Sorting It Out
After a spate of disgruntled employees attacked their coworkers, post offices gained a reputation for violence. But postal clerks are much more prone to mundane dangers -- such as back injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome, and paper dust.
By Kristin Kloberdanz
CONSUMER HEALTH INTERACTIVE
A spate workplace shootings by disgruntled postal workers in the 1980s and '90s resulted in a new phrase being added to the American lexicon: "going postal."
"I think Webster was a little bit unfair to include 'going postal' in the dictionary," says Tom Andrew, a letter carrier for 15 years in a Chicago suburb. "Let's face it, you've got loose cannons in every industry."
The rash of well-publicized shootings did tarnish the image of the postal workplace in the eyes of the public. But while the numbers are shocking -- from 1985 to early 1998, 35 postal employees were killed by their co-workers -- the job doesn't even make the top 10 list for workplace violence, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Like other employees, post office workers face a higher threat of robbery while at work than of violence from a co-worker. Postal employees also face myriad health hazards every day -- including job stress, repetitive strain injuries, and respiratory problems -- that are less likely to be covered in a television expose.
"I just want to do my job without hurting"
Postal clerks work inside the post office, where they help customers at the front counters and sort mail on high-speed conveyor belts in the back rooms. Besides having to put up with grumpy customers, clerks often suffer from boredom caused by assembly-line work and injuries from sorting and lifting heavy stacks of mail. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, in fact, reports more than 56,000 injuries among postal service workers annually, at a cost in workers compensation of more than $500 million. Among the job risks they face:
• Muscle and skeletal disorders. Unfortunately, the machinery designed to make sorting mail faster and easier has created its own set of problems. NIOSH investigators have identified excessive heavy lifting and several ergonomic hazards -- design features that tax or endanger the human body excessively -- associated with the Postal Service's automated mail-processing equipment. The agency warns that these hazards put employees at potential risk for crippling low back problems as well as musculoskeletal disorders of the upper body; other NIOSH studies have found that machine-paced postal workers reported a higher incidence of fatigue, blurred vision, and neck, arm, or hand complaints.
In congressional testimony, Corey Thompson of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) remarked that in his hundreds of telephone calls with union members, "a large percentage of injured workers provided the following unsolicited comment: 'I just want to be able to do my job without hurting.'" The APWU has called for better employee training on how to recognize and report repetitive motion injuries. For complete article go to http://www2.vhi.ie/topic/postal