Employees of the U.S. Postal Service in Missoula have been dealing with serious issues this year, including not getting paychecks on time, inadequate staffing levels that essentially force many to work six or more days a week, poor workplace morale, absence requests being denied and high staff turnover at both the administrative and lower levels.
The issue is leading to severe mail delays in the area, with local residents complaining that important health, tax and business documents are not getting delivered on time.
The Missoulian spoke separately with three employees of the Postal Service in Missoula who described an extremely difficult workplace environment because there aren’t enough people to cover all of the necessary shifts. Carriers, especially rural carriers in the area, don’t have enough substitute carriers to allow them to only work five days a week. If they take two days off a week, they often come back on their first work day to a huge pile of undelivered mail, meaning they have to work twice as hard.
All the employees requested anonymity because of fear of retaliation from their employer. They all said that they’ve raised their concerns multiple times to supervisors, but nothing has improved over the course of months.