Rural postal carriers are a different breed of workers than their urban counterparts

Gus Baffa

Gus Baffa served as president of the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association from 2001-03, and before that delivered mail in rural Florida for 10 years. Like many current and former mail carriers, Baffa is against the idea of eliminating Saturday mail, Todd Frankel reports for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Baffa, who is in St. Louis this week with 4,000 other attendees for the association's annual convention, told Frankel, “It’s the U.S. Postal Service. And a service company that cuts service doesn’t last."

Earlier this month a bipartisan Senate bill was introduced that would ultimately end Saturday mail. A similar bill is pending in the House. The move, along with more use of cluster mailboxes instead of direct home delivery, could save $5 or $6 billion, but will also mean cutting 40,000 to 60,000 jobs.

"There are more than 100,000 rural letter carriers and more than 73,000 rural routes," Frankel writes. "Rural routes are handed out based on seniority. And carriers hold onto them for as long as they can. The postal service’s rural route system has been fixed for decades. Even when rural farmland becomes office parks and suburban subdivisions, rural carriers still deliver the mail."

Rural carriers are different than their urban counterparts. "Rural carriers have their own union," Frankel writes. "They are postal workers, but they don’t wear uniforms. About half of them drive their personal vehicles on the job. They call themselves 'post offices on wheels' because rural carriers sell stamps and money orders on the road." They are also also paid by "the precise amount of mail they deliver — every package and letter — is tallied. A formula determines pay. A rural carrier can make in the mid-$30,000s. Pay tops out at about $65,000." (Read more)