A Myth about Myths
By John Burl Smith
United States Postal Service (USPS) Commission on a Safe and Secure Workplace Chairman, Joseph Califano, announced Thursday (8-31-00), "Postal employees are no more likely to physically assault, sexually harass or verbally abuse their co-workers than [are] employees in the national work force." Effaced as a myth, he concluded " postal service employees are only a third as likely as workers in the national work force to be victims of homicide at work." Comparing homicides on job sites like convenience stores, police officers and taxi drivers to USPS, Califano declared a, "post office is one of the safest places in America." However, unlike convenience store clerks and taxi drivers, postal clerks and drivers are unlikely targets of robbers. Ominously, this study reveals an extremely high prevalence of violence in America's workplaces.
This work place violence study treats individual acts against co-workers as isolated incidents. It does not consider stress produced by the USPS' hostile work environment important. A devastating indictment of USPS' safety and security record, "employees believe they are almost six times more likely to be at risk of workplace violence from co-workers than the national work force." Attempting to minimize problems in the postal work environment, this study blames disgruntled employees for violence, but does not illuminate issues that create disgruntled employees. It absolves Postal Service management of any responsibility for fostering a hostile work environment.
Studying USPS management since becoming an employee in September 1984, I define its culture this way. The Three-fifths Compromise Article I Section 2 of the United States Constitution is the base of America's economy. Management theory in America developed from what was learned during slavery about forcing reluctant individuals to work, namely the "southern plantation style of management." This system was refined in "sweat shops," mines and mills during the 1800's. Later called Theory X, the vast majority of managers view employees philosophically and psychologically with the mind-set of slave masters. They perceive employees as lazy docile individuals who shirk responsibility and avoid work. Line supervisor are "whip-toting overseers." USPS management believes employees must be driven, stood over, spied on, checked behind, and in general, herded like cattle. Employee motives are totally distrusted. Management feels employees want something for nothing. Expressed through an array of punitive, autocratic and draconian policies /procedures, the USPS disguises its hostile work environment as a disciplinary process. It subjects employees to abuses, such as disparate treatment, harassment, discrimination, intimidation and retaliation.
The USPS work place study supports my assessment "Postal workers have more negative attitudes about work than those in the overall work force." Simply put, they hate being at work. They are "twice as likely as other workers to say they would change jobs for the same pay and benefits. They are more likely to file grievances and have less confidence in management's fairness and honesty." Postal employees are not loyal to their jobs because they do not believe the USPS is loyal to them.
Today's managers are as resistant to change as those during 1986. The shooting death of two employees at the Atlanta Main Post Office brought demands for change. Before the shooting, the employee said his A supervisor continually denied him time off, harassed him about his request for leave, and retaliated against him when he called in for emergency leave." Management offered $150,000 for suggestions to improve safety in the work place. I submitted a safety program called RARA: Rewarding All Renewable Assets. RA examined the deleterious effects of the USPS' dominate management style and detailed ways safety programs are used to show employees management appreciates their efforts. Although my concept was rejected, management implemented the sick leave awards portion. They claimed a white boy submitted that proposal. Management refused to pay the $150,000 and began harassing me to drop my claim. I was transferred to the Atlanta Air Mail Center in 1990.
Recently, I filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the USPS. My supervisor provided a white female training leading to a promotion and refused to provide me similar training. He stated "I am the boss, I can do what I want. You would do better worrying about your present job, rather than a promotion." Emergency health problems a few weeks later forced me to request FMLA. Ignoring my 700 hours sick leave balance and 300 hours of annual leave, my supervisor denied my leave request. He placed me on AWOL (absent without official leave) and immediately began an adverse action. Within a few months he fired me on the charge, I did not return to work immediately as he ordered.
Racism and discrimination are the most devastating forms of workplace violence, yet this study ignores their contribution to employee antagonisms. Racism is the number one issue facing America in this new millennium. Once a segregated workplace, the USPS maintained black and white lunch and restrooms as late as 1980 in some small offices. Even today, black employees routinely see hangman's nooses and Confederate flags on toolboxes, hanging in locker rooms or on cars. Some offices hold "Good ol' boy roundups" in the parking lot. Promoting its first black supervisors in the late 1970s, USPS routinely denies blacks training and promotional opportunity. Given this history of discrimination and the number of black employees, how is it possible to survey a representative sample of USPS employees and not identify racism as an issue? USPS' unions say many confrontations between co-workers are racially motivated.
A racial discrimination complaint striped me of every constitutionally protected right everyone says the law guarantees. An honorably discharged disabled Vietnam veteran with excellent performance, outstanding attendance, and an award winning sick leave balance, should have been entitled to a safe and secure workplace. Unexpectedly, I needed emergency sick leave. Instead of getting emergency leave, I got fired. Nothing in the workplace protected me. Postal employees want to ask, does such brutal treatment, callous disregard for employee health needs and violations of their rights by management, not to mention, the stress and pain their families endure constitute workplace violence, or is it simply the cost of being a slave descendant? Being black in America is no myth!