To the NRLCA,
Recently, the plan for Amazon Sunday deliveries was put into effect by the USPS. The plan is to have “main” offices as the Hub for these deliveries, not just to that office’s city and rural areas, but also to surrounding areas. This in essence committed “substitute” carriers/RCAs, in that specific office, to deliver amazon parcels to a very large area, on Sundays. Not just during the Christmas Holiday rush, but for the entire year.
While this is certainly a good income generating venture for the Postal Service and could possibly help save us, you, as our Union, failed horribly in protecting RCAs from this badly laid out plan.
Many offices across the nation are extremely shorthanded on RCAs, many already work 6 days per week on a continuing basis. Where is our relief? We have no rights to vacations or days off via leave slips. We have no sick leave. Many in management and in the rural craft have openly told us, we have the right to work sick, work healthy, work nonstop and nothing more.
You failed in previous contracts to afford RCAs any rights except to work. Now you have turned a blind eye to those of us who will be forced to work 7 days a week on a non-stop basis and for other offices, who’s RCAs can sit at home on Sundays.
Yes we are “part time” help, but many have not seen part time, except maybe a few weeks out of the year, usually not even that much.
The Union’s answer to this, “Oh the Post Office will be hiring more RCAs”. Really? That’s laughable, because guess what, RCAs come and go like the wind!
What happens when one of these LLVs breaks down in the “middle of nowhere rural route USA”?? Oh that’s right, it is now the RCA’s responsibility to carry the business card of a towing company, who may or may not answer on Sunday, immediately or even within a few hours. Why? Because, no one else is working on Sunday who can help us and when the LLV is towed, finally, how are we supposed to continue to deliver these packages? We must stay with them, we cannot deviate, we must follow the manifest, but no one is at the office to bring us another LLV and let’s not forget we have a time limit, 16 packages per hour.
Have you ever tried to get a tow truck on a Sunday? Have you bothered to listen to the problems being generated with these manifests that have you cutting through open fields! Or have “Non generated packages”, guess what those are, those are packages that you have to hope to God someone knows where it is or google maps can find!
All marked Amazon Packages must be delivered, no matter what! Yeah, about those dogs, we have to take pictures of them and let’s hope the owner doesn’t swear this dog is the sweetest thing on earth. After that promise, we’ll be cursed by management to deliver it because of course the customer wouldn’t lie, until we are bitten. But who cares, we’re all just “subs” and suddenly it will be our own fault we were bitten.
No premium Sunday pay, you work 6 days a week, you better keep it under 40 hours, or go way over to even come close to reaping a partial benefit for working so hard. But if you’re already working 6 days and Sunday makes 7, it’s impossible to stay under 40 hours, so you’re either going to work a day for free or you’re going to be hung by management, because the District Office is screaming at them for your hours of overtime. Makes sense, right?
Let’s not forget, “Oh you have a family?” “Sorry, you signed up for this and your family doesn’t matter; only the regulars get to have their family and time off.” Personally, I didn’t sign up for 7 days a week.
No insurance that’s worth the paper it’s written on, because hey, we’re just Part Timers.
No vacation time, because hey, we’re just part timers.
No Holiday pay, because hey, we’re just part timers.
No sick leave, because hey, we’re just part timers.
You can work 6-7 days a week with no benefits AT ALL, because HEY You’re just PART TIMERS!