B Brown/Shutterstock.com

The Postal Service Fired Thousands of Workers for Getting Injured While Delivering and Processing Your Mail

USPS forced out 44,000 workers who got injured on the job. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says the effort, part of a five year program, violated the law. But the Postal Service has fought its workers’ claims since 2007.

One night in 2009, Madelaine Sattlefield lifted an 80-pound tray of letters carefully sorted by Missouri ZIP code. She had done this task thousands of times in nine years, but on this night, her arm seared with pain and went limp by her side. The tray crashed and sent envelopes cascading around her. She could barely move but immediately worried about what an injury might mean for her job.

“Anxiety had kicked in. I was like, what are they going to say, what are they going to do?” Sattlefield said.

Within months, the U.S. Postal Service fired her, one of about 44,000 employees who were either fired or left their jobs under pressure over five years in a program that “targeted” employees with work-related injuries, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A commission ruling on the class action complaint also found that the Postal Service discriminated against an additional 15,130 injured workers by changing their work duties or accommodations, and unlawfully disclosed the private medical information of injured workers across the country.

Now, more than a decade later, despite the ruling, the Postal Service is still fighting the class-action complaint. It has refused to settle, stating in its latest financial report that the case’s outcome could have a “material impact” on the agency. The EEOC plans to go case by case through about 28,000 claims, and the Postal Service is contesting each worker’s allegations, which could drag out the process for years. To dispute many of the claims, the Postal Service is arguing that the workers aren’t providing sufficient proof that they actually had disabilities or were harmed by the program.

“They never say die,” said Robbie Dix, head of the EEOC’s federal appellate program. In 48 years with the EEOC, the agency tasked with enforcing employment discrimination laws, Dix said he can’t recall another federal agency systematically targeting so many disabled workers. Their class action is among the largest the thinly staffed EEOC — which normally gets about 8,000 federal hearings requests each year — has handled.

The Postal Service ended its program targeting employees with disabilities in 2011, but years afterward, many workers are still dealing with its consequences. Some, like Sattlefield, had permanent disabilities. Many say they suffered financial and emotional harm.

Exactly how much USPS could owe the workers is unknown. The Postal Service’s latest financial report estimates $178 million in potential liability for its pending employment claims, including this case.

The legal review is unlikely to end soon. Once the EEOC completes its evaluation, the Postal Service can still disagree with its findings, opening the door to worker appeals.

A USPS spokesman declined to speak with ProPublica about the dispute. He also declined requests to discuss the agency’s injury rate and accommodations for disabled employees.

The Postal Service, one of the largest federal agencies, has a unionized workforce of more than 630,000 employees and a long history of adversarial relations between workers and management. Workplace safety has often been at issue, and federal researchers have documented the physical strains of mail delivery and operating heavy mail sorting equipment. Postal workers make up only a fifth of the federal workforce but they suffered about half of all federal workplace injuries and illnesses in 2019, according to U.S. Labor Department data.

“There are ways to redesign every job so workers don’t get hurt,” said Debbie Berkowitz, former chief of staff and senior policy adviser at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “Employers have to provide a workplace free of hazards that can cause physical harm.”

On paper, the Postal Service agrees. In its employee manual, the agency states that “any occupational injury or illness can be prevented. This goal is realistic, not theoretical.”

The agency lists ways of creating an injury-free workplace through protective measures like safety equipment, employee training and strictly enforced safety rules. Yet last year alone, the Labor Department registered nearly 37,000 postal workers’ injuries and illnesses through its workers’ compensation office. The Labor Department requires employers to report in-patient hospitalizations, amputations and eye losses. Since it began collecting the information in 2015, the Postal Service has reported almost 800 such incidents.

The program that affected Sattlefield and thousands of other injured workers was called the National Reassessment Program and began in 2006. USPS officials later testified that it was developed to ensure that injured staff members were doing “necessary work” and to return workers who had recuperated to their original duties.

What the program actually did, an EEOC judge wrote, was “get rid of” as many injured employees as possible. The EEOC found that the Postal Service eliminated workers who were moved to jobs that met their medical restrictions. The jobs were real, the EEOC said, and after the workers were removed, others had to perform the same tasks.

In 2015, and again in 2017, the EEOC ruled that the program illegally discriminated against injured workers by creating a hostile work environment, taking away disability accommodations and revealing workers’ confidential medical information.

“It was this enormous travesty and violation of the law,” said Heather White, an attorney who specializes in federal-sector employment litigation. “It’s absolutely not typical of how federal agencies are supposed to operate.”

Getting hurt put Sattlefield right in the program’s crosshairs.

According to her workers’ compensation records, Sattlefield’s dominant right hand and arm never again worked properly. She had a torn rotator cuff, and her doctor outlined new work restrictions.

Under federal disability law, Sattlefield believed she had the right to a position that would meet those medical restrictions. But when her surgery was over, she said her supervisor sent her back to the same job lifting and pushing the heavy trays and packages her doctor told her to avoid.

When she asked for work conforming to her doctor’s orders, she was told nothing was available. At 39, Sattlefield received a letter telling her she was no longer employed.

“I was an emotional wreck. Like man, what am I going to do? This is supposed to be my job to pay my bills,” she said. “No one ever wants to be in that position where you can’t even buy socks for your children.” Soon, she couldn’t afford to pay her rent.

Many employees whose jobs were targeted had spinal injuries, nerve damage and other disorders limiting the function of their hands, arms, shoulders, backs and feet. Some were hurt in one-time accidents like falls.

When USPS launched the worker “reassessment program,” it was wrestling with major cost increases. Fuel prices were rising. Fewer people were using higher-margin services like first-class mail. Labor made up about 80% of the agency’s expenses. “A continued focus on work hour reductions is imperative,” Chief Financial Officer H. Glen Walker wrote in a 2006 report.

Former agency officials who led the program declined or did not respond to ProPublica’s interview requests.

Agency officials said the program was not a cost-savings measure but meant to ensure that workers were employed in suitable positions. But the agency reported that it led to about $150 million in annual savings. At least one executive won a service award for the program’s success.

Six years of legal discovery produced internal emails from the Postal Service that, according to the EEOC, “lay bare the intensity” with which managers running the program “pursued their goal of reducing the [injured-on-duty] rolls.”

One such email was a congratulatory message to the Fort Worth, Texas, district for reducing “our current NRP employees on rolls by 25%.” According to the EEOC, the message included a song called “Cripple Creek” as background music.

Workers allege that throughout the program, managers harassed and intimidated them. They said they felt denigrated when colleagues and supervisors suggested they would end up as Walmart greeters after losing postal jobs.

In one email, the agency’s health and human resources manager told then-Postmaster General John Potter that 338 injured workers had been removed from the payroll: “338 it is and welcome to Walmart,” his response read. Potter, now president and CEO of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, did not respond to requests for comment.

Sandra McConnell, a mail carrier in Rochester, New York, was among the first workers to lose her job as the program was tested in pilot regions. She had fallen on a staircase on her delivery route in 1997, permanently damaging her spine. When she returned to work in 1999, managers created a role that met her doctor’s restrictions. For seven years, she took customer complaint calls and handled change of address mail, among other duties. But in May 2006, she was told there was no work available for her unless she could return to her carrier job. She was fired and escorted off the premises.

Her colleagues testified that she was never idle and that work piled up after her firing.

The Postal Service, however, argued that McConnell and other employees fired between 2006 and 2011 were doing “made up,” “unnecessary” jobs.

McConnell filed a complaint alleging disability discrimination. She eventually became the lead plaintiff in the class action. More than 10 years after she was fired, the EEOC ordered the Postal Service to reinstate her position and pay her for lost wages.

For many workers fired under the National Reassessment Program, memories of how they were treated by managers remain difficult.

“You had to put up with the ridicule and being talked about by your fellow employees,” said Donald McIlwain, a former mail carrier from Shreveport, Louisiana. “They didn’t see all the work I did. I was just a slacker.”

McIlwain had been a carrier for nine years when he twisted his knee while delivering mail. His job required constant motion — lifting bins weighing upward of 70 pounds, squatting, climbing stairs and getting in and out of his truck. He had surgery on a torn meniscus, and his doctor recommended only two hours of walking and standing per workday in 20-minute intervals. That ruled out mail carrier work. Records show that the doctor also evaluated his percentage of disability in various areas of life. Family and home responsibilities: 50%. Recreation: 80%. Occupation: 80%.

“To me it was like, what do I do now? What I love doing is gone. I can’t do it anymore,” he said.

McIlwain’s permanent knee injury came five years before the National Reassessment Program was unveiled. According to his employment records, the agency assigned him an administrative job managing occupational safety evaluations. He worked with a manager who, he said, complained about disabled workers. In 2010, he said he watched multiple disabled colleagues get fired and escorted from the building. About two months later, his turn came.

ProPublica spoke with about 20 former USPS employees who lost jobs because of the National Reassessment Program. Many described feeling humiliated and belittled by USPS, which has denied mistreating them. At the EEOC, one witness testified to hearing injured employees called “lazies” and “fakers.” Another testified to hearing program staff members say there were “going to be a lot of sorry ‘rehabs’ working at Walmart soon.”

Sattlefield, the Missouri-based mail handler, also still recalls her supervisor’s insults. “If you were injured, you were made to feel low, like you weren’t even a person,” she said. “They always yelled out something about us being not worthy. ‘Come get your broken-down self and take this mail out,’” she said.

Some former postal workers who shared their experiences were unwilling to be named publicly for fear of further job retaliation while the case is pending.

One employee who lost his job developed severe tendon and nerve damage over 19 years at the Postal Service. He said his time with the agency destroyed his mental, emotional and physical health.

“I’ve been trying to find peace, and I just can’t seem to find it. I’ve never gone back to what I used to be before. You lose all enjoyment of life,” he said. “I might have gotten out of there, but I don’t think I’ve survived.”

This article was originally published in ProPublica. It has been republished under the Creative Commons license.  ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for their newsletter.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.