By Joel Eisenbaum – December 27, 2017 HOUSTON – Some United States Postal Service employees in the Houston area, saddled with 14-hour days and seven-day workweeks over the last month because of the holidays, have been underpaid thousands of dollars, Channel 2 Investigates has learned. “Every week they say: ‘Next Friday, next Friday, next Friday,’,”…
Background In 2016, the U.S. Postal Service managed 31,585 retail offices serving 877 million customers. To reduce wait-time-in-line and expedite customer transactions, the Postal Service developed the mobile Point-of-Sale (mPOS) system. mPOS is a mobile system that allows retail associates to accept credit card and non-PIN debit card payments for customers’ retail transactions. In fiscal…
Press Release – Sep 19 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) called on U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Postmaster General Megan Brennan to take immediate action to remedy a significant lack of training requirements that led to inaccurate Postal Service reporting of an estimated two billion pieces of delayed…
September 18, 2017 Who doesn’t like finding a package they ordered online on their doorstep at an unexpected time, like, say, late in the evening just before you turn out the porch light for the night? Consumers have come to expect quick delivery of parcels, often at odd hours of the day. This new paradigm…
Background Overtime pay is a premium that the U.S. Postal Service pays its non-management employees. It is paid at one and one-half times the employee’s hourly rate for work performed in excess of eight paid hours a day or 40 paid hours a week. In addition to overtime pay, employees may be eligible for penalty…
Background Mail collection boxes, introduced in 1858, are used primarily to collect mail from customers. Nationwide, there were about 153,000 collection boxes at the end of fiscal year (FY) 2016; however, the U.S. Postal Service has been removing underused boxes, with about 14,000 boxes removed over the past five years. Postal Service policy requires approval…
Background In fiscal year (FY) 2016, the U.S. Postal Service spent over $3 billion for about 8,700 highway contract route (HCR) contracts. The Postal Service uses these competitive fixed-price contracts to transport mail between post offices, network distribution centers (NDC), and other designated stops. A contract irregularity occurs when an HCR contractor does not satisfactorily…
Background The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has more than 30,000 leased and owned retail facilities nationwide. Over 1,600 of these facilities are in the Pacific Area. The post office lobby is the principal business office of the USPS. The lobby’s appearance directly affects the USPS’ image because it is the only close-up view of postal…
