Elephant in the room” is an English metaphorical idiom for an obvious truth that is either being ignored or going unaddressed. The idiomatic expression also applies to an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss.[2] It is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook; thus, people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there have chosen to avoid dealing with the looming big issue.
Rural carriers just came out of another Christmas Overtime period. That is basically the only time of year where a rural carrier would be eligible for overtime pay. One might think that since it is Christmas, and there are a lot more packages, that some overtime might be expected.
Sounds right to me, but it does not actually work that way. Rural carriers basically spend almost a month every year being rushed and pressured to avoid getting overtime. All of this, while at the same time the USPS brags about this holiday season being the “Best Holiday Season Ever“. They recently reported on the “News Link” page that packages services volume increased by 244 million pieces in 2012 compared to 2011.
Scan through the rural carrier message boards and the majority of posts about Christmas are from rural carriers who are being rushed and pressured to finish under their evaluation even with the added Christmas volume. As the Rural Christmas Overtime period approaches the USPS goes into overdrive with telecons, emails, and stand up talks. The hours are tracked online and any overtime or aux help has to be “justified” and then “approved” by someone higher up the pay scale. By the time it is over rural carriers are walking wounded bundles of stress. It takes the spirit out of our holidays and our families end up suffering for it.
Imagine my disgust when I came across this article on Postalmag.com about City Carrier overtime at the USPS. Just this small paragraph is enough to make a rural carrier’s blood boil after what we just went through.
And overtime seems to be through the roof. On this Monday in question, one of the carriers who was working on their off day worked 16 hours! That’s about $600 for one carrier on one day. That’s lawyer pay. And most all the carriers at my post office seem to be working 10-12 hours 6 days a week.
Of course it is not the fault of the carriers. They are out there trying to get the mail out just like rural carriers are, but it seems the USPS looks at their overtime in a whole different light as they do rural overtime. City carriers can get overtime all year-long. Rural carriers only have 1 month per year they are eligible for overtime, yet one hour of overtime for a rural carrier during the Christmas Overtime period can throw a manager into cardiac arrest! What is wrong with this picture?
The pencil pushers at the USPS must not be keeping their pencils sharp enough because they are more worried about the mouse in the room than they are the elephant!
And also from Postalmag.com, lets look at this article from August 2012:
According to the National Payroll Hours Summary Report Pay Period 18 – FY 2012 (August 11 – August 24, 2012), the USPS used 187,678 hours of Penalty Overtime at a cost of $9,903,460 for the two-week pay period. The average hourly rate for this overtime was $52.77. This brings the year-to-date Penalty Overtime usage to 3,126,746 hours, costing the USPS $164,457,454 at an average hourly rate of $52.60.
Letter carriers were the benefactors of a majority of the Penalty Overtime, working 130,437 hours for the two-week pay period and a total of 1,995,527 hours so far this year.
I wish someone could explain it to me because I can’t seem to get it to sink in. It seems that our small window of overtime eligibility is a drop in the bucket compared to the overtime in the other USPS crafts. I could understand it if they were doing it to save money but that can’t be what it is about or we would not have city carriers making lawyer pay.
Hello! L’Enfant plaza We have a problem!
Article says the PO is up 244 million packages in 2012 compared to 2011.
We all know it happens, but to see it in real numbers the way this article lays it out makes me want to puke. And to think, for the second time in 5 months, we will be fighting, scratching and clawing for every second, every minute we can on our evaluations. The double standard is glaring!! What makes us the red headed step child of the Postal Service? What has our craft done that is so horrible to justify treating us this way?!!
We need as rural carriers to switch to hourly pay. I see this happen in my office every year, everyone gets OT except the rurals who are pushed to stay at evaluation or given aux help, while the clerks and city carriers rake in OT pay without management even blinking. Until we make the change, dont get jealous or mad, because it is us who demand to stay with this system.
Exactly.
Don’t you have a Union and don’t they make any attempt to stand up to management?
Oh…and don't forget all those days rural carriers coming waltzing in the door at 1 o'clock to go home and getting paid til 4 or 5pm
As a city carrier I frequently notice rurals going home 1-2pm while I'm back at the station half way through with my city route, to pick up my OT mail. Only during the count are the rurals still there in the afternoon.
Exactly. My city route brings me back to the office at about 12:30 and rural routes are back and leaving then.
And another thing. Several times in my career I've been mandated to go back out in the late afternoon to carry rural route mail because management cannot send rurals out on a route other than their own rural route. In other words, rurals go home at lunch time; city carriers go home when all the mail in the station has been delivered.
Are you a City Carrier delivering Rural Routes? What office do you work? Where is the union? First,management can send RCAs back out.(subs)Second,management themselves can be required to deliver Rural Routes if no one eslse is available.I was in an office that had City and Rural Carriers.Saw this procedure often.Never did a City carrier deliver Rural routes.Check it out.And as for pay, Rural Carriers have one bundle and fly through their routes to get off early.Paid 8 hours,work 4-6.When count comes around,they slack and take the complete 8 working hours..Stop crying about what YOU are doing to yourselves.
We r not paid ANYthing for the xtra time spent at the office due to mailcount.it is NOt factored in anywhere. It slows us down always waiting for someone to time us or count us & make us all do stuff differently than is actually done all yr. some of the routes r H & J which puts them at less than 7hrs pay a day And yes. There r the crooked/sneaky ones who somehow manage to get credit or count for stuff the rest of us didn't. Also box to box routes take longer than cluster box routes 🙁… Read more »
what post offices do you work at. Rural carriers with easy routes or a low volume of mail and packages get back early but there are many rural routes that take 9 or 10 hours most days and we’re only getting paid for 8. It is ignorant of you to say rurals are lazy, that is opposite of what I have seen at my post office
You took the words right out my mouth Lou!
Oh.. and don't forget all those days that they curb mail on the city side, so they don't go over 8 hours. I can count on one hand the number of days in 12 years that the rural side has gotten to curb mail. We take everything every day, and sure don't come waltzing in the door at 1 either.
I was a letter carrier, and a supervisor. I rode with rural carriers. They do good work. However, the rural I rode with had a real estate business on the side. He was done EVERY DAY, except for around Christmas, at no later than 2pm.
The only time I have ever seen rural carriers coming in at the middle of the day is to pick up more mail, because for some d**ned reason they can not be provided LLV's.
Not me 🙁 my rt pays 43 hrs 5 days a wk. that 3 hrs of built in OT every wk. However, even in the summer I avg 8 hrs a day. In MY office the majority of rural carriers would rather go hourly like city & clerk craft. Our leave needs to go hourly too. If I'm on my route & have to leave due to illness, I must take a full 8 hr leave day & no additional compensation for all the hrs already worked!…..just saying. We all have our pros & cons. But why? We all work… Read more »
Exactly
That is our evaluated system.our union agrees to it. We follow. We could be hourly. During off season I regularly work under evaluation and I still get paid. Can not have it both ways
Mrs Ratiker you better count yourself lucky.My route has 710 boxes-2 schools-and tons of mail but is only evaluated at 8.25 hrs.It takes me 10-12 hrs a day to deliver.I had to filed greivance at last count because p-master just flat said he will not give me what the count came to. Which was a 48k + instead I get paid 42k wages.During christmas I had to make 2 trips everyday I got home around 9pm every night even though I am use to getting home around 7 pm. ((not alot of diffrence)) Not once did I even get paid… Read more »
Evaluated system is what the union wants. Go hourly and see how much money you would lose.
No one would loose a dime of pay for time WORKED. The evaluated system is what the POST OFFICE wants- that should tell us all something.
My personal opinion on the matter is, I don't want hourly. I figure I am a fast worker, so I get done before evaluation time. If we go to hourly I might make more money but, I would lose my freedom to work fast and get done early. I would have to pace myself and work according to evaluated time standards. I think if we went to hourly the USPSs budget would take another hit. Can you imagine the overtime every carrier would get if we worked like the city carriers.
I don't know how long you've been a rural carrier, but eventually working fast is going to take a serious toll on your body. I've always been the "slow" one and after 24 years my back and shoulders are almost shot.
Logged in 154 scans in one day went out with a steel full of parcels on numerous occasions during the Christmas period, only to be sent home if I even got close to OT
This is one big elephant that I've been watching for years. Many years. I've said it before I'll say it again. It is LONG past time for Rural Carriers to get ON THE CLOCK!
I am a Rural Carrier for 17 years ( 10 years as a Rural Carrier a*sociate, no benefits, and 7 years as career) and this does boil my blood reading the above article! Everyone thinks the rural carriers make big money when it is other crafts in the post office. We work twice as hard and longer hours for half the pay( evaluated pay) and are always getting targeted for the cuts in our evaluated time. I don't understand this! I've been fighting tooth and nail every since I have been a rugular carrier to be paid and treated fairly,… Read more »
Number one, we are the smallest union, Number two our Union participated in writing the "overtime" rules that apply! USPS managers are just doing their job to make sure the contract is followed to the letter! No pun intended. It is impossible to get overtime, if per chance you even get close to your weekly evaluated time they send you home and have an RCA, (who is probably working on OT already) finish the route. Then no millage for second trips, or even to divert for an express! Until our Union "leaders" stand up and do something about it, next… Read more »
If you are in a POV and not getting mileage – that is your own fault. We have a second trip MOU in place and you get paid for second trips. I do not want any overtime, if I come close to going over and they give me help, fine.
Just thank the good Lord you all have jobs and a paycheck, whether it's little or lot. No one is ever happy at the P.O, so we should just be thankful for jobs. If you are that unhappy with your check, find another job. I've worked with the P.O almost 30 yrs now and more then half of that is part time, with no benefits. But i'm grateful for what i have. Thank you.
Sarah, everything that happens to the craft cannot be explained away by just be happy you have a job.. There are inequities, and there are problems that we need to have discussions about. Being happy to have a job has nothing to do with it. We can be happy to have our jobs and discuss the problems of our craft at the same time. If we never had these kind of discussions, then nothing would ever change..
Well said admin.
you are correct, but aren't these discussions just a bunch of moaning and groaning. when i have tried in the past to discuss problems, there's a chain of command, and a bunch of paperwork, and at the end of it all, the problems and the craft has been changed with new rulings, that lead to new discussions. so in the long run, i feel like after 30 yrs not much has changed. I just believe that if we just went to work knowing whats ahead (problems, postmasters, managers, mistakes, sick people, short handed, lack of money) all that goes into… Read more »
Unfortunately, the majority of the rural delegates to the national convention have felt like Barbara and want the ability to go home when they work fast. This has led to the situation we are in now, with arbitrators deciding that we are overpaid for the average hours we work and then cutting our standards resulting in less evaluations. Until we as a craft start showing the Postal Service and arbitrators that the "b*mp" is artificial, we will be stuck right where we are. By the way, are you aware Barbara that the threshold for a route adjustment is only 3… Read more »
How many conventions have you been to? I am one of the last people back in my office and I never go home by 2:00, so how do you know that about the delegates? I know how important it is to not cut my hours by rushing thru my route because I have taken the time and listened to what the stewards have told us a meetings. I think more people getting involved and learning their contract is what we need I have heard it said a million times Rural Carriers are our own worst enemies and this is true.
What I always push for is an option to be paid hourly or by evaluated pay after an official mailcount. Put in resolutions at next years spring meetings. The evaluated lover could keep their system and those being killed by it could choose hourly pay. Let the carrier choose! There would be changes for those picking hourly. We would be managed like city carriers and you wouldnt have OT rolled into your salary but when it gets to the point (like I am in) that you can never meet your weekly eval and go over by 5-12 hours in the… Read more »
What can we do about it????
You can begin by drop kicking your joke of a union to the curb.
I don't make the rules,I just get what I take…
and I guess every rule was made to break.
After 26 plus years,23 as a regular you learn to play their game and get what is due.
I always tell my fellow RLC's ask me after I retire
Did you read my whole post? The answer is in the first and second sentence.
I couldnt agree more. You seem to have a route like I do. Mine is a FSS,DPS and LLV supplied rural/suburban route with lots of volume as I work in a middle/upper cla*s area.There are many differences in rural routes already…LLV vs POV…L vs non L….dirt roads vs paved roads…rural vs suburban…FSS vs non FSS….DPS vs non DPS…snow vs non snow routes and probably many more. We need to make one more difference in rural routes to protect the carriers as our evaluated system leaves more and more being abused by it….hourly vs evaluated routes with the regular carrier making… Read more »
My city / rural mixed office here goes .. 15 city routes NO ptf carriers . NO help for city carriers City carriers get OT . Rurals 7 routes with 4 RCA's , RCA's make less per hour = cheaper work hour rate.. NO rural OT! enough said
Your all kidding right….for the other 11 months your like robbing the bank and for the month of december you want overtime. Now wonder were going bankrupt!
not to quible but in the evaluated system if your a 42K you get paid for 2 hours OT every week so please do not say you only get OT for 3 weeks at Xmas every year OT is built into routes that are evaluated for it. as for my office while no OT was paid we did have RCA carrier extra time that was put in and i did not work at all on 2 fridays.
Many rurals have a route evaluated to 40 or close per week and regularly finish during the year in much less time. If they no longer want this evaluated route system I am sure that NALC would love for the rurals to merge with their union and go to an hourly wage system. This means rurals would be subjected to the same kind of time scrutiny that city carriers are subjected to. Can't have it both ways.
Your article forgets to mention the Paul Harvey of this situation, now for the rest of the story. Management focuses on when carriers come back to the office, not what a route is evaluated to. For both city and rural carriers. Rural carriers are less supervise because of the type of contract they have, once evaluated, that is what they will be paid for the year, with slight exceptions. When rural routes are being evaluated, that is the longest day a rural carrier works, being credit for time on every operation performed. Day after evaluated, rural carriers starts running the… Read more »
That is not the whole story either. You forgot to mention that half of our craft is working over evaluation before the stress of Christmas volume. Yes, the craft on average shows a b*mp, but we are all thrown into the same pile, with the same standards applied. I can a*sure you there are no rural carriers out there making a lawyer's pay day. In an organization that is supposedly going broke, the Elephant being ignored is a much larger problem than a rural carrier working under their evaluation in an incentivized pay system.
The problem is the postal service leaves the city carriers way under staffed. But the postal service makes sure there is plenty of rural carriers and RCAs. I would love not to have to work 12 hr days 6 days a week. Those of you rural that are jealous of the pay and overtime with the daily hara*sment we have plenty of routes available. Come on over.
Everyday is Christmas for rural carriers……one in my office works a**log of 4 hrs a day and gets paid for 8.5…..also works every other Sat**day straight ot….laughable
…..that should read average, not a**log
No one here is under evaluation like that. I bet that is a route that is all mileage and no mail. I never had to worry about counts when my route was 80 miles long and retirees had not discovered Tennessee. Now that houses and subdivisions dot what was rural territory here and most routes have shrunk to 25 to 40 miles then our a*sociations inability to defend our contract mail volume standards has a huge effect. Not to mention the fact that mail we have all year long just happens to disappear during count and reappear in an avalanche… Read more »
Typical, "they got some, I want mine" thinking. The problem with this article is it focuses how to get more overtime for rurals, when the real discussion should be how to reduce overtime for the city carriers. High overtime may be caused by poor management, but it will be the craft employees, and the customes, that suffer the consequences of fiscal insolvency.
Jacen, you are correct that OT is sometimes built into the system (if your route is large enough) and that we get extra time during the 3 week Christmas period if we work over our weekly evaluation but do you know that a rural carrier has to evaluate at 43 hours a week to make the same as a city carrier? Do you also know that there are rural carriers who can not make their evaluated time any week of the year and put in many free hours each week? I suppose if its not happening to you that you… Read more »
rurals have the best job in the PO . in my office they are done when im back for lunch typically 12-1 and get paid till 4 . they easily get 3-4 hours of pay doing nothing . yes they dont make as much as a city carrier nor should they with all that curbside . city routes would have to be cut in half to get paid the way a rural does . if rurals went hourly they would have to add to there routes to make a full day .
First of all, I feel the pain of the rural carriers. However, this is unfortunately old news. Several years ago under the leadership of Bill Young, the nalc approached the rural craft about the possibility of joining up with the letter carrier craft because of all the above issues. The rural membership declined. I know many of the rural carriers in the office I worked in did not want to work the guaranteed eight hours of a regular. Many of them liked the option of going home early if they finished early. You cannot have it both ways. Perhaps it… Read more »
I am still waiting to be paid for a route that I worked on November 2! I My paycheck on November 6th was shorted for that day of work. I brought it to their attentiion on the 13th of November, and to this day, I still have not received my money! I asked on a form 13 to file a grievance over three weeks ago, and it sat in the try on the door of the office for almost three weeks. I have spoken with the union regarding this, but I still not have received an answer regarding my grievance.… Read more »
Transfer over to city carrier and lets see how well you loke it when you are walkiing in the 35 degree rain instead of listening to the radio in your heated LLV.
ok ive been at this since 1994 your best bud is your supervisor not your union ok have a cow. Flames right do you want a good working enviroment or a strong union you cant have the latter. They are political they wont admit it, they only want the dues , your supervisor want's you to keep him out of the hot seat work with him.the bottom line as you have done is fudge just spell it out it won't hurt poloticians do it all the time. Now serk ve your route take care of your customers they are your… Read more »
as a city carrier i used to envy the rural carriers in my office. they case the dps ,scanners were brought to them, and they were on the way home by noon.not so much anymore; sometime in the last year or more,they're back as late as i am, routes were cut from 8 RR to 6 & you need roller skates to case in their runway length sorting cases. i also don't want to be a rolling window clerk. some time ago it was suggested that city carriers have evaluated routes also, now on this thread rurals are wanting hourly.… Read more »
OH, those poor rural carriers. I was a rural carrier Postmaster for 7 1/2 years and boy everyone in the post office should have it this good. If I had to do my career again I would definitely be a rural carrier. In all my years at the PO I have only seen rural go over evaluation the day after a holiday. My rural carriers always made their evaluation with little or no help during Christmas. Always over on Monday, but under the rest of the week. A matter of fact most of my rural carriers usually made the 1220PM… Read more »
What about the other 11 months of the year when you get done around 1:00P.M.Just saying
There seems to be a huge misconception that ALL rural carriers are done by noon… As I stated earlier, HALF of our craft is OVER evaluation….. HALF.. If you think all of us go home by noon, you are vastly misinformed.
I've been an RCA for 14+ years and have never been done before noon, or 1:00 for that matter, nor have any of the other routes in my office. I'll mention the flip side of "rural carriers who go home at noon every day" with this: how about even on the lightest mail days, the city carriers still take all day ? They could go home early too, but nope gotta draw that 8 hours pay !!
Does not matter if rurual carriers have an eight hour route and work it in only six. That is the incentive of our contract. And management can give aux a*sistance during Christmas OT period to keep the carrier from getting OT. What's the Problem?
Well city carriers are not home at 1 or 2 oclock like most rural carriers. They get back as fast as they can and go home for 2to 4 hours a day with pay. There your overtime. Suck it up!
There seems to be a huge misconception that ALL rural carriers are done by noon&h**lip; As I stated earlier, HALF of our craft is OVER evaluation&h**lip;.. HALF.. If you think all of us go home by noon, you are vastly misinformed.
Stop going on 3, 4 and 5 smoke breaks every morning. Stop carrying on outside of your case with fellow rurals. The ones that are leaving early tend to be working diligently in the mornings and getting out on the street and getting done. I'm walking down the street delivering my route between 12 and 1pm and get honked at by three or four rural carriers on their way home every day. Then the ones that are there all day long are there EVERYDAY late. Even when we have NO MAIL. Even if we have a bunch of mail. They… Read more »
Maybe some of the City Carriers on here do not realize that all Rural Routes are not the same evaluation. You can have a 3 hour a day route or a 9+ hour a day route. That is why we all come back at different times.
I have been a rural carrier for 26+ years. Some routes have changed quite a bit since I first started. I am one of the carriers that works over eval more often than not during the whole year. I have a very high volume route,532 boxes, 26.2 miles. LLV DPS.L route. Since they keep changing time standards it only goes to reason the higher volume routes will see the biggest effect and the routes that go home early everyday are the routes with a high box count and/or high millage, low volume of mail. Since those routes have no mail… Read more »
Thank You admin! As I pointed out I can never meet my weekly evaluation the whole year and went over 12 hours one week shortly before the Christmas OT period started. Thats 12 hours of free OT for the USPS! Leading up to the Christmas OT period I was regularly over by 3-5 hours and expect that to continue during the snow season. Routes are different…carriers are different and the evaluated system just doesnt work anymore for many. The best that I did last year was one hour over eval during the slower summer months. I work hard the whole… Read more »
most rurals I see are middle age women who if they had to do the average city walking route wouldn't make it to day 2…you got ice cream over on your side…stop complaining
truthful Teddy, I am one of those middle age women, I can do a walking route, but I choose not to be a city carrier, I chose rural route. You chose city route. I have trained or tried to train city carriers who thought they wanted to switch. They didn't last thru the three day training period. Went back to the city. Everyone thinks the other side is better. I work hard to get back when I can, My sister carrier gets hara*sed because the other eleven months of the year she is back after her evaluated time. She is… Read more »
I beg to differ…. Don't speak of things of which you don't know. PFFT
You want overtime like the carriers you are talking about?? Take an office with 20 rural carriers, let 5 of them go and then you and the other 14 Rurals pick up the slack. That's what these city carriers are putting up with. Post Offices that are badly understaffed thanks to idiotic management, so they are working 10 + hours a day. .
so for 11 months a year you rush your a*s off to have a shorter day and get your full amount you can't have it both ways be like acity carrier and get timed for everthing you do if there is a inch less of mail you have to be back a half hur earlier and do a split cry baby
I have never liked the idea of "rural carrier" or "city carrier". To me they should both be called "Mail Carrier". All carriers should be paid on an hourly basis, used on any route their is work, and management should have the ablity to level out the routes. I hate to see my rural carriers working 8-9 hours and get paid for 7. But managing city carriers is no easy task, and I don't think that rural carriers would like to be treated like city carriers. The unions have created the mess everyone is in, and they will continue this… Read more »
A city carrier is pushed everyday all year long. I see rural carriers going home early all the time and there base pay is higher than a city carrier with 1000 stop route. You have the best job in postal service enjoy it.
Our base is higher? The average conversion from rural to city is 1 and 1/2 city roues to every rural route our 40 hour wage is 40,859 to 52,582 your top rate is around 58,000 so why don't you check the facts before you talk. When you guys get slamed the day after a holiday you get OT we get S*(t
This carrier actually got screwed since there is no penalty OT at that time (double pay for anything over 10 hours). I used to be a rural carrier and switched over to city because I would rather be guaranteed my hours and receive OT for "anything" over 8 hours. Sure, going home early like rurals do is nice, but it sucks when you go through a count and you lose some of your paycheck. "And overtime seems to be through the roof. On this Monday in question, one of the carriers who was working on their off day worked 16… Read more »
Those city carriers that are "working 10 hours" get a 2 ten minute breaks on the clock (2 hours a week) They MUST take a half hour lunch off the clock 3 hours a week. They must pace themselves so that the route takes the same time as there heaviest day because if the return early 4 days of the week they will take mail off the slowest and laziest and make the harder workers work harder! I am very seldom under eval any more with the FSS and DPS standards I work less hours a day than the city… Read more »
Instead of pointing fingers, We all do the same job, Deliver Mail & Parcels. Yes we have different unions and different pay scale But We really Need to Work together because if The Upper Management that Sits in the Ivory Tower get their way, We're ALL Going to Get Screwed …
ohhh please please please stop the insanity city carriers…do not tell me we have it better, why? because 5 days a year i get to go home at 12? big f'''''' deal, my salary is not even close to yours. do you feel for me when im working 3 hours over my evaluated? would that ever happen in your craft? a carrier working for NOTHING FOR 3 HOURS? i dont think so. all you see is us going home early some days, so what. you dont see us working 12 hour days ethier? no lunch, no breaks!!! if our gig… Read more »
All I ask for is a fair days pay for a fair days work… That's all!