Postal service slashes overtime
The US Postal Service has cut overtime expenses by close to a billion dollars in the first three quarters of its fiscal year. Reports filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission show that the USPS reduced overtime by over 28 million hours through pay period 14, which ended on July 4. The reduction translates to $923 million in overtime savings compared with the prior year. The year to date overtime rate for bargaining unit employees stood at 8.7%, down from 11.7% in 2007. In pay period 14 alone, overtime was 6.5%, compared with 10.2% in the same period last year.
The overtime savings were partially offset by an increase in straight time hours, which were up by 1.4 million hours. That number is somewhat misleading, since it includes almost 15 million straight time hours worked by new “transitional employees”, or TEs, in the letter carrier craft. Straight time hours for career bargaining unit employees were actually down by over 13 million hours.
The average hourly cost of a transitional employee, including benefits, is $23.24, compared with $39.47 for the average full time regular carrier. The increased use of lower cost straight time hours means that while the average bargaining unit employee has seen a 3.3% increase in hourly wages over 2007, the USPS’s average cost per hour increased by just 1.1%.
August 12th, 2008 14:44
i don’t know where this article got their numbers but i don’t beleive that a carrier makes 39.47 at the straight time rate. a level 7 clerk makes about 25.00 an hour, so i am sure that the carriers is pretty close to that number.
once again, trying to act like the postal employees make great wages, try living on a postal salary on long island by yourself, impossible!!!!!!!!!1
August 12th, 2008 18:07
This explains why our shipments did not get picked up today. Hello Fed-ex
August 12th, 2008 19:39
It says nothing about all mail being delayed. What a wonderfull service we provide.
August 12th, 2008 20:06
A little clarification; Hourly cost = $39.47 vs. Hourly wage = $25. The same goes for the TE who does not make $23.24 an hour. (A carrier cost on OT is better than $50. vs. just more than $30.) Making a living wage in Boston is just as tough and with a tough economy postal cut backs and TEs have helped save many a carrier job. But what’s next?
August 12th, 2008 20:26
hello fed-ex?? Go ahead and pay all that extra money.. .they make pretty close to what postal workers do..LMAO
August 12th, 2008 20:28
Are you real? Learn to read….it says the average hourly rate and benefits equal $39.47 for the hourly carrier. $39.47 is not the hourly rate alone!
If you can’t make it in Long Island, move to a state that doesn’t have State and Local income taxes. There you will see that the USPS wage/benefits is far above other employment categories.
August 12th, 2008 21:21
$39.47 per hours includes health benefits, sick leave and annual leave benefits, life insurance and so on. Oh yea, it also includes the Welfare costs the Post Office has to pay for all those limited and light duty employees.
August 13th, 2008 00:01
Do you honestly think that people will even remember “and benefits” NO NO NO.
The average person will read hourly rate of 39.47 and will tell all their friends about it. Have you never heard of the art of persuasion. It works against us in this case.
August 13th, 2008 05:00
Sure the Post Office is saving a lot in OT but look at the grievance money it is costing the PO, my union alone in Winston-Salem has won of 200K in grievances this year and other large branches in the state have won even more. Much of these grievances are from forcing Non-otdl to work.
August 13th, 2008 05:33
Here we go again, making the working postal employees take the blame for the Post
Office poor ability to manage their expenses. How about that 39% raise that Potter
and the Board of Governors gave themselves?? Want to save money, give back your
raise, you make enough. In our office we have 6 in supervision for about 60 employees, 3 would be enough since these guys spend most of the day tripping over
each other. If the Post Office downsized about 1/3 of upper mgmt and stopped
with the performance bonuses, (why are they getting 5-12% bonus for something
they already get a salary for??), they would have been in the black not the red last
quarter. Hello! If all you do is set a desk and don’t have an active part in physically
moving the mail, then we DO NOT NEED YOU!!!!
August 13th, 2008 12:04
hey Walt good idea but whos going to del. your mail if we all move to those states just another big mouth with money who wants us to work for next to nothing GREAT IDEA WALT
August 13th, 2008 12:35
tes were oked for flat machine transition. using them to eliminate ot is not what we bargained for.
August 13th, 2008 13:09
WHAT ABOUT THE 39% RAISE THE POSTMASTER GENERAL TOOK AND ALL OF THEM AT THE PMG OFFICE GOT BETWEEN 26-29% RAISES. IF THE POST OFFICE WAS IN THAT BAD SHAPE, AND I’M NOT DENYING ANYONE A RAISE, BUT THEY SHOULD HAVE SAID WE’LL TAKE A 3 OR 4 % NOT WHAT THEY DID. THEN THEY NICKEL AND DIME THE EMPLOYEES FOR A UNIT HERE OR THERE OF OT? AND YES THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE DOING.
August 14th, 2008 06:25
Postal management can only see the end of the day, whatever it takes to make meaningless numbers. “We saved 4 hours of OT”, after grievences are filed the saved four hours actually cost them four more hours for the missed OT by ODL carriers and four hours admin leave for the forced overtime, that is 10 hours of additional pay for 4 hours work already paid at OT rate. Do these guys really get bonuses?
August 14th, 2008 08:26
My station must be the exception to the overtime cuts. I get 3-5 hours of penalty overtime every week and I am on the decline list. It is the worst I have seen it since 92-93.
August 14th, 2008 17:03
almost retired: No argument about the stupidity some supervisors display when it comes to scheduling OT, but to answer your question, no, they don’t get bonuses, and haven’t for about five years now.
August 14th, 2008 20:51
Hey senior man, there are 20 people that come up to me every week asking if we’re hiring. You can come on down and let them deliver where you are! I didn’t mean to say anything about what you think is a fair wage…but there are places in the country that the wage that the USPS serves up is a good wage for the area/State, that’s all.
August 15th, 2008 18:39
Mail carriers have to be the most overpaid people in the work force when you consider the amount of training needed. There’s no experience required. A person can start delivering mail with only a few hours training and make about $20. per hour! Within a month a mail carrier can easily be as proficient as a carrier who’s been doing the same job for 20 years! In fact they should hire more managers so they can go around and catch all the carriers screwing off during slow days. Lets be honest: mail carrier positions were given to vets kind of as a reward when they got out of service and no one wants to accuse a vet of screwing off, right? Not the American way! Slowly but surely the 21st century is catching up with the postal service and within the next 10 years you will see major changes in the junkmail carrier positions.
August 15th, 2008 22:11
te’ser:
What do you do for a living, and how much are you paid?
August 16th, 2008 17:25
Way to go, Postal Service, on all of the overtime savings! Now, let’s lok at the other side of this - how much money is going to be pait out in grievances due to all of the Article 8 violations? No doubt it will surpass the alleged “savings”………
August 19th, 2008 14:13
costs are salararies and benefits.
August 22nd, 2008 06:18
Hey manager
Yes, you do get bonuses. I looked it up on the website, pay for performance bonus
is still there. Maybe you are not a contributor, but each quarter, they have to
tell what they did to be a contributor. ” I saved 4 hours OT!!” and bam they get
their bonus. My supervisor remodeled her kitchen two years ago with her bonus.
So don’t tell me that you managers don’t get a bonus. And a kitchen remodel
isn’t cheap!!
August 24th, 2008 01:19
postal patty, mgmt gets 1 pay raise a year, not a “bonus”, based on meeting goals. Craft employees get a pay raise and 2 “colas” per year just for having a pulse. Get your facts straight.
August 24th, 2008 06:31
I love this bonus nonsense. The old EVA system provided bonuses, and even though it was discontinued five or six years ago, some folks just can’t give up on it. The funny thing is that these same people would be up in arms if their increases came in the form of one time bonuses that didn’t increase their base salary.
Managers and supervisors get a percentage increase based on PFP. And most of your PFP score is based on nationwide and district wide performance scores- individual performance counts for very little of it. They don’t get COLA, they don’t get step increases. And they don’t get bonuses. Any employee can be given a moinetary award, and that’s probably what she’s talking about (if there’s any truth to her story in the first place). The vast majority of those awards go to PCES executives, not to EAS managers and supervisors.
So “Patty”- you say you “looked it up on the website”- how come you didn’t provide the link?
August 24th, 2008 06:37
Hey JoJo
management gets one raise a year 5-12% for pay for performance, that a bonus.
Craft get 1% and only get a cola depending on the consumer index, which last
time we didn’t get one. 5-12% for doing what???
August 25th, 2008 21:18
Patty’s making it up as she goes along. Notice she didn’t answer my question- if you “looked it up on the website”, why can’t you give us the address of the website?
And the minimum PFP increase is 0%, not 5%. My area is currently sitting at an NPA score which would result in a 3.5% increase. The best increase I ever got was a 6.5%, and that was WITH getting rated as exceptional contributor on my personal goals, which only count for 20% of the total.
“That a bonus”? Most people consider bonuses to be one time cash awards. PFP is not a one time cash award. It is a percentage increase in base pay. That is exactly the same thing you get when you get a COLA or step increase. If “that a bonus”, then so is your step increase and COLA. The only difference is that you get yours regardless of how you or your unit perform.
If you think EAS get a better deal with PFP, take it up with your union. You were offered PFP and you declined. If you want PFP, either bargain for it, or apply for an EAS position. Stop complaining about something you claim you don’t want!
Put up or shut up!