New Hampshire Workers Cheated Out of Wages: Congressman Hodes Spurs Investigation That Reveals Fraud
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 — Rep. Paul W. Hodes, D-N.H. (2nd CD), issued the following news release:
Congressman Paul Hodes issued the following statement after the Inspector General of the US Postal Service confirmed New Hampshire postal workers’ concerns that management had altered time cards and withheld payment that the workers had earned. Congressman Hodes had called on the Inspector General to investigate these concerns.
“This is a clear and deliberate violation of workers’ rights,” said Congressman Hodes. “New Hampshire families have suffered as a result of this scheme, and these hard-working postal workers deserve the wages that they have earned. The Postal Service should immediately reimburse these workers for the wages that were taken from them.”
Earlier this year, Congressman Hodes wrote to the 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 they had earned. Postal workers were concerned that management was manually altering time cards in order to avoid paying workers the wages to which they were entitled.
The Inspector General concluded that management altered time entries which, “resulted in the removal of straight time, overtime night differential and penalty overtime causing employees to be underpaid.” Management engaged in these practices at all three of the post office stations in question, and the Inspector General’s investigation revealed other inconsistencies at the Somersworth Post Office and the Salem Post Office. The investigation also revealed a flaw in the way in which clerks’ hours are recorded, which resulted in an “unintentional loss of pay to employees.”
October 17th, 2009 08:08
I guess these supervisors will all get promoted. If it were craft employees they would be fired.
October 17th, 2009 14:54
Reassigning timekeeping duties to supervisors was like putting the foxes in charge of the hen houses. This couldn’t go on in timecard days, because employees had immediate access to their clock rings. They still should electronically via Liteblue.
October 17th, 2009 15:59
This is stealing, which should result in the immediate firing of any supervisor who does this.
October 17th, 2009 16:12
The Yonkers, NY Post office is currently being investigated by the OIG for denying legitimate and documented sick leave and denying FMLA leave.
Employees of all crafts are being LWOP’ed after they have utilized eLRA in the proper manner and presenting legitimate medical documentation upon return to work as eLRA directs the employee to do so.
EVERY craft employee working in Yonkers, NY who requested sick leave during pay period 21/09 was denied sick leave and LWOP’ed.
Yonkers, NY is a large station with several zip codes ranging from 10701-10710.
Therefore, DOZENS of emplyees of ALL crafts were denied sick leave and LWOP’ed.
This is not an isolated incident though (pay period 21), it has been pattern at Yonkers, NY for several years.
If you are being LWOP’ed for sick leave after you have utilized eLRA and presented legitimate documantation upon return to duty, do not hesitate to report your managers to OIG.
USPS OIG phone: 1-888-USPS-OIG
USPS OIG website: https://www.uspsoig.gov/hotline.htm
USPS OIG email:
hotline@uspsoig.gov
If you feel you are being LWOP’ed incorrectly, contact the OIG immedietly.
Do not forget, if you are missing pay, it not only affects you, it affects your family and personal life.
October 17th, 2009 17:26
hahaha!!! fire a supervisor!!! never happen!!! this happens in every office across the nation!!! this is…just the tip of the ice burg!!! our postmaster clocks out carriers all of the time so they don’t violate the imaginary 5 o’clock window but carriers are afraid to report it because management WILL retaliate… i agree with real time access..foxes in charge of the henhouse!!!!
October 17th, 2009 18:38
This is not a big surprise to most employees. They should widen the investigation NATIONWIDE.
October 17th, 2009 20:44
I’m quite sure “fiddling” with eLRA by management is a nationwide problem and constitutes fraud and abuse.
Also, LWOPing for approved FMLA that has proper and legitimate documantation and the worker hasn’t used up his/her leave and hasn’t gone over the FMLA hours is fraud and:
A FEDERAL VIOLATION !!!!!
October 17th, 2009 21:28
This is an on-going problem made by the upper management who continue to get rewarded through the district who think they are above the law!I know for a fact that supervisors have stolen money for carrier obsovation and had been turned in to the Postal Inspectors who in return turn it back over to a Postal manager who had trained the thief.Its ok for an eas employee to falseafie records,delay mail,sexal harassment,still,curse at employees,threaten employees,etc,etc.Mad as Hell at the total corruption that starts at the Top!THey call me MR. SCott!
October 17th, 2009 23:35
I AM a supervisor – and if they’re caught doing this – they should be fired. And I know this will come as a shock to you – but the supervisors have the same problems you do. A lot of them have hours taken off their pay each week. Nothing is ’supervisor’ or ‘craft’ – a thief is a thief and deserves punishment.
October 18th, 2009 09:03
how many routes were potentially effected in the MIARAP
October 18th, 2009 09:08
HOW MANY ROUTES IN THE MIARAP ADJUSTMENT WERE AFFECTED BY THE CLOCK RINGS MANIPULATIONS
October 18th, 2009 13:31
“Nothing is ’supervisor’ or ‘craft’ ”
I beg to differ, supervisors/management are the only ones who have access to and are able to manipulate eLRA.
October 19th, 2009 11:30
First of all no one stole anything,, did they profit personally
This was all about 17A’S and B’S
properly documenting the time removed. Which was legit in most cases and the employee was notified.
October 20th, 2009 10:47
The theft is there Sdosuper. First line managers are forced to move the mail with too few employees and a crack down on OT. Far too many of them join in with the bullying of the carriers and other craft employees with glee. The only way to maintain production with less employees is to over-burden the ones that are there. To further reduce the costs their hours are altered. This is nationwide and it is reprehensible. Carriers are forced to deliver too much mail with too few hours, ergo, they run their routes through their breaks and and lunch time. They are disciplined if they bring it back, and they are disciplined if they go overtime. Unofficial and unrecognized DOIS is used against the carriers.
The USPS is currently conducting a bloodless pogrom forcing out the older and limited duty employees as well. (NRP) Proportionately it is the most filed upon agency at the EEOC. It has become a rogue agency. I worked for them for 10 years as carrier & clerk, I was a Chief Steward and I am now an attorney. I have been dealing with the POD and USPS since 1967 and I have never seen it in a more brutal, self-destructive, and lawless spree.
Management should be ashamed; and each time a manager cashes a bonus check they are putting money stolen from the craft in their pocket. It is time for the first-line managers to stand with the crafts against the bean-counters and privateers who have come into control of the USPS by refusing to break the law any more. It postal employees can’t stand together against the law breakers then our beloved old Post Office is going to turn into just another private mail service kiosk at the shopping center.
November 2nd, 2009 08:09
As long as the proper documentation is filed and signed off on, it is OK to take away OT and penalty OT, believe it or not. A 1017-A and 1017-B are designed just for this purpose. If time was taken away and not signed off by the employee, then it is flat out wrong. As far as MIARAP, the NALC makes sure, through the local stewards, that it “guides” employees on what MIARAP does so most carriers have learned to expand their road times anyway. THAT is stealing! When you can deliver a route in 5 hours, then it becomes 5.5 and then 6 within 9 months, without any new deliveries, that is stealing. Taking 45 minutes lunches, 30 minute breaks…that is stealing. Why do you think that GPS units are being put in vehicles now? With all the stealing of time (time = money), the postal service will make back the cost of the GPS units in a month. If one carrier gets made an example of and gets fired because of their stealing of time, that would save even more $$$$.
November 3rd, 2009 17:41
“If one carrier gets made an example of and gets fired because of their stealing of time, that would save even more $$$$.”
….and if one supervisor/manager gets made an example of and gets fired because of their stealing sick and/or annual leave, that would save even much more $$$$$
November 15th, 2009 20:50
Bill, you must have just come out of a supervisors womb, keep drinking the Koolaid!First of all I have never heard of street time referred to as road time, the correct term would be street time. Being such a postal blow hard you would know this is always made out to be “Expansion of Street Time” on your bogus list of charges in your discipline which good union reps such as I have thrown out like the weekly garbage. You also may want to introduce yourself to some contractual language such as ” A fair days work for a fair day’s pay”. I am not a machine but a real person who has various things that affect my daily street time. Examples would be; People asking for directions,customer inquiries,customer interaction, weather, getting gas for postal vehicle, supervisor inquiries, or any physical ailments I may be experiencing that day. Guess what Bill it’s people like me that could care less about your GPS because I’m giving you your fair day’s work for the fair day’s pay. At the end of the day I am the one that has a job to do, do you?
November 20th, 2009 18:07
As a city letter carrier, it is a damn shame that management will likely get away with time fraud on these workers in NH. It is disgusting and embarassing that a Congress person has to get involved but necessary.
What will happen to these management people? Prosecuted no, terminated no but promoted or sent off to another office to do the same thing again. please do not send these morons to NJ.