Pat McCann, president of the St. Paul local of the American Postal Workers Union, said his members have "gone around and around with the Postal Service about staffing their window service properly, and it\'s fallen on deaf ears for the most part. They don\'t seem to mind that we have long lines."

Most customers, of course, feel differently, and it\'s too often postal workers, rather than managers, who have to hear about it.

"Customers understandably get upset about having to stand in line for 15 minutes," McCann said. "But it seems like it\'s always left on the window clerk to listen to the complaints of the customers about staffing, even though the window clerk doesn\'t control decisions about staffing."

Long lines, though, are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understaffing at the post office, a problem that threatens workers\' safety and morale, hinders efficiency and, of course, obstructs customer service.

Dwindling ranks
In 1999, a year before Jay Kurvers took a job as a window clerk in St. Paul\'s main post office, the APWU represented 1,900 workers in the east metro and surrounding areas.

Since then, Kurvers has watched as the local\'s ranks dropped to around 1,400.
To achieve that 25-percent reduction in staff, the Postal Service refused to replace retiring or resigning postal workers, contracted out some work to the private sector and increased automation in its plant.

Perhaps that\'s been good for the bottom line, but staffing cuts have had the opposite effect on job quality, Kurvers said.

"I enjoy my job," Kurvers said. "I enjoy laughing and talking with my customers. But the longer a customer has to stand in line, the less friendly they\'re going to be when they get up to the window, the less patience they\'re going to have when they fill out their forms."

He suspects the Postal Service is unconcerned about properly staffing its windows because management wants to drive more patrons to automated machines or the Postal Service web site.

"What really gets my goat is that I\'ve seen the quality of customer service diminish in the last four or five years, and that\'s not a good way to run a business," he said.

Inefficiencies
Customers aren\'t the only folks held up by clerk understaffing. Letter carriers get stuck waiting around as well.

The St. Paul branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers has formally complained to management that many plants do not have enough clerks on staff to get mail into letter carriers\' hands efficiently or consistently.

Oftentimes, Branch 28 President Dan Garhofer said, just two mail clerks are left to break down mail for upwards of 50 letter carriers.

"It\'s like a funnel down through a tube," Garhofer said. "Our carriers have to wait for clerks to get the mail ready to go out. They\'re flowing mail as fast as they can, but if (management) put more clerks on, the carriers could start earlier and get out earlier.

"If the clerks\' staffing isn\'t proper, that affects what time the letter carriers get the mail, and that affects what time mail gets out on the street in a timely fashion of delivery."

Safety concerns
Lower staffing levels also have postal workers concerned about their safety, especially in the plant.

The post office may have fewer workers, but their combined workload hasn\'t changed much. That imbalance, according to Dan Van Assche, who runs a tray-sorting machine in the main postal facility, often leads to rushing and carelessness – a "nut house," as he put it.

When Van Assche, who at 60 has 26 years of experience with the Postal Service, complains about the unsafe pace, management suggests he consider retiring.

"Of course, I tell them to go to hell," Van Assche said. "They\'re asking me to do duties above and beyond what the job is supposed to be.

"They\'ve got us working on such bare bones staffing in the automation section. People are just being rushed and pushed too fast and too hard. It\'s a confined space, we\'ve got dangerous equipment – I\'m surprised somebody hasn\'t gotten killed."

To make matters worse, workers routinely skip or delay breaks, according to grievances filed by the St. Paul APWU. Those grievances, McCann said, have resulted in "numerous monetary awards," but they have not convinced the Postal Service to change its ways.

"We have a lot of employees with ergonomic injuries, repetitive motion injuries," McCann said. "A lot of that may be due to the fact that they don\'t take a 15-minute break every 2 hours like they\'re supposed to."

In that sense, McCann said, the Postal Service is taking advantage of its employees\' "Midwestern work ethic."

"It\'s people\'s mail," Van Assche said. "You care about it."

If only the Postal Service returned the favor.

Reprinted from The Union Advocate, the official newspaper of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly. Used by permission. E-mail The Advocate at: advocate@stpaulunions.org