There are laws to protect the injured. But when management puts allowable pressure on the injured they must comply. In my facility quite a few of the clerks were light/limited duty and could not work the DBCS machines. We never once doubted their claims of injury but working on the macines every night shorthanded was hard. The supervisor, with instructions from somebody up the road, told those not fit for duty would be sent to another facility (25 miles away) where there was work for them. As of now, every single one of them are on the machines. Because of the changes in the PO, things will be done differently. This is just an example. It's a new day. Not defending a side, just looking at both.

All these people who suddenly experience a miracle and are cured after years and years should be charged with fraud and terminated.

There are plenty IOD's and Light duty's out there who would be HAPPY to be offered disability retirement. Getting it is not so easy. May of my co-workers were surprised to hear they could apply for disability retirement. They hide this benefit from employees. They are hoping people quit rather than tell them they can get disability retirement.

Snowed: 26 years in as a mailhandler (before the days of the IMHS) when lifting parcels, sacks and nmo's from a bed-loaded van was the way it was done. In the last 3-4 years I have watched a few "miracles" of a few re-habs who spent 10-15 years in re-wrap proclaimed themselves healed and went back to regular duty as power equipment drivers (of course that was after they were informed by injury comp that the NRT was coming from the USPS) and that re-habs could be farmed out. One employee went from 4/4 to a full-time towmoter driver. My point: If you cannot return to full duty after a reasonable time to get better then a disability retirement is all that is left (why should the USPS accommodate someone till they reach regular retirement age?) Too many will/would try to exploit that system.

It is all about stating both sides. I do agree that the injured are treated harshly. I also agree that the uninjured are treated harshly too. Guess what? CHECKMATE!!!

Penny-
Maybe so in the private sector but there are federal laws that all federal employees fall under. The PO USED to accommodate because of those laws. Now they are disregarding the laws and trying to act like the private sector. Who, by the way, has to follow those same laws to a lesser degree. Also our many veteran employees get preferential treatment by LAW.

The USPS has to lie in the bed they make. Injuries to carriers today will be increasing at an unprecedented rate because of the increased physical demands of the job and the pressure carriers are put under to maintain the quick pace of delivery...it is already happening. A human body can only take so much.

They now treat injured employees very badly. The things that are happening to IOD's today are criminal. Remember the benefits of being a federal employee are for everyone of us if and when you need it. So I would watch out which side I'm defending.

Snowed, I don't think that anybody is putting the injured down. But m/5769 is merely stating what the po has created. An example is if you have a moving company and have and need 100 employees to take care of the business needs. Ten get hurt, then another 5, then another 5 all within 6 months. You now have 80 people doing the work of 100. Who's to say these folks won't break down too. As the owner and manager, what do you do? I would think that even with the screwing some IODs are getting, the other option if it wasn't the po is hit the door. Just my opinion.

It's a good thing that people of today were not the ones going west to settle this country. There would be no populated area's west of St.Louis. If the trail boss said we need to do whatever to keep the wagons going, he would not be able to find anyone that is not on light duty. Of course the Indians would be much happier. They would still have their sacred black hills.

/m5769

Just waiting for the PO to say no work for you with your restrictions, the disability retirement it is.

Let's see if you think the same way when you get hurt.

A system that was ripe for abuse and too many chose to abuse it. Medical limitations were not intended for the long term (5,10,20 years) but many decided to "milk" the system. The wonderful thing about the human body is the ability to "heal" and even if the injury requires surgery to repair the individual injury will improve. The days of making a "career" with a tape gun in rewrap making the same pay as the mailhandler/clerk/carrier doing the functions of those crafts appear over. If the individual has reached MMI (maximum medical improvement) and still cannot return to duty then a disability retirement should be the next and last step.

IOD's are being screwed left and right in the USPS and some of you guys don't have a clue what they go thru. They put them back to work for a short time the OWCP does a LWEC (lost wage earning capacity) which is usually ZERO! The when they get walked out they are out of luck with compensation or have a LONG uphill battle....Think about it. It could happen to any one of you. You have to feed, clothe and shelter yourself and your family too. I hope your hearts grow a little....and I hope you survive to retirement.

Thanks Causeway, I am not laconic enough to say a lot with little. My complaints affect everyone. i'll work on it but you don't appear to share my concerns anyway.

Dave Kirtley
Experienced FECA Help Http://WWW.quicktopic.com/42/H/BKvscr9mxvX

I think that once you are permanently injured and this should be verified by the employee's doctor and the Dept of Labor's doctors, then you should be placed into a different category. The employee should not be holding up job bids, layoff days, vacation weeks, etc. The employee should be removed from all possibilities of causing rifts between the unions & mgmt. This should eliminate the backstabbing that goes on. In 1984, I was fortunate to be taken off the mail processing status as a "productive employee," this was mgmt's words and it did eliminate a lot of problems! Sure, there was hard feelings among the more narrow-minded people at my BMC but they got over it in time. It didn't or shouldn't have bothered any junior in seniority (to me)employees because they were not affected by my rehab status. I think it bothered clerks who were senior to me back in the 80's but most of them are retired now. And why it bothered them, I don't know:jealousy, envy or just being stupid, I guess. My point is removing the bonafide, permanently injured people from the actual work floor will reduce a lot of problems. It's just good mgmt!

m/5763. At least you were given a job that fit your limitations. My problem is the injured with a Sat/Sun bid on inbound docks and is spending all their time working somewhere else. Give the injured a job but let a non injured have the chance at the Sat/Sun job. Who cares what days off the injured got, just don't hold up a position. Being a craft worker in the PO is labor. Can't do the labor, suffer the consequences.

old clerk, ya gotta realize that the light duty will become the IOD once they are messed with. Sometime when fellow workers complain about staffing, maybe the staff is there but just can't do the work. All in all, management created it and now they are trying to deal with it.