The U.S. Postal Service has been ordered to pay damages to San Jose workers and train management staff after an independent review of timecards showed “broad evidence of a pattern of deletion or alteration” of employees’ timecards, according to arbitration documents provided to this news organization.
Starting in 2014 and through at least 2017, postal workers were told that they had to finish routes within their allotted eight-hour shifts or receive discipline from management, alleged the workers’ union, the National Association of Letter Carriers.
Carriers frequently skipped meals and breaks to make time, and in some cases, ran to finish their routes.
Even so, supervisors across San Jose’s 12 stations regularly changed workers’ timecards when workers couldn’t make it back in time, the arbitrator found. Workers not only lost wages — by the union’s estimation, nearly 6,000 hours over the years — but struggled with constant pressure and low morale.
