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February 24, 2020 9:01 AM Subscribe
The Postal Service Fired Thousands of Workers for Getting Injured While Delivering and Processing Your Mail: USPS forced out 44,000 workers who got injured on the job. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says the effort, part of a five year program, violated the law. But the Postal Service has fought its workers’ claims since 2007. (SLProPublica by Maryam Jameel)
Taking a look at the Federal Agency injury numbers posted online here, the USPS is surprisingly dangerous to work at.
For the most recent one, Fiscal Year 2019 , the rankings of Total (injury) Case Rate ( dividing the number of total injury cases by the number of employees. The resulting number is then multiplied by 100, for a rate per 100 employees ) from highest to lowest are:
Bureau of Customs & Border Protection 8.31
Forest Service 6.04
U.S. Marshals Service 5.82
U. S. Postal Service (Excludes Postal Rate Commission) 5.81
The USPS has the 4th worst injury rate record for the entirety of the US Government. The DEA's rate is 1.76. Secret Service? 2.16. ICE? 3.67.
All federal agencies and workers are covered by OSHA's protections, but, OSHA can't fine them (because you'd have government handing over money to a different part of the government), so is essentially toothless (more info in the FAQ section on OSHA's website). There are a lot of things that private-sector workplaces do to protect their employee's safety (for example, guarding machines, or providing certain training) ONLY to avoid a fine if an OSHA inspector were to walk in. This is never going to apply to postal workers. It's dangerous work, there's no incentive to ever give a shit about employee health and safety or ever make improvements, and they even go above and beyond by firing you if you do get hurt. This is absolutely horrendous --at least OSHA can slap fines on Amazon.
This is even barebones shit. The newer trend in safety is looking at mental health on the job -- stereotypically, postal workers are also at a high risk of those issues as well. That's never going to be touched if there's no incentive to do anything about the first level, of just keeping your employee's bodies functional enough to do the work.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 10:48 AM on February 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
For the most recent one, Fiscal Year 2019 , the rankings of Total (injury) Case Rate ( dividing the number of total injury cases by the number of employees. The resulting number is then multiplied by 100, for a rate per 100 employees ) from highest to lowest are:
Bureau of Customs & Border Protection 8.31
Forest Service 6.04
U.S. Marshals Service 5.82
U. S. Postal Service (Excludes Postal Rate Commission) 5.81
The USPS has the 4th worst injury rate record for the entirety of the US Government. The DEA's rate is 1.76. Secret Service? 2.16. ICE? 3.67.
All federal agencies and workers are covered by OSHA's protections, but, OSHA can't fine them (because you'd have government handing over money to a different part of the government), so is essentially toothless (more info in the FAQ section on OSHA's website). There are a lot of things that private-sector workplaces do to protect their employee's safety (for example, guarding machines, or providing certain training) ONLY to avoid a fine if an OSHA inspector were to walk in. This is never going to apply to postal workers. It's dangerous work, there's no incentive to ever give a shit about employee health and safety or ever make improvements, and they even go above and beyond by firing you if you do get hurt. This is absolutely horrendous --at least OSHA can slap fines on Amazon.
This is even barebones shit. The newer trend in safety is looking at mental health on the job -- stereotypically, postal workers are also at a high risk of those issues as well. That's never going to be touched if there's no incentive to do anything about the first level, of just keeping your employee's bodies functional enough to do the work.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 10:48 AM on February 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
My dog absolutely loves mail carriers, and will try as hard as she can to get a skritch, and sometimes a treat, from any she sees, even from blocks away. I of course never just walk up to any of them, not everyone likes dogs or wants to interact with them. Last year we encountered a new mail carrier, the dog wanted to say hi, I told them she was super friendly, and they told me they loved dogs but couldn’t risk it, because if they got bit during their probationary period they’d get fired immediately, no matter what the circumstance was. How is that even legal?
posted by outfielder at 11:40 AM on February 24, 2020 [13 favorites]
posted by outfielder at 11:40 AM on February 24, 2020 [13 favorites]
Add my voice to those certain that this is a consequence of the Republican effort to destroy the USPS, which I think is the only Federal agency directly authorized by the Constitution.
It's small potatoes compared with some of the problems the country faces, but if sure like to see the repeal of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, and while we're at it, the Reorganization Act... make the Post Office a cabinet department again, and fund it so that it can comply with the law.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:07 PM on February 24, 2020 [10 favorites]
It's small potatoes compared with some of the problems the country faces, but if sure like to see the repeal of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, and while we're at it, the Reorganization Act... make the Post Office a cabinet department again, and fund it so that it can comply with the law.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:07 PM on February 24, 2020 [10 favorites]
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posted by NoxAeternum at 9:32 AM on February 24, 2020 [21 favorites]