SAN ANTONIO — Postal service employee representatives said mail carriers have ended up in the ER multiple times this summer and they keep finding more safety issues in San Antonio. Now they are planning a rally on Sunday, August 20, at 9 a.m. at the main post office in the city at 10410 Perrin Beitel to call for better working conditions.
Louise Jordan, the President of the National Letter Carriers Association Branch 421, walked into the U.S Post Office Dobie Station this week to investigate if the air conditioning was working. She said management claimed it worked but employees said it was out. She said it turns out they were both right: The AC worked for management but not for those on the work floor. Jordan wasn't happy.
"Either the postmaster was giving me misleading information or he was provided misleading information but, either way, anybody on that floor was aware there was no air conditioning at that location," Jordan said.
Dobie station has also had a broken water fountain for some time, even though the water found was, supposedly, the main place for employees to get water. Jordan said bottled water had been provided during COVID, as they were safer than using a community water fountain, but the bottles had suddenly disappeared from all stations in the heat of the summer.
Jordan also said a pallet of bottled water had suddenly appeared at Dobie station yesterday, though she believes that's more a result of pressure from media than anything else.
"Because of the interest we've had in the news, all of a sudden they have a pallet of bottled water there so that that issue would go away. I want to thank you for making it there, but it was sad that it took this (TV coverage) to make that happen," Jordan said.
At the same time, Jordan has now found additional issues. USPS told KENS 5 in a statement last week, "the Postal Service provides mandatory heat-related and other safety training and instruction to all employees and assures they have the resources needed to do their jobs safely."
Jordan said she's been speaking to employees and found out most of them were never actually given the training. Even worse, she said some employees, including herself, had been falsely marked as being already trained by management.
"The safety training that was nationally agreed to that was supposed to be done by April 1, has not been done. They are doing safety briefings in the morning, but that is not the training that we are talking about. It's specific training on a computer about the signs of heat symptoms. For most people that has not happened although their records indicate it has," Jordan said.
Jordan told KENS 5 her branch is now putting together a grievance over falsified records. Jordan serves as a post president and hasn't delivered mail in more than two years. Still, she said her record indicates she attended a training session in December that she was never involved in.
"That did not happen," Jordan said.
KENS 5 reached out to USPS about the bottled water disappearing both last week and this week after four congressmen sent a letter to USPS about that issue.
Last week, USPS said, "The Postal Service will provide a written response directly to the Congressional Members who inquired about water supplies and other issues in San Antonio."
KENS 5 reached out to those same congress members this week and office staff said they couldn't find any response as of yet.
KENS 5 reached back out to USPS on Thursday and asked when that communication would happen. A spokesperson responded via email and said, "The Postal Service will provide a written response directly to the Congressional Members within a reasonable timeframe, per our established process."
Congressmen have already told KENS 5 the Postal Service needs to respond to the issue.
"We need to have conversations with the postal service. I understand that they are an independent commission but when they run out of money they always come to congress," Congressman Henry Cuellar said. "They come to congress when they need help, and they need to pay attention to the members of congress who represent so many postal workers."