There's a very strong case to be made for the idea that the subs -- the RCAs -- in a given post office should not be getting the same pay as each other.
For instance, in our office we have subs with varying experience from 5 years to 2 months .... and yet, the sub(s) with all that experience and the subsequent ability to do 2 routes (and even more) in a single day, are paid at exactly the same hourly rate as the sub who cannot complete a partial route, even if given 12 hours to do so.
And what that equal pay/unequal ability does is to naturally put animosity between the subs -- those with experience resent the ones who cannot do as much. Those who can are constantly having to "rescue" the subs who cannot do as much.
Of course the experienced ones aren't actually rescuing the inexperienced from their ineptitude, exactly. What is equally the case is that they are rescuing them from a task to large to complete in the first place. Nevertheless, the animosity and bitterness builds.
I don't know how typical the Warsaw post office situation is, but in Warsaw, the RCAs are carrying more mail and parcels than any of the regulars. The RCAs regularly do more routes per day than the regulars who do one route every day.
The RCAs work longer hours for less pay than the regulars. The RCA has become the heart of the office. More work would NOT get done in the absence of a single RCA than does not get done when a regular doesn't show up for work. That's a reality.
But the USPS opinion of the value of the RCA is that it is an unskilled entry level position that could be filled by anyone off the street. Really. The comment is even often made that all we need to replace an RCA is a warm body. That's how upper management sees the RCA position. The management that sees us work every day may or may not feel the same way, but they are trapped in that in-between level -- between those who get the job done, and the management above them telling them how it is to be done.
One thing that could immediately be done to improve the situation -- to make the most of the RCA, and to acknowledge the reality of how the office actually gets the job of delivery done every day, would be to make the RCA both a tiered wage job, and a career position.
For instance, if in Warsaw the USPS made it so that as soon as an RCA was capable of executing 3 routes in their entirety, they would then become an RCJ (a Rural Carrier Journeyman) and receive a meaningful raise .... and then when that carrier was able to complete 6 routes in their entirety, they would then become an RCM (Rural Carrier Master), and again receive a meaningful raise.....
....what would do is:
1. Immediately remove the animosity that occurs between the experienced and the inexperienced RCA. Those who are capable of more work are paid more for it. When they help the inexperienced or less capable, they are doing so as a higher paid employee.
2. Make the prospect of being an RCA far more attractive to a prospective job applicant. We DESPERATELY need more workers, but the job is simply and honestly not a competitive wage. The RCA is presented as a stepping stone TO a career, but not a career itself. And when you look behind the curtain, that "promise" of a career is vacuous. It is just a crap shoot in which one might wait for multiple years for a route that never opens up....or might open up only a route that is ultimately un-doable and in the long run pays even less that the RCA position.
3. Make the RCA a potential career position. If it made the RCA a more reasonable and reasoned wage (especially if it was one that also included benefits) -- one open to advancement -- more applicants would be attracted to it as an end in itself. We currently have a couple of RCAs who for various reasons would actually prefer that challenge of multiple routes to the tedium of the same route every day ad infinitum. I think even I am in that category.
...and if more applicants led to more hires, the currently untenable work load that has led to my working no fewer than 12 hours a day, 7 days a week AS A RULE, NOT AN EXCEPTION, would finally let up and the job would be more attractive as it became more do-able.
And (again) if there were more hires, EVEN WITH THE TIERED PAY THAT GAVE MANY A RAISE....the USPS would ultimately SAVE money because more workers would lead to less overtime pay. Last year I made enough overtime pay to hire two other workers.
Thanks for listening. It helps me to get it off my chest.