{"id":427,"date":"2009-06-09T15:58:54","date_gmt":"2009-06-09T20:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=427"},"modified":"2009-06-09T16:12:14","modified_gmt":"2009-06-09T21:12:14","slug":"ouch-mail-hurts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2009\/06\/09\/ouch-mail-hurts\/","title":{"rendered":"Ouch! Mail Hurts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mail<\/a>
Mail Hurts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds’<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Many postal employees work for years with USPS and never have any harmful physical effects from their postal jobs. However, over the years there have been literally thousands and thousands that have experienced long term disabilities from just doing their jobs.<\/p>\n

What starts as a sprain or strain can lead to permanent injury. A tear in joint tissue that is not allowed to heal properly before being exposed to the same repetitive stress that caused the injury in the first place can become cumulative trauma and eventually arthritis that will never heal.<\/p>\n

Almost no postal employees, or managers, understand that of all the thousands of injuries and illnesses taking place among federal employees each year postal employees hold the record for claims filed.<\/p>\n

According to OSHA [www.osha.gov] employees of the postal service represent approximately 45%, or more, of the total injury and illnesses suffered by federal employees each year – this means that almost half, possibly more, of all injury or illness claims filed each year are filed by postal employees.<\/p>\n

We found the following statistics compiled by OSHA – an agency of the Department of Labor.<\/p>\n

FEDERAL INJURY\/ILLNESS INFORMATION
\n1998 THROUGH 2009<\/strong><\/p>\n

1998
\n<\/strong>Total Federal Employees: 2,782,764\u00a0 – [ 865,676 USPS ]
\nUSPS Percentage of total Federal employees: 31%
\nTotal Injury and Illness Cases: 152,053 – [ 73,830 USPS ]
\nPercentage Total Injuries\/Illnesses Attributed to USPS: 48+%<\/strong><\/p>\n

1999
\n<\/strong>No Records Found: OSHA excluded USPS for the year of 1999.<\/p>\n

2000
\n<\/strong>No Records Found: OSHA excluded USPS for the year of 2000<\/p>\n

2001
\n<\/strong>No Records Found: OSHA excluded USPS for the year of 2001.<\/p>\n

2002
\n<\/strong>Total Federal Employees: 1,865,012 – [ 829,043 USPS ]
\nUSPS Percentage of total Federal employees: 44%
\nTotal Injury and Illness Cases: 148,140 – [ 77,731 USPS ]
\nLess cases associated with September 11 and anthrax
\nPercentage Total Injuries\/Illnesses Attributed to USPS: 52+%<\/strong><\/p>\n

2003
\n<\/strong>Total Federal Employees: 2,743,063 – [ 801,552 USPS ]
\nUSPS Percentage of total Federal employees: 29%
\nTotal Injury and Illness Cases: 151,888 – [ 70,605 USPS ]
\nPercentage Total Injuries\/Illnesses Attributed to USPS: 46+%<\/strong><\/p>\n

2004
\n<\/strong>Total Federal Employees: 2,897,788 – [ 775,834 USPS ]
\nUSPS Percentage of total Federal employees: 31%
\nTotal Injury and Illness Cases: 143,511 – [ 60,534 USPS ]
\nPercentage Total Injuries\/Illnesses Attributed to USPS: 42%<\/strong><\/p>\n

2005
\n<\/strong>Total Federal Employees: 2,711,952 – [ 778,304 USPS ]
\nUSPS Percentage of total Federal employees: 31%
\nTotal Injury and Illness Cases: 132,772 – [ 56,187 USPS ]
\nPercentage Total Injuries\/Illnesses Attributed to USPS: 42%<\/strong><\/p>\n

2006
\n<\/strong>Total Federal Employees: 2,698,050 – [ 761,514 USPS ]
\nUSPS Percentage of total Federal employees: 31%
\nTotal Injury and Illness Cases: 119,970 – [ 52,329 USPS ]
\nPercentage Total Injuries\/Illnesses Attributed to USPS: 44%<\/strong><\/p>\n

2007
\n<\/strong>Total Federal Employees: 2,690,540 – [ 754,958 USPS ]
\nUSPS Percentage of total Federal employees: 31%
\nTotal Injury and Illness Cases: 114,571 – [ 50,271 USPS ]
\nPercentage Total Injuries\/Illnesses Attributed to USPS: 44%<\/strong><\/p>\n

2008
\n<\/strong>Total Federal Employees: 2,715,321 – [ 748,135 USPS ]
\nUSPS Percentage of total Federal employees: 31%
\nTotal Injury and Illness Cases: 115,232 – [ 48,847 USPS ]
\nPercentage Total Injuries\/Illnesses Attributed to USPS: 42%<\/strong><\/p>\n

2009 Second Quarter Totals
\n<\/strong>Total Federal Employees: 2,746,972 – [ 725,570 USPS ]
\nUSPS Percentage of total Federal employees: 31%
\nTotal Injury and Illness Cases: 55,295 – [ 23,624 USPS ]
\nPercentage Total Injuries\/Illnesses Attributed to USPS: 43%<\/strong><\/p>\n

USPS % OF FEDERAL INJURY and ILLNESS<\/strong> CLAIMS
\n<\/strong>1998 – 48%
\n1999 – No Records Found: OSHA excluded USPS.
\n2000 – No Records Found: OSHA excluded USPS.
\n2001 – No Records Found: OSHA excluded USPS.
\n2002 – 52+%
\n2003 – 46+%
\n2004 – 42+%
\n2005 – 42+%
\n2006 – 43+%
\n2007 – 44%
\n2008 – 42+%
\n2009 Through Second Quarter – 43%<\/p>\n

FEDERAL CLAIMS FROM 1998 THROUGH 2008: 1,078,137
\nNUMBER ASSOCIATED WITH POSTAL EMPLOYEES: 490,334
\n%\u00a0OF TOTAL FEDERAL CLAIMS ASSOCIATED WITH USPS: 45%
\n[Does not include the years 1999-2000-2001 for which no records were found – could increase %]<\/p>\n

USPS represented approximately 31% of the total Federal Workforce during the years 1998-2008. Approximately 45% of the total injury\/illness claims filed were filed by postal employees.<\/p>\n

In summary – if you get hurt (at work or home) – make certain your injury has fully healed BEFORE returning to full duty.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2009
\nRick Owens
\nwww.PostalEmployeeNetwork.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: www.osha.gov<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds’ Many postal employees work for years with USPS and never have any harmful physical effects from their postal jobs. However, over the years there have been literally thousands and thousands that have experienced long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,16],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking","category-usps-news","tag-ouch-mail-hurts","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":431,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions\/431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}