In 2022, USPS launched a nationwide Heat Illness Prevention Program designed to better protect carriers working in extreme temperatures.
Records Gates obtained showed that her husband had completed required heat safety training, but she said that never happened.
“He never had any training whatsoever. And, I guess they have some type of test. It was all falsified because the day that he supposedly had taken the training, it was one of his off days,” Gates said.
Kimetra Lewis, the president of the Dallas branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers labor union, said concerns involving training records extended beyond Dallas.
“It turns out it was all across the country. The same thing was happening. They were saying that they had provided the carriers with this training, but it was found that was not true,” Lewis said.
The I-Team also found a federal audit examining the Postal Service’s adverse weather procedures. The USPS Office of Inspector General found that heat safety training was not always properly certified or presented in group settings.
In one example, a manager certified 39 carriers as having completed heat training, but records showed that 17 of those carriers were not working on the date of certification.
We all know about the toxic environment that the USPS is known for.They were pretty much caught red handed falsifying heat training requirements, saying they gave stand up talks but never did. The NALC, of course, looked the other way. It seems like two or three die every summer nationwide, and when OSHA looks into it and levies fines, the USPS fights them. The fines are really a pittance too. That says it all, really.