Harassment by Boss? What should I do?

[miljoncj]

I am an employee for the United States Postal Service. Here's my situation. I report to work at 9am each morning. As we all know the post office is currently losing money. Consequently, policies are being implemented to deal with the budget deficit (they want us to be off the clock no later than 6pm). From 9am to 6pm is a total of 9 hours. This is a brief breakdown of what takes place within those 9 hours.
9:00-10:00 Clock in, get route assignment, get vehicle, procure mail for the route, load the mail in to the assigned vehicle, load and sort parcels in the mail vehicle.

10:00-10:08 Enroute to route.

10:08 Begin delivery.

This is where the problem begins. The station manager and the distribution supervisor will always assign a work load consisting of a full route which is usually 6 to 6.5 hours long and a partial route which is usually 2 to 2.5 hours long. Personally my workload has been a 6.5 hour route (that is listed on my assignment sheet as 5.5 hours) and a partial route 2 hours in length. That's a total of 8.5 hours. Since I don't get started until 10:00, that means that I have to complete 8.5 hours of work in 7.5 hours (when you consider the drive time from the full route to the partial route, then back to the post office). I have to do it 7.0 hours if I take my 30 my lunch. I am 52 years old and most cases I end up having to forgo lunch and I still don't always make it by 6pm.

Each day that I report to work the station manager threatens my job. Do I have a case?

 

[Peppermint]

Threatens you how?

Have you talked to your union rep?

 

[army judge]

I am an employee for the United States Postal Service. Here's my situation. I report to work at 9am each morning. As we all know the post office is currently losing money. Consequently, policies are being implemented to deal with the budget deficit (they want us to be off the clock no later than 6pm). From 9am to 6pm is a total of 9 hours. This is a brief breakdown of what takes place within those 9 hours.
9:00-10:00 Clock in, get route assignment, get vehicle, procure mail for the route, load the mail in to the assigned vehicle, load and sort parcels in the mail vehicle.

10:00-10:08 Enroute to route.

10:08 Begin delivery.

This is where the problem begins. The station manager and the distribution supervisor will always assign a work load consisting of a full route which is usually 6 to 6.5 hours long and a partial route which is usually 2 to 2.5 hours long. Personally my workload has been a 6.5 hour route (that is listed on my assignment sheet as 5.5 hours) and a partial route 2 hours in length. That's a total of 8.5 hours. Since I don't get started until 10:00, that means that I have to complete 8.5 hours of work in 7.5 hours (when you consider the drive time from the full route to the partial route, then back to the post office). I have to do it 7.0 hours if I take my 30 my lunch. I am 52 years old and most cases I end up having to forgo lunch and I still don't always make it by 6pm.

Each day that I report to work the station manager threatens my job. Do I have a case?

You might want to speak with human resources and as Peppermint suggested, your union representative.

I don't think much will come of it, but you might learn some useful strategies.

Try to stay positive and don't lose your cool.

After all, it is ONLY a job, not your life.

So, suck it up until you can do better.

Some bosses are just jerks!

 

[miljoncj]

She threatens to fire me. She constantly makes remarks like," Keep thinking its ok to come in after 6."

Just yesterday she told me,"Come in after 6 one more time and I'm putting you off the clock (fire you)".

I've talked to my union steward. The problem with that is the fact that we just had a lot of new people elected to the leadership positions and they really don't know a lot about our labor agreement or the law.

 

[miljoncj]

My main concerns were the fact that
1. the are giving me a workload of 8.5 hours that they document as being 7 hours. There is a report that's generated when the mail is sorted called the DOIS report. That report calculates the actual street time it should take to do a route based of the volume of mail that came through the system. There is a new supervisor that comes on in the evening, who would give me the "real" time for the route that I had for the day. In most cases I'm only given 5.5 hours to do the full route but the actual time for the route is usually 6.5. As of yesterday he won't give me that information anymore. Don't ask me how, but somehow the station manager found out that he was giving me that info. I was told that she went off on him when she found out.
2. Her constant threats. I can't walk past this woman without her issuing a threat to fire me.

 

[army judge]

She threatens to fire me. She constantly makes remarks like," Keep thinking its ok to come in after 6."

Just yesterday she told me,"Come in after 6 one more time and I'm putting you off the clock (fire you)".

I've talked to my union steward. The problem with that is the fact that we just had a lot of new people elected to the leadership positions and they really don't know a lot about our labor agreement or the law.

What you describe sounds perilously close to (if not crossing the line) of intimidation.

Federal employment rules prohibit intimidating or threatening your subordinates.

You might be to have a recording device secreted on your person when you next meet your supervisor.

Or, it would also be helpful if another employee or supervisor overheard the supervisor threatening, belittling, or berating you!

Texas only requires the consent of one party to surreptitiously record a telephone call or capture electronically a conversation.
Federal law supports the one party principle.

Catch her red handed!!!



http://www.callcorder.com/phone-recording-law-america.htm

However, in states such as Texas, an individual may record a conversation with another party as long as one side consents. It is perfectly legal for the consenting and recording individual to be the same person.

http://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/videotaping-police-officers.htm


The USPS has instructed supervisors to AVOID bullying, threatening, abusing, or intimidating employees!!!

http://postalemployeenetwork.com/news/2010/05/to-usps-bring-it-on/

 

[mightymoose]

Just about any cell phone these days has a record function. Start a phone recording and place it in your pocket next time you are about to confront her. If this is happening in the common areas of the workplace as you describe then there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the conversation and no real issue with recording it.

 

[miljoncj]

I really do appreciate the feedback.

I had considered recording our conversations. The problem with that is stipulations in our Labor agreement make it illegal to do so. She HAS made those threats in a common area though. So if I can get the people that heard her to stand up, I could possibly have 5 witnesses.

 

[miljoncj]

Army Judge

I just read the article from the link you posted. Trust me, the things that the journalist is saying are ALL true.