The Most Important Delivery

By: Narciso Paderanga, IV, First Vice President

First, I would like to commend all our brothers and sisters for all of your hard work and resiliency. For the past few years, you have been faced with having to work longer hours in a day and more days in a week due to understaffing and the Service’s inability to hire new employees and its inability to keep them due to mostly the “quality of life” as a letter carrier.

You were there when the whole world halted by way of the most recent pandemic, COVID-19. You risked your lives by continuing to work throughout these past several years. You have been forcefully working overtime, although you didn’t sign the overtime desired list, including being mandated to work on your day off.

While we continue to file grievances for these contractual violations, management has not sufficiently done enough to hire the necessary personnel and do what it takes to retain new employees to alleviate the issues.

Now, you, your brothers and sisters are risking their safety as well as their lives every day to serve the public in the delivery of mail. We hear letter carriers being robbed of keys and mail, assaulted, and worst having a gun pointed at you.

In the event you are robbed at gunpoint, assaulted, or have any serious interactions with these criminals, and you fear for your safety, you have the right to seek medical attention and ultimately file a CA-1 through ecomp.dol.gov.

In the event your postal vehicle is broken into, and your belongings are taken, you have the right to file an “Employee Claim” under Article 27, which states in part,

“Subject to a $60 minimum, an employee may file a claim within fourteen (14) days of the date of loss or damage and be reimbursed for loss or damage to his/her personal property except for motor vehicles and the contents thereof taking into consideration depreciation where the loss or damage was suffered in connection with or incident to the employee’s employment while on duty or while on postal premises. The possession of the property must have been reasonable, or proper under the circumstances and the damage or loss must not have been caused in whole or in part by the negligent or wrongful act of the employee.

We urge you not to get confrontational and just give them what they want. DO NOT BE A HERO! We want you to go home to your loved ones because the “most important delivery” you should be making is the delivery of yourself to your family at the end of the day every day of the week. In solidarity.