Departing Bemidji postal worker documents overwhelming package volume

BEMIDJI, Minn. (FOX 9) – Long, unpaid hours and a toxic work environment are crushing employees at the Bemidji post office, according to a longtime carrier who quit last week. With his help, FOX 9 got a rare peek inside the Bemidji office to see the conditions for workers this holiday season.

Dennis Nelson said he hit his breaking point after several weeks of working more than 12 hours a day, six days a week, since adding Amazon deliveries to his regular route.

But he says adding Amazon packages in November forced him and his fellow carriers to work at least 12 hours a day. He says they usually didn’t get extra pay for extra work, and he worried about safety on the roads on winter nights.

“Being out there until nine, 10, 11 at night and somebody is probably going to get seriously hurt or killed,” Nelson said.

So he broke policy by documenting the package overload inside the office, and he quit before he got fired for it. He says half of Bemidji’s 16 carriers have quit, and staffing was already a problem.

Postal Service management told members of Congress last week that the Minnesota-North Dakota district had 112 seasonal vacancies, but only fully hired 24 employees.