Does royal mail work on weekends?

Payrates and work applicable to USPS workers

• In the postal industry myself, but in Australia, working for AUSTRALIA POST, the nations major carrier similar to USPS, I would be interested in knowing just what US postal workers are paid and how they work. Therefore specifically my question is A) just what pay do the basic workers in the mail processing plants recieve,i.e sorting mail by hand/by machine and related tasks and is this adjusted according to whether they work at night,on weekends etc. Also if possible, B)would like to know if same workers operate as individuals or in some sort of team enviroment with a team leader. Do such teams/individuals operate as experts in one area or around one type of machine or do they rotate around all areas within the big plants from tipping mail/loading trucks right through to higher level sorting machine operation.

• Answer:

  Here is an overview of USPS employment gleaned from the USPS website. Organizational Structure The Postal Service is comprised of Corporate Headquarters, located in Washington, DC, Headquarters Field Units, across the United States that report to Headquarters and ten (10) area offices that have eighty-five (85) districts reporting to them. The U.S. Postal Service employs over 800,000 individuals nationwide. Recruitment Recruitment within the U.S. Postal Service is decentralized and based on local postal needs. Human Resources offices are located at Headquarters, Headquarters Field units, Area and District Offices nationwide. Types of Positions Individuals are employed in a wide range of skills and disciplines. Individuals may be employed as craft/ bargaining unit employees or non-bargaining unit employees. Positions include but are not limited to: clerks, carriers, mail handlers, custodians, maintenance technicians, operations research analysts, engineers, attorneys, ergonomics specialist, chemists, information systems specialists, real estate specialists, economists, accountants, human resources analyst and specialists, safety and risk management specialists, marketing specialists, etc. Salary Salaries within the Postal Service are comparable to private industry. The salary system consists of several pay schedules. The most widely used are the Postal Service (PS) for bargaining-unit employees and the Executive and Administrative Schedule (EAS) for non bargaining-unit employees. The pay period for all employees begins on Saturday and covers a 2-week period ending on Friday. Employees are paid every 2 weeks following the end of the pay period. Pay charts may be viewed at http://www.2mailclerksandcarriers.com/postalpaychart.shtml Benefits The U.S. Postal Service offers excellent benefits including health and life insurance, retirement plan, savings/investment plan with employer contribution, flexible spending account, flextime scheduling of core work hours, annual and sick leave. Qualified applicants must pass a pre-employment drug screening to meet the requirement to be drug free. Applicants must also be a U.S. citizen or have permanent resident alien status. Short descriptions of USPS jobs are on the USPS site at http://www.usps.com/employment/types.htm In addition to basic pay rates, most Postal Service employees also receive regular salary increases, overtime pay, night shift differential, and Sunday premium pay. Overtime is paid at one and one-half times the applicable hourly rate for work in excess of 8 hours per day, or 40 hours within a workweek. Night shift differential is paid at a specified dollar rate for all hours worked between 6pm and 6am. Sunday premium is paid at 25 percent for work scheduled on Sunday. Other benefits are described at http://www.usps.com/employment/comp.htm The United States Department of Labor "Occupational Outlook Handbook" gives a lengthy description of USPS employment and compensation. http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos141.htm The following information is based on an interview with my local Postmaster: a) there are no "teams" in the mail processing plant. b) an employee may be rotated through all the jobs at the plant but may after several years of employment be assigned to a single duty/post c) "Nobody who works at the plant is happy with this arrangement." Search terms:USPS pay schedules; USPS employment; USPS job descriptions I hope this is useful.