‘Stamp Out Hunger’ Food Donations Stolen From Fresno Home
“A Fresno woman claims her food donation was ripped off Saturday. A U.S. postal worker was supposed to pick up the groceries as part of the nation’s Stamp out Hunger campaign. Instead, someone in a random vehicle reportedly took the bag of food. Stamp out Hunger is the largest one-day food drive in the country put on by the U.S. Postal Service.”
source: KGPE TV CBS47 – Serving the Counties of Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced and Tulare in the Central San Joaquin Valley of California
USPS and Letter Carriers Team Up For Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive
WASHINGTON — On Saturday, May 14, the U.S. Postal Service will join forces with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) to provide assistance to America’s families struggling to put food on their tables every day. Last year the Stamp Out Hunger food drive collected a record 77.1 million pounds of food donations, pushing the 18-year total to more than one billion pounds of food. Read more
Rudy Tempesta, longest-serving letter carrier in the United States
“Rudy Tempesta, 85, the longest-serving mailman in the United States. For 65 years, first in New York City, and since 1959 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina he’s been delivering good news and bad, checks and bills, letters and magazines, catalogs and packages. For the past 20 years, his route has been a seven-mile stretch in the central part of Chapel Hill.”
full story Parade Magazine
In 2009, Rudy was honored for 60 years of safe driving. Read more
Alert California Letter Carrier Foil Burglars Attempted Getaway After Robbing House
Filed under: letter carriers, postal, postal news, press releases
Carrier Praised for Exceptional Diligence During Burglary
FREMONT, California — The two young burglars at Fremont’s Gibraltar Drive thought they were prepared, mid-day, with a car positioned, motor running. After grabbing jewelry, irreplaceable family heirlooms and other valuables, they dashed down the street and hopped into their get-away car, failing to notice someone who would foil their attempt to escape: Fremont Letter Carrier Colleen Meade.
As the car made a quick turn, gunning toward an escape route from the neighborhood at high speed, Meade looked up while she was busily checking a bundle of mail. Meade took matters into hand, immediately jotted down the license plate number, the color of the vehicle, and a notation on the physical descriptions of the perpetrators. Then she phoned the Fremont Police Department.
“We are deeply grateful for Ms. Meade’s exceptional diligence and concern and commend her for her courageous and quick action,” wrote Robert and Lupe Perez in a letter to the Postmaster General of the United States. The grateful homeowners who have lived in the neighborhood since 1965 went on to say, “We all very much appreciate her exceptional service, in addition to her warm and friendly manner. She always goes out of her way and takes that ‘extra step.’ She is a huge asset to the USPS.”
source: USPS
USPS OIG Recommends Use Of Part-Time “Delivery Unit Assistants” For Carrier Duties
USPS OIG Report: Management Advisory – Benchmarking Mail Distribution to Carriers
A few excerpts:
The Postal Service and industry carriers are similar in that individuals perform some sorting of volumes for delivery, load their own vehicles, and assume additional delivery points when a colleague is absent or mail volumes require it. However, the Postal Service is unique among the companies we visited in that carriers deliver a more varied mix of mail, including letters, flats, and parcels; and must comply with a Universal Service Obligation. If the Postal Service incorporated the assignment of some delivery unit activities to part-time employees, additional savings could be achieved.
Workforce Flexibilities
The Postal Service may have opportunities to improve operations by adopting some industry best practices for distributing mail to carriers. We noted commercial delivery businesses have staffing flexibilities, such as the ability for employees to work across craft assignments, which allow managers to more efficiently match workhours with workload and offset overtime by using more part-time employees. See Appendix B for our detailed analysis of this topic
Flexible Delivery Unit Assistants
Postal Service city delivery carriers have office time allowances built into their 8-hour days to case and prepare mail for their route. Based on workload trends, vacancies,absences, and mail volume, the carrier may perform these activities for other routes. A small percentage of delivery units use full-time carrier craft “routers” to case and prepare the mail for delivery exclusively; Postal Service management stated the use of routers is declining. Routers typically case and prepare the mail prior to the assigned carrier’s arrival; routers may or may not perform street duties later in the day, depending on need. See Appendix B for our detailed analysis of this topic.
If the Postal Service used part-time delivery unit assistants to perform most in-office work, these employees could absorb all carrier morning activities except loading and driving delivery vehicles. Having part-time employees case and prepare mail within delivery units could result in annual reduced workhour costs between $621 million and $2.3 billion and greater flexibility for the Postal Service. Additional savings could be generated from carrier route adjustments resulting in longer routes and less office time for the carriers. See Appendix C for our analysis of monetary impacts.
We recommend the vice president, Delivery and Post Office Operations:
1. Pursue a delivery unit assistant initiative to have transitional employees or part-time flexible employees perform in-office activities including casing and preparing mail for carriers.
Management disagreed with the recommendation because of the complexity of labor relations and existing contractual issues with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC). Management further stated that the Postal Service is currently working with NALC to examine how city delivery routes might be structured in the future. The parties are working on a test that will attempt to separate the casing and delivery functions to the extent possible while operating within the current work rules.
USPS OIG: Benchmarking Mail Distribution to Carriers
Postal PTF Clerk And City Carrier Reassignment Opportunities In Alaska
Filed under: letter carriers, postal, postal clerks, postal news, usps
PostalReporter.com was asked to pass along the following information (note: conversion from doc to picture created by PostalReporter)
:
Mail Carrier Tries to Get Job Back After Helping Boy
Sherry Rios, a South Jersey mail carrier, is fighting to get her job back after being fired for what she said was a split-second decision to help a boy in danger.
View more videos at: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com.
Parker, Florida Post Office Moving Letter Carriers To Another Facility
PARKER — Letter carriers will stop working out of the Parker Post Office location sometime in March, postal officials confirmed Thursday.
The president of the American Postal Workers Union 1414, Dee Carr, said the Parker facility, officially referred to as the Eastside Station, will lose its letter carriers to the Sherman Avenue location in March. He also claimed the postal service had been trying to keep the move quiet.
“They don’t want the public to be upset,” Carr said. “The only thing that will be left there is the retail.”
Joseph Breckenridge, a spokesman with the postal service, confirmed postal carriers will be moved to the Sherman Avenue facility. He said postal customers will be able to drop off mail, buy stamps and other mailing items at the Parker facility, but added there has been no decision to close the Parker facility and moving postal carriers would not disrupt delivery of the mail. He denied there was an attempt to keep the transfer quiet.
Full Story: News Herald
OIG: USPS Northern Virginia District Used More Workhours Than Necessary To Deliver Mail
Filed under: letter carriers, oig, postal, postal news, usps
Highlights from the USPS OIG Audit Report – City Delivery Efficiency Review – Northern Virginia District
Background
Delivery operations are the Postal Service’s largest operational function, accounting for approximately 45 percent of salary expenses and workhours. Despite an annual increase of approximately 1 million delivery points, delivery operations used 36.5 million fewer workhours in fiscal year (FY) 2009, because of effective growth management, increased use of automation, standardization of best practices, and improved productivity. Although delivery operations used fewer workhours, workhour reduction has not kept pace with declining mail volume. Nationally, city delivery mail volume declined by 3.9 percent in FY 2010. During this same period, mail volume declined in the Capital Metro Area by 2.4 percent, while workhours declined by 2.8 percent. The Northern Virginia District mail volume declined by 2.7 percent in FY 2010, while workhours declined by 3.2 percent
Audit
The U.S. Postal Service is delivering fewer pieces of mail to a growing number of addresses as new households and businesses are added to the delivery network each year. The Postal Service must achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency to accommodate this new growth while facing financial losses from declining mail volumes and rising costs.
The Northern Virginia District was not operating at peak efficiency and could reduce city delivery operating costs. Our benchmarking comparison determined the Northern Virginia District used approximately 16 minutes more per day than the national average for each carrier route, compared to the standard for that route. This equated to more than 103,000 workhours annually. The measurement for this factor, called percent to standard,2 was 123.24 – about 17 percentage points above the national average of 105.95 percent.
Although numerous factors were involved, our review of 20 randomly selected delivery units confirmed these inefficiencies and determined Northern Virginia District management did not always (1) provide sufficient review and oversight of unit offices’ operating efficiencies and (2) coordinate with the mail processing facility to ensure mail was timely received and in a condition that promoted operating efficiency. Eliminating time-wasting practices and increasing focus on efficiency could allow management to reduce workhours.
Some examples include ensuring that:
• Management provides sufficient oversight of morning and afternoon office operations.
• Vehicle inspection process is efficient.
• Carriers are timely and correctly clocking into afternoon (p.m.) office time.
• Units receive the proper mix from the processing facility per the integrated operating plan (IOP).3
• Carriers spend less time waiting for mail.
• Clerks and carriers do not unnecessarily re-handle unshelved mail transport containers to identify and retrieve delivery point sequence4 (DPS) mail.
Consequently, the Northern Virginia District used more workhours than necessary to deliver the mail. Adjusting its operations would increase the Northern Virginia District’s overall efficiency by reducing 103,160 workhours, resulting in savings of more than $3.2 million annually or about $32 million over 10 years. See Appendix C for additional information about this issue.
We recommend the district manager, Northern Virginia District:
1. Reduce the Northern Virginia District’s workhours by 103,160 to achieve an associated economic impact of about $32 million over 10 years.
2. Require processing facility managers and delivery managers to coordinate, review, and update all integrated operating plans to ensure mail arrives timely and in the condition necessary to promote office efficiency.
Management’s Comments
Management agreed with the findings, recommendations, and opportunities to capture monetary impact.
In response to recommendation one, management agreed to reduce city carrier office hours. Management’s action plan includes reducing carrier inefficiencies in the office by implementing and monitoring standard operating procedures (SOPs); increasing operational audits for compliance with established best practices; providing additional training for supervisors on managing office time; flexing carrier start times for tours; and improving on-time mail arrival profiles. Management plans to implement action by February 2011.
Managing Morning and Afternoon Office Operations
Supervisors did not provide sufficient oversight of morning operations. Specifically, the vehicle inspection process was not always efficient. Our observations disclosed that delivery units lost several minutes per day because of carriers searching for vehicles before inspection. Five of the 20 delivery units lost time because parking spaces were unassigned.
In four other delivery units, carriers waited in line to get vehicle keys. Postal Service policy states employees should park vehicles near the dock in assigned spaces identified by individual route numbers. In addition, policy states employees should conduct vehicle inspections promptly after clocking in for the morning. The policy also requires vehicle keys to be located adjacent to time-recording equipment (see Illustration 1).
In addition, supervisors did not always effectively manage afternoon office time at 11 of the 20 delivery units observed. Some carriers spent 10 minutes or more in the office after returning from their routes. Postal Service policy allows a standard 5 minutes for carriers to perform afternoon office duties. We also observed some carriers not clocking directly to “office time” upon returning to the unit in the afternoon, resulting in much of this additional office time” being included in street operations time.
Adjusting its operations would increase the Northern Virginia District’s overall efficiency by reducing approximately 103,160 workhours, resulting in savings of more than $3.2 million annually or about $32 million over 10 years.
USPS OIG Audit Report – City Delivery Efficiency Review – Northern Virginia District
Video: Postal Carrier Runs On the Job
Here is a video of the article I posted yesterday about “Postal Carrier Runs On the Job”