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.

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.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by johnfrommelbourne-ga on 12 Sep 2002 07:34 PDT

Nellie,
         Just one thing please, although I relaize you have already
completed and been paid for research. What does the term
craft/bargaining unit employee mean as opposed to non-bargaining unit
employee. Never heard the term before in Australia.

 John from Melbourne

---

Clarification of Answer by nellie_bly-ga on 12 Sep 2002 08:53 PDT

Hi John-

In United States labor unions there may be both craft locals or
bargaining units and general worker locals or bargaining units

A CRAFT LOCAL is vocation-based. It restricts me  membership to
workers of a specific craft, skill or occupation, such as teachers,
electricians, carpenters

A GENERAL LOCAL is open to all workers.

A BARGAINING UNIT or "shop" is the basic unit that makes up a union
local,
which is the group of workers in a plant, firm, industry or
occupation, determined by the government agency having jurisdiction,
as appropriate for representation by a union for purposes of
collective bargaining. These may vary in size from a few members to
several thousand. They ar based on geographic or geo-political
subdivision.
Legally they must have a membership ratified collective agreement

Elected officials include steward, chief steward, committee persons,
representatives, chairpersons

You'll find other union terms defined at:

http://www.xpdnc.com/moreinfo/glossary.html

I belive this answers your question. 
Please ask for clarification if there is any thing else I can help you
with.

Nellie Bly

---

Request for Answer Clarification by johnfrommelbourne-ga on 13 Sep 2002 00:44 PDT

Thanks Nellie, that explains it well enough and what is not there I
can find through site you attached. Our system is different and
probably simplistic compared to that in the USA. Unions are  only
broadly "craft" with even slightly related occupations in the same
union, (as of last few years only however), and by law must negotiate
for all whether union members or not. This worked alright when nearly
60% of all workers were in strong unions but has broken down a little
since union membership has declined drastically over last 15 years.
Although however just staring to climb a little again.

   Happy Researching,

 John From Melbourne

---

Clarification of Answer by nellie_bly-ga on 13 Sep 2002 07:29 PDT

For the record:
Clients "request for clarification" was actually a comment.

Thankyou Nellie, very well done indeed.  You have saved me some work,
andf time as well. I will now slowly go through a lot of what you have
forwarded especially in regards the links provided. At this point I
have not gone through the links in any detail so are allotting you 5
stars on the strength of what I have quickly gleaned so far, which
looks terrific as I said.
 

 Thanks again and great research work,

 John From Melbourne