) for surgery to fuse his 4th and 5th and 6th and 7th cervical discs.
His days as a letter carrier were over.
But the Postal Service has always provided work for employees hurt on the job. So when he recovered from his surgeries, Mike was given a position as a part-time flexible clerk at the nearby Geneseo post office. Eventually he worked his way into a regular position.
His work involved the usual clerks’ duties, sorting and distributing letters and flats, clearing carriers and handling accountable mail. Mike has done everything, in fact, except work the window, where the college kids often bring in large parcels too heavy for him to lift because of his medical restrictions.
The story would end here, if the Postal Service hadn’t come up with a scheme to get rid of injured workers like Mike.
Called the Reassessment Program, the plan is being tested in the Western New York District and a couple other areas of the country. The purpose of the program is to cull injured workers from the payroll by dumping them on Workers’ Compensation and then retraining them for private sector jobs.
Mike got his walking papers on May 24, when it took five postal bosses coming down from the Western New York District Office in Buffalo to tell him he was no longer needed.
“A mail carrier had to come in off the street to take over my duties delivering all of the guaranteed overnight mail so that I could attend the meeting,” Mike says.
“They took my badge and walked me out the door. It was 2:00 p.m. They don’t even let you say goodbye to your friends.”
The Geneseo Postmaster, Tammy Kelley, disagreed with the big shots who said there wasn’t any work for Mike.
But what did she know? She was only looking out for Geneseo and wasn’t able to see the big picture.
‘Tammy insisted to them that, not only was I doing a great job and an asset to the office, but the work was there for me to do and had not changed. She also emphasized that I was included in the office budget hours, compiled by them, and that the office had made budget last year and is continuing to do so.”
For obvious reasons, Postmaster Kelley was reluctant to speak about Mike’s situation.
“I can’t really say too much, except this is all new. It’s beyond me. It involves staffing decisions by higher-ups,” the Postmaster says.
But she wasn’t reluctant to praise Mike’s work ethic.
“Oh, Mike was an excellent worker. I can tell you that.”
The bosses at postal headquarters who came up with the Reassessment Program have been mum about the scheme, referring all questions to the American Postal Workers Union, which they say has been briefed on the outsourcing program.
According to APWU Human Relations Director Sue Carney, the Postal Service claims it wants all limited duty and rehabilitation jobs to consist of “necessary work,” not make-work assignments.
So it seems like an obvious question to ask: Why dump Mike Vinci back on Workers’ Compensation when the Geneseo Postmaster has plenty of real work for him to do?
The postal big shot who apparently decided that Mike wasn’t needed at the Geneseo post office is Mary McNeill. She has an important title: Western New York District Manager of Injury Compensation.
Mary wasn’t in her office when I called to ask why Mike was put off the clock and unceremoniously shown the door. Or why it took 5 postal bosses to deliver the news. The person who answered her phone said she was on the road doing reassessment interviews.
I have to assume she must be quite busy trying to help other injured workers, because she hasn’t returned my call.
Mike is now 54 years old and in 11 months he’ll be eligible to retire. Until then he’s going to fight to get his job back.
He’s written his Congressman and filed a grievance with the American Postal Workers Union over his dismissal.
As you can imagine, he doesn’t have much good to say about the Reassessment Program and the bureaucrats in charge of it. But he’s grateful to Geneseo Postmaster Tammy Kelley for “being truthful and maybe jeopardizing her job” for him.
And he has this bit of advice for other postal workers who think it can’t happen to them:
“Even the people who aren’t injured should be against this program because anyone can get hurt at work.
“If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.”
Contact Dan Sullivan at dan_sullivan9026@hotmail.com.