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

[turbinetree]

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.

by Maryam Jameel Feb. 24, 5 a.m. EST

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.

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-postal-service-fired-thousands-of-workers-for-getting-injured-while-delivering-and-processing-your-mail

[Dustlawyer]

1. This tactic is used by corporate America every day.

The states have largely gone "Right to Work", meaning there are no protections except those under federal law which are severely limited.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. You are conflating "right to work" with "at-will employment." "Right to work" is a state rule that

means you can benefit from collective bargaining contracts without paying union dues. "At-will employment" is an understanding of federal employment law that means your employer can fire you for any reason other than being a member of a protected class, or unless you are covered by a contract.

[onethatcares]

2. does reviewing the cases individually

prevent class action lawsuits?

I've been reading all the new terms of service notifications I've been receiving and find that all lawsuits must be handled by arbitration individually in 99% of them.

Looks like corporations have done it again.