After having spent several years and thousands of dollars forcing
rural customers to move their mailboxes due to 'safety issues', many
of which have been in use in the same location without a problem for
many years it now seems that these mail boxes are now causing
'injury' to postal workers because they may be an inch or two lower
than specified or are on an arm designed to swing out of the way when
the snowplough swipes it going by! Many rural mail delivery folks
have been doing this without a problem for years and years and as
contract employees have not been paid anywhere close to the kind of
wages and benefits that full time 'employees' have been receiving,
even given that they were forced to join the union a few year back
they still use their own vehicles for the most part and I suspect
that they are poorly paid for this. Its hard for the pubic to tell
because as with any union – employer issue it is not considered
'our business' even when we the taxpayer are the employer!
To add insult to injury it seems that adjusting the height of a
few mailboxes and purchasing right hand vehicles for all those rural
route workers will SAVE $10-$15 MILLION! Say What? Apparently some
rural and suburban mail carriers have
complained of "ergonomic concerns" related to reaching
across their vehicles to deposit mail out their passenger-side
windows into rural mailboxes. It seems that some of these poor folks
SITTING IN THEIR VEHICLE are complaining of "ergonomic concerns"
related to reaching across their vehicles to deposit mail out their
passenger-side windows into rural mailboxes. The corporation notes
that these "awkward movements" increase risk of repetitive
strain injuries and generate additional expense for the corporation
due to costs associated with injury on duty.
Seems to me that if reaching across your vehicle holding those
heavy letters strains some muscles then perhaps you are looking for
an excuse to suck the taxpayers in to pay for a few days off to be
paid by you overly generous sick leave benefits. I know full well
that this is NOT brought on by the average rural route postal
delivery person but by a very small minority of union types who
simply want something for nothing. I thank the many who have
delivered my rural mail for years without ANY problems and even gone
out of their way to deliver that 'special package' right to my door,
I appreciate your service and dedication I would suggest that you are
doing yourselves no favours by remaining silent about those few 'shit
disturbers' who seem to be present in any organized labour
collective!
Finally I note that our urban neighbours are now also under attack
by the postal 'service' and that 'community mailboxes' are going to
become the norm, please don’t think that the rural folks are free
of this affliction, many rural routes have been 'converted' to this
service reduction, the difference being that our 'block' can be
considerably bigger than yours in distance and we have NO sidewalks.
I also note that in this discussion of second class citizens that if
you live in an apartment of sufficient size the you WILL get delivery
to 'your door' (even if it is the one at the bottom of the elevator
ride) but the folks who own a house and pay higher taxes are the ones
who will be forced to trudge through the snow to get their mail.
The question has to be asked is our 'postal service' an essential
government service or an individual 'pay for service'. According to
our federal dictators many of such similar services must 'pay for
themselves' so that they can waste our tax dollars on promoting
themselves and their corporate friends in the Chinese oil industry.
Nuff said, rant OFF!
A longtime rural resident, I use my 60 plus years of life learning to opinionate here and elsewhere on the “interweb” on everything from politics to environmental issues. A believer in reasonable discourse rather than unhelpful attacks I try to give positive input to the blogesphere, so feel free to comment upon rural issues or anything else posted here. But don’t be surprised if you comments get zapped if you are not polite in your replys.
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2 comments:
Perhaps more rural customers would be more understanding if they had pull up to their mailbox, in winter with snow/ice, reach from the driver's seat out the passenger window and deposit/remove multiple mail items from their mailbox each & everyday. Now imagine repeating this effort several hundred times each day over the course of a year. And you still can't fathom how your dedicated mail carrier end up with repetitive strain injuries, rotator cuff injuries and more? Obviously it is easy to comment from your lazyboy chair looking out your livingroom picture window.
Thank you for you insight anonymous union member!
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