Branch

01/13/2026

12/25/2025

Once again United States Postal Service (USPS) workers across the country are being overwhelmed during the peak holiday season.

12/23/2025

Firstly, I want to thank the carrier who sent this and wish them the best as they work through this process.

This is the exact checklist Management is using when conducting safety observations that lead to Emergency Placement. This carrier was just placed on EP by a nonlocal manager. This is not about debating what happened or how it happened. It is about the fact that the entire process is scripted.

It does not matter which union you belong to or how long you have been with the Postal Service. Emergency Placement is being used as a punishment, and this document proves it. The wording is not situational or based on an actual belief. It is prewritten and required to be read verbatim:

“I believe retaining you on duty may result in damage to U.S. Postal Service property, and you may injure yourself or others.”

If this statement were truly based on belief, it would not be scripted. The fact that managers are instructed to read it word for word shows they are not making an independent safety determination. They are following a directive. They are using specific language to invoke the article they are abusing.

For rural carriers, this is an abuse of Article 16.5. For NALC and APWU, it is an abuse of Article 16.7. Emergency Placement requires the person making the decision to genuinely believe the employee presents an immediate danger. In these cases, that belief does not exist. Everyone reading this knows these actions are not about safety. They are about control and appearances for upper management.

The only benefit this carrier receives is being off the street during the busiest portion of the season. But that benefit comes at a real cost. Their route does not disappear. The work does not disappear. It falls on other carriers, forcing overtime, stretching relief carriers, and increasing the likelihood of service delays. Routes are split, hours rise, and the Postal Service ends up paying more to cover work that should have been done by the carrier already trained for it. The disruption does not improve safety. It only increases stress, cost, and inefficiency. Apparently, this manager did not consider any of that.

At what point do our National Boards step in and put an end to this? Carriers should not be forced out of their lives just to make Management look good. This needs to stop.

12/18/2025

11/27/2025

11/24/2025

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Make Your voice heardAs a unionized workforce, our strength comes from our members. To build power, union members must actively participate in determining the union’s demands and issues. Our union contract is the most important document in our working lives. It establishes our wages, benefits, and...

11/20/2025

USPS began making special deliveries of Amazon packages on Sundays in 2013 at a time when Sunday deliveries were unheard of other than for special Express packages

11/19/2025

11/18/2025

A grievance was filed after workers warned that a machine was unsafe less than 90 days before a worker died.

The USPS tells us in ELM 665.15 to follow instructions and then grieve. That puts carriers in a terrible spot. If it is unsafe, immoral, or illegal, you should not follow it, but if you do not, management can discipline you for failure to follow instructions. If you do follow the instructions and something goes wrong, management often forgets they ever gave the order. As we have seen too many times, management would rather climb a tree to lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth, especially when it is their fault.

This is not an isolated problem. We have seen it before. Eugene Gates, a City Carrier, died after being pressured and intimidated during an investigative interview. He was a tenured carrier, close to retirement, and during the interview he was told, "This interview may lead to discipline up to, and including, termination." This shows how carriers can be put in impossible situations, and when tragedy strikes, the system acts like nothing happened. These are not just mistakes. These are the results of policies and practices that put workers at risk and leave them exposed when things go wrong.

This is why we grieve the small things, before big things come to fruition. Grievances are not just paperwork. They are how we protect ourselves and hold management accountable. They create a record. They create evidence. They give us leverage when the system tries to blame the worker instead of the problem. But the grievance process can be slow. Critical safety issues cannot wait. That is why carriers should also document unsafe work conditions immediately using PS Form 1767, report it to their supervisor, and notify their union steward. That record can help protect you while the formal grievance process moves forward. If you are told to do something unsafe or questionable, document it, report it, and file a grievance. Follow the rules, but make sure there is a record. That record could be the difference between someone being hurt and someone being protected. Never do anything you feel is unsafe or could risk harm to yourself or others.

Management will never volunteer the truth. They will never admit their mistake. They would rather invent a story or pretend it never happened than take responsibility. That is why we have to use the tools the system gives us, even if the system makes it complicated and unfair. Grievances are one of those tools. Use them. Protect yourself. Protect your fellow brothers and sisters of every craft.

11/15/2025