Congressman: New Hampshire Postal Workers Cheated Out of Wages

October 17, 2009 by Lu
Filed under: oig, postal, usps 

Press Release

New Hampshire Workers Cheated Out of Wages: Congressman Hodes Spurs Investigation That Reveals Fraud

Washington, DC— Congressman Paul Hodes issued the following statement after the Inspector General of the US Postal Service confirmed New Hampshire postal workers’ concerns that management had altered time cards and withheld payment that the workers had earned. Congressman Hodes had called on the Inspector General to investigate these concerns.

“This is a clear and deliberate violation of workers’ rights,” said Congressman Hodes. “New Hampshire families have suffered as a result of this scheme, and these hard-working postal workers deserve the wages that they have earned. The Postal Service should immediately reimburse these workers for the wages that were taken from them.”

Earlier this year, Congressman Hodes wrote to the Inspector General asking for an investigation into claims that management at the Milford Post Office, Manchester South Station, and Manchester West Station had manipulated time cards to cheat workers out of wages they had earned. Postal workers were concerned that management was manually altering time cards in order to avoid paying workers the wages to which they were entitled.

The Inspector General concluded that management altered time entries which, “resulted in the removal of straight time, overtime night differential and penalty overtime causing employees to be underpaid.” Management engaged in these practices at all three of the post office stations in question, and the Inspector General’s investigation revealed other inconsistencies at the Somersworth Post Office and the Salem Post Office. The investigation also revealed a flaw in the way in which clerks’ hours are recorded, which resulted in an “unintentional loss of pay to employees.”

Tags: ,

Comments

9 Comments on Congressman: New Hampshire Postal Workers Cheated Out of Wages

  1. Duh Kernel on Sat, 17th Oct 2009 4:58 pm

    2. look in california too, oh im first

  2. Bob Czartoryski on Sun, 18th Oct 2009 11:13 am

    3. The end result will be business as usual. Although a crime has been committed no charges will be brought forth. Managers were following orders from above. The top managers in the Area will protect those responsible for fear the managers “flipping” and naming those who authorized this crime. If a craft employee committed fraud they would be terminated and prosecuted…bank on it.

  3. steward on Sun, 18th Oct 2009 11:16 am

    4. The easiest way to curtail the practice of shaving time from employees is to give employees real time access to their clock rings. That increases the chance of detection and stopping it.

  4. z on Sun, 18th Oct 2009 11:41 am

    5. While your checking Congressman, check on all the other Stations in the Country for time fraud, this is not an isolated incident. Its excisting here in Columbus Ohio.

  5. C.J. Wayda on Sun, 18th Oct 2009 12:40 pm

    6. This same thing is and has been happening in Wilkes-Barre ,Pa. If this is happening all over the country, as we suspect, nothing short of a full Congressional investigation into the Postal Service is warranted. This is theft, bottom line, not an “honest mistake.”

  6. Nelson Perez on Sun, 18th Oct 2009 4:03 pm

    7. It happens all the time at village station in NYC. THEFT!

  7. New England Carrier on Sun, 18th Oct 2009 10:23 pm

    8. Every Steward in every office should request “Disallowed clock ring report” from management. You will see if there doing this in your office or not. Every deletion they make if you follow the “rules”, the carrier must be notified and then logged in a logbook, forgot exactly, but the carrier is to be told of the deletion. this goes for all craft employees. Just go get th reports and find out. I did this a few years ago and got everybodys time given back to them. They didn’t want iit to get out the office so it was settled very quickly.

  8. LV Cerk on Mon, 19th Oct 2009 11:33 am

    9. Happens quite offten here at RRV Station in LasVegas,NV

  9. Postal Lifer on Tue, 20th Oct 2009 2:53 pm

    10. Considering the volunteered (off the record)info we get from others in the Postal Service, this is way bigger than what is admitted so far. Many allege time clock theft has happened to them, but don’t report it, and are intimidated into considering it a cost of keeping their job. If even half of these unverified allegations are true, it points to a covert management policy of theft from employess to “make the numbers”