The fourth two-week route evaluation, or “mini mail survey,” under the detested Rural Route Evaluation and Compensation System (RRECS), began August 23 and extends until September 6.
Despite intrusive monitoring year-round under RRECS, routes and compensation are only adjusted twice a year based on these mail surveys, and rural carriers are once again writing to the WSWS and posting online that mail volumes are artificially low, guaranteeing that their work will be undercounted and wages suppressed for the coming six months
RRECS was signed by the leadership of the National Rural Letter Carriers Association (NRLCA) in 2012 and introduced in 2022, causing an immediate widespread decline in wages to the tune of thousands of dollars per worker. Carriers have been struggling to make ends meet ever since, as USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy introduces further far-reaching changes to the postal network that burden workers and erode service levels, while the unions maintain a guilty silence.