USPS REASSESSMENT PROCESS KICKS INTO HIGH GEAR

The USPS issued notice to employee national union offices and management associations on April 10, 2007 that it is gearing up its National Reassessment Process.

The Reassessment Process is "a program focused on reviewing all rehabilitation and limited duty assignments" for those USPS workers who have been injured on the job. If the USPS itself determines that it cannot find work for these injured employees, then the employees will be referred out for "possible placement" in vocational rehabilitation.

Interestingly the Reassessment Process is described by the USPS as involving three phases:

Phase one is the "search process".

Phase two is the "job offer process"

Phase three is the "no work available process".

The April 2007 notice announced that the USPS is now entering Phase two. The current Phase is predicted to involve tens of thousands of USPS employees across the country. Allegedly in this Phase the USPS will be determining by selective interview whether injured and impaired employees could be placed or outsourced to other jobs, most likely in the private sector. There is no real indication or explanation from the USPS what exact factors will be used to determine which employees are to be outsourced and which are not. Nor is there any clear indication of just how those injured employees are to be placed by the USPS into private sector jobs that then can accommodate their injuries and disabilities and at a cost to whom. However the very fact that Phase three of the reassessment process has already been introduced as the "no work available process" greatly indicates that there will likely be very little actual placement of injured USPS employees into other jobs, and more likely than not, the injured and disabled employees will be simply removed as no work is available on the federal roll.