The Postal Service wants you to know about the rules that apply to retirees and other former employees.
After leaving USPS, former employees may accept a new job with any employer. Depending on what their postal duties were, they may be prohibited from interacting with the Postal Service for a certain time period.
For example, former employees may not communicate on behalf of their new employer with the Postal Service on certain matters that they worked on involving outside organizations or individuals when they were employed with the Postal Service.
Former employees also must wait two years before communicating with USPS about matters their former subordinates worked on during the former employee’s last year of postal employment.
Some former senior employees have a one-year cooling-off period before they may communicate with or appear before the Postal Service on behalf of a new employer regarding any matter. Whether someone was “senior” employee depends on their salary, not their title.
Former employees may work behind the scenes on certain postal matters on behalf of a new employer, which means that they cannot communicate with or appear before USPS while performing work for their new employer.
Because the determination of whether post-employment restrictions apply is fact-specific, the USPS Ethics and Legal Compliance team encourages current and former employees to seek guidance by calling 202-268-6346 or sending an email to ethics.help@usps.gov.