The following is an article submitted to PostalReporter by Dan Sullivan. The article was originally posted under USPS Reassessment Program on hold in Pacific Area.

The piece of vinyl siding was hidden beneath 3 inches of snow when Mike Vinci accidentally found it while delivering mail in Caledonia, NY. It was like stepping on a sheet of ice.

“My feet went straight up in the air,” he remembers. ” Like an idiot, I hung onto the mail and landed on my elbow.”

Mike finished his mail route that day. But the pain wouldn’t go away.

“I worked for almost a year with shoulder and neck pain, not knowing I had damaged two discs in my neck and partially tore my Achilles tendon in my left ankle.“I went out of work in February of 1992. It took eight months to even get an OWCP claim number and my first comp check. I had $75 to my name.”Mike had more than money problems.It turns out he needed surgeries to repair his ankle and neck. But, like the wheels of justice, the bureaucracy moves slowly. After his ankle surgery, it took another three years to get approval from the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) for surgery to fuse his 4th and 5th and 6th and 7th cervical discs.

His days as a letter carrier were over.

But the Postal Service has always provided work for employees hurt on the job. So when he recovered from his surgeries, Mike was given a position as a part-time flexible clerk at the nearby Geneseo post office. Eventually he worked his way into a regular position.

His work involved the usual clerks’ duties, sorting and distributing letters and flats, clearing carriers and handling accountable mail. Mike has done everything, in fact, except work the window, where the college kids often bring in large parcels too heavy for him to lift because of his medical restrictions.

The story would end here, if the Postal Service hadn’t come up with a scheme to get rid of injured workers like Mike.

Called the Reassessment Program, the plan is being tested in the Western New York District and a couple other areas of the country. The purpose of the program is to cull injured workers from the payroll by dumping them on Workers’ Compensation and then retraining them for private sector jobs.

Mike got his walking papers on May 24, when it took five postal bosses coming down from the Western New York District Office in Buffalo to tell him he was no longer needed.

“A mail carrier had to come in off the street to take over my duties delivering all of the guaranteed overnight mail so that I could attend the meeting,” Mike says.

“They took my badge and walked me out the door. It was 2:00 p.m. They don’t even let you say goodbye to your friends.”

The Geneseo Postmaster, Tammy Kelley, disagreed with the big shots who said there wasn’t any work for Mike.

But what did she know? She was only looking out for Geneseo and wasn’t able to see the big picture.

‘Tammy insisted to them that, not only was I doing a great job and an asset to the office, but the work was there for me to do and had not changed. She also emphasized that I was included in the office budget hours, compiled by them, and that the office had made budget last year and is continuing to do so.”

For obvious reasons, Postmaster Kelley was reluctant to speak about Mike’s situation.

“I can’t really say too much, except this is all new. It’s beyond me. It involves staffing decisions by higher-ups,” the Postmaster says.

But she wasn’t reluctant to praise Mike’s work ethic.

“Oh, Mike was an excellent worker. I can tell you that.”

The bosses at postal headquarters who came up with the Reassessment Program have been mum about the scheme, referring all questions to the American Postal Workers Union, which they say has been briefed on the outsourcing program.

According to APWU Human Relations Director Sue Carney, the Postal Service claims it wants all limited duty and rehabilitation jobs to consist of “necessary work,” not make-work assignments.

So it seems like an obvious question to ask: Why dump Mike Vinci back on Workers’ Compensation when the Geneseo Postmaster has plenty of real work for him to do?

The postal big shot who apparently decided that Mike wasn’t needed at the Geneseo post office is Mary McNeill. She has an important title: Western New York District Manager of Injury Compensation.

Mary wasn’t in her office when I called to ask why Mike was put off the clock and unceremoniously shown the door. Or why it took 5 postal bosses to deliver the news. The person who answered her phone said she was on the road doing reassessment interviews.

I have to assume she must be quite busy trying to help other injured workers, because she hasn’t returned my call.

Mike is now 54 years old and in 11 months he’ll be eligible to retire. Until then he’s going to fight to get his job back.

He’s written his Congressman and filed a grievance with the American Postal Workers Union over his dismissal.

As you can imagine, he doesn’t have much good to say about the Reassessment Program and the bureaucrats in charge of it. But he’s grateful to Geneseo Postmaster Tammy Kelley for “being truthful and maybe jeopardizing her job” for him.

And he has this bit of advice for other postal workers who think it can’t happen to them:

“Even the people who aren’t injured should be against this program because anyone can get hurt at work.

“If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.”
 

Read more articles by Dan Sullivan