The agency had 3,300 more CCAs in April than allowed in its labor contract with the National Association of Letter Carriers, a report USPS issued last week indicated.The 2011 contract that created the non-career position capped the number of CCAs in each district at 15% of the total number of full-time career city carriers -- plus another 8,000 nationwide to allow "flexible windows which may be necessary to develop and provide new products and services."
The report shows that USPS had 164,582 City Carriers on its rolls in April. Adding 15% of that number plus another 8,000 yields an apparent cap of 32,687 CCAs. But the same report says the Postal Service had 36,074 CCAs.
It could be argued that the Postal Service is following the spirit of the labor agreement because career carriers are not being harmed. None have been laid off, and on average they are getting about as many overtime hours as they did four years ago (though some individual carriers have seen drastic changes in their overtime).
The average base pay for CCAs was recently reported as $15.80 per hour, versus $27.52 and much better benefits for full-time city carriers.
A key to new ventures
USPS is certainly capitalizing on the "flexible windows" and "new products and services" that the NALC contract envisioned. Relying on lower-paid CCAs has been a key to the Postal Service’s rapidly expanding Sunday deliveries for Amazon and its hopes of competing with private businesses on delivering a variety of "non-mail" items from groceries to fresh flowers.
The growing pool of CCAs has also helped USPS serve an increasing number of delivery points and grow its labor-intensive parcel business.
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| Amazon grocery packages awaiting delivery by CCAs |
Accounts of 60-hour workweeks for bedraggled CCAs are already legion. Since October, CCAs have worked an average of one hour of overtime for every five hours of straight time, and at times during December the ratio was one to three.
The wage savings from using CCAs have also come with some costs. Turnover is high, straining the Postal Service’s ability to hire and train new CCAs. And the new hires are reportedly more prone to injuries and to missed deliveries than are long-time carriers who know their routes well.
Related articles:
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- Why Letter Carriers Are Not an Endangered Species
- Third Bush on the Right, Please: USPS Grocery Deliveries Would Need Lots of TLC from Carriers
- USPS Struggles With Wave of New Hires
23 comments:
Also should be mentioned that many of them are dumping mail into dumpsters.stealing gift cards,credit cards and checks and throwing parcels at the customers doorstep.Not a good thing for the Postal Service and the Letter Carriers union needs to try to get the percentage of CCA's down to 10% in their next contract next year.
Not delievering mail or packages to meet unatainable window of operations. I had one cca tell me he didn't have time to deliever accounables, he just brings them back. I regularly deliver certifieds anywhere from a week to a month late. Told management and get no response. Management doesn't care, all they care about are finding short cuts to make thier times.
There are a few good CCA's that I work with in my station, but quite a lot who think they have working for the PO for 20yrs. They think they can pick and choose what route to work any vehicle to take. And back talk to management. When we tell management of what they did to the route or how you had to apologize to the customers for the service they received management dose not care.
sounds like typical USPS,
contract, WHAT contract.
IE, you go by the contract,
WE don't have to.
A big shame is that many CCAs would not have qualified for hiring and/or retention under the old standards and these CCAs will possibly become regulars in the future. So this program will have long-term negative consequences to service unless managers separate the CCAs during their probationary period if they become regulars, something managers were unwilling to do already when they were CCAs.
If it seems the percentage of CCAs is too high, it might be because the numbers must be run through a DOIS calculator to arrive at the true, accurate calculation. Using a DOIS calculator, all percentages of CCAs at all times works out to 14.99%.
Make the post office a private company instead of a public government run sham and then we'll finally see a quality run post office. No unions, no over paying for 3rd rate labor.
Haha maybe you should give this job a shot and see if you last this so called "3rd rate labor"
Hahahahaha
I guess he wants his mail delivered for minimum wage. Good Luck with that.
They also will be converted to a regular employee before a clerk or mailhandler can transfer over to the carrier craft.
if the union/NALC does its job properly, the united states postal service will pay out a HUGE grievance settlement on this in the future to 'make the regular carriers whole.'
the idiots responsible in postal management will suffer no personal
consequences for their stupidity and herein lies the problem with the USPS. incompetent postal management from top to bottom and no accountability by anyone.
I for one have had my OT cut to non existent levels... 12 per week to 2-3 not to mention I lost the initial 10k in salary that I earned while I was a TE. So now seeing the joke of employees come in here doing and saying things that would have gotten me fired immediately I would say there are way too many CCA's but they have to hire 3-4 to do a job that 5 yrs ago at $19 an hr u could have gotten a quality employee...the place is a joke and I think that's what they want. How many of you have had to train a CCA who became a regular on how to case a route?
I have read every comment and speaking as a CCA I know we do not steal any of the checks or gift cards, unfortunately regulars didn't have to go through the things we go through now. We are being pushed to do our job quickly and pushed to work long hours. Sometimes we work 11-12 hours a day and go four weeks without a day off. Sorry we don't always park in the right spot and might take your vehicle keys we are doing what we are told and being pushed beyond limits to get it done. Management doesn't care they curse at us and constantly tell us how bad of a job we are doing ride us like crazy and will follow us around at anytime
Good Commercial Spot for UPS:
Show a shiny brown UPS truck pull up to a business. Driver gets out with parcel, walks into office, and hands off parcel. All smiles. Note that driver is wearing standard UPS full uniform.
Next shot is a filthy USPS truck pulling up to same business. After fumbling around back, a USPS driver wearing jeans, tshirt, a USPS baseball cap, and an ID tag around his/her neck walks into same office and shouts: "Who gets mail in here"?.
Drops parcel and walks out.
Voiceover says: " Who would you rather have deliver your merchandise? "
I have been a CCA for just over a year. I was 50 years old when I started. I don't think the problem lies with every CCA. Some kids just don't have the work ethic for such a demanding job. The ones that I know and have worked with try their best. Give a career carrier 20 unfamiliar routes per month and then take a look at their performance.
http://mseries.nalc.org/M01857.pdf
I hope that I only have five more years and that the post office is here that long. When I go, I will definitely have direct deposit.
Thanks again Rolando. and union officials who follow him. just more money in there pockets.
why not an early out, why not a class action grevience for having to many. no excuse.
Is everything right with the USPS? Clearly not. But if you had a letter written and went to UPS, FedX, or any other service, and said, I'd like you to deliver this to the other side of the country in a couple of days, and I'll pay you 48 cents, what would the response be?
You may think you knew what regulars did before they were regular but sorry you dont. I was a ptf 21 years ago and I carried mail for 10 to 12 hrs a day and did the worst routes. Worked holidays and Sundays also. If you don't like it leave I know plenty who couldn't hack it.
My son is a CCA too and you are spot on about everything. Seems as though Mr or Miss Angry here is pretty defensive. If you regulars didn't milk the system, there wouldn't be a need for them. You just don't want anyone upsetting g your gravy train.
My son is a CCA and you are spot on. It seems as someone is pretty defensive. If you regulars didn't milk the system, they wouldn't have a need for CCAs. You're just pissed because you don't want your gravy train upset. What they are doing to these poor CCAs, eventually, the term "going postal" will be back in fashion.
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