by Dan Sullivan

Within 2 to 4 weeks the Postal Service plans to begin implementing a nation-wide program examining the status of workers injured on the job who are presently on medical restrictions in limited duty and permanent rehabilitation jobs. The goal of the program is to set up a process to place injured workers off the clock on compensation and then refer them to the Office of Workers’ Compensation (OWCP) for possible employment in the private sector if no work can be found for them in the Postal Service.

Before that, though, Anthony Vegliante, USPS Vice President for Labor Relations, must give final approval for the controversial plan.

Not much is generally  known about what the USPS is now calling its ‘National Reassessment Process.’ Postal officials contacted at USPS headquarters refused to talk about it for this story, referring all questions to the American Postal Workers Union, which they say has been briefed about the program.

In its monthly magazine, the American Postal Worker, Sue Carney, the union’s Director of Human Relations, says that under the Reassessment Program USPS will review medical documentation for injured workers, request updated medical information if required and then renew job offers or make new job offers “where adequate work is available, based on operational needs.” Where work isn’t available, injured workers will be put on compensation and referred to OWCP’s vocational rehabilitation program.

Carney also says that USPS representatives told the union in March 2004 that the Postal Service had “partnered with OWCP in the Long Island District regarding the Outplacement Program and that OWCP was in agreement” with it. But OWCP officials told the union that they “were not party to the USPS Outplacement Program” and a spokesperson for Shelby Hallmark, Director of OWCP, also says the agency has nothing to do with the Postal Service Reassessment Program.

A spokesperson for the Department of Labor, which oversees OWCP, confirms that the agency has nothing to do with the USPS outsourcing plans.

“That’s a Postal Service project,” she says.

The Postal Service has yet to respond to a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking details of the injured worker outsourcing plan.

The program - first called the ‘Outplacement Pilot Program’ and later the ‘Reassessment Initiative’ - has already been tested in at least two places: In the Long Island District and in San Diego.

In April 2004 in the Long Island District, postal officials attempted to withdraw limited duty work from 12 employees and put them on the OWCP rolls where they would be paid compensation until work could be found for them in the Postal Service or in the private sector under OWCP’s vocational rehabilitation program, a process that can take up to two years.

Paul Hogrogrian, President of Mailhandlers Union Local 300, says the outsourcing - then called the ‘Outplacement Pilot Program’ - was mainly aimed at letter carriers.

“There were 3 or 4 mailhandlers in the program. The rest were carriers. In all but one case, we got the Post Office to back off by identifying work the mailhandlers could do within their restrictions.”

In the lone case where a mailhandler was placed on compensation the union filed a grievance, which the Postal Service blocked from going to arbitration by referring it to the national level of the grievance-arbitration procedure. To date, no decision has been made on that case.

In San Diego last year the name of the program had changed, but not its goals. Now billed as the ‘National Reassessment Process’ the program began with a look at 329 clerks in limited duty or permanent rehabilitation jobs. On February 28 of this year postal managers notified 27 of those injured clerks that there was no longer any work for them in the Postal Service. The clerks were handed compensation forms to fill out, stripped of their ID badges and shown the door.

There are also unconfirmed reports that the outsourcing plan is being tested in Pittsburgh and in Portland, Maine.

Under the Federal Employee Compensation Act, OWCP provides workers’ compensation coverage to Federal and Postal workers for employment-related injuries and occupational diseases. Benefits include wage replacement, payment for medical care, and where necessary, medical and vocational rehabilitation assistance in returning to work.

Vocational rehabilitation services assist permanently disabled injured workers return to work. These services include testing, evaluation, counseling, guidance, training, placement and follow up.

According to published USPS documents, between May 2002 through June 2005 the Postal Service “placed a total of 112 employees with new employers under the OWCP Vocational Rehabilitation Program.”

Actually it wasn’t the Postal Service, but OWCP which provided job placement under the Vocational Rehabilitation Program

Postmaster General John Potter told Congress on January 28, 2004, that in 2003 “$704 million was paid in compensation and benefit costs for employees with work-related injuries in either limited duty or rehabilitation positions.” That was about one-third of the Postal Service workers’ compensation costs in 2003.

As the outsourcing story unfolds, I will continue to report what facts I can uncover. I have filed a Freedom of Information Request to obtain USPS documents concerning the Reassessment Program and have contacted national and local APWU officers around the country, who haven’t provided much information yet.

Anyone with information about the program, particularly any clerks in San Diego, Pittsburgh or Portland who have been affected by the program or any USPS managers or union officers with information about the program, may contact me with assurances of confidentiality at dan_sullivan9026@hotmail.com.

Related link:

USPS to Implement Pilot Program to ‘Outsource’ Injured On Duty Employees-