Based on the commitment that no employee should have to work in an atmosphere of fear or intimidation, the Postal Service has a zero-tolerance policy for workplace violence. This applies regardless of where postal employees perform their duties.

To renew this commitment to employees, USPS and the Postal Inspection Service have launched a security initiative — combining their resources to ensure that employees are aware of steps they can take to avoid becoming a victim of violence, whether on the street (Link, 4/20) or working inside a postal facility (Link, 4/1).

According to Chief Postal Inspector Guy Cottrell, the initiative targets workplace violence at all levels before it escalates to violence — a focus that has proven to be the most effective. This involves Postal Inspectors meeting face to face with employees and supervisors on a broad range of security and crime-prevention messages.

“By ensuring that low-level incidents like threatening remarks and other forms of non-physical intimidation are treated seriously, we can avoid the escalation in violence that sometimes follows,” says Cottrell, explaining that Inspectors conducting assault prevention presentations will provide brochures, emergency contact cards and other items to employees.

The Postal Service also has resources available to employees and supervisors to help them deal with problems at work and at home. The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provides assessment, referral, and short-term counseling. Postal employees and their families can call the EAP service center at 800-327-4968. For TTY, call 877-492-7341. The service center is available 24 hours a day.

via USPS News Link – August 2, 2010.

PMG Jack Potter has named Guy Cottrell the 38th chief inspector of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. He begins his new assignment Aug. 1.

A 23-year postal employee, Cottrell has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of New Orleans. He most recently served as deputy chief inspector, where he was responsible for USPS national security programs.

In 1987, Cottrell began his postal career as a letter carrier in New Orleans. In 1990, he became a Postal Inspector in the New Orleans Division, where he investigated internal and external mail theft in Louisiana and southern Mississippi. He has held a number of supervisory positions in various major metropolitan areas, including management of the Inspection Service’s Washington field office during much of the 2001 anthrax investigations.

In 2008, Cottrell was named inspector in charge of the Security and Crime Prevention/Communications group. In that position, he guided the Inspection Service toward a risk and management analysis platform and streamlined security-related programs. His group produced several internal and external security and crime prevention publications and videos and also created a new Postal Inspection Service website.

Cottrell also will serve as chairman of the Universal Postal Union’s Postal Security Group.

The Postal Service is seeking comments on a proposal to conduct “an ongoing matching program to identify any current Postal Service employees, who are required by state law to register on a state’s public registry of sex offenders”. Read the rest of this entry »