The use and misuse of rehabs is becoming more commonplace in our work sites and there are two basic reasons for it. The Postal Service benefits by taking people off the rolls of OWCP. They save on compensation costs. The Postal Service must reimburse the Department of Labor for each dollar paid out in compensation to an injured postal employee. This liability is avoided by rehabbing the employee and returning the employee to duty.
The second reason is one that the Postal Service does not publicize too much. Using a rehab employee is a budget saver for local Postmasters. One way local Postmasters can make up for their own budget cuts is to agree to take a rehab or limited duty employee in their office. Work hours assigned to these individuals are not charged against their budget. It is this second reason that drives most of the horseplay we see out there.
Don't believe those Postmasters who praise themselves for helping that injured worker. They are really helping themselves get out of the staffing hole imposed on them by unrealistic budget cuts.
As a Union we have dual responsibilities. We want to help injured workers maintain a livelihood and we also have to protect the jurisdiction of our work and the integrity of our bid jobs. This very dilemma was recently the subject of an arbitration case in a small office in Connecticut.
An injured letter carrier was rehabbed into the clerk craft. She was brought in as a junior PTF so on that score we had no beef. The dispute occurred later when the Postmaster worked her outside of the specific duties that had been created for her.
When challenging the use of rehabs our best arguments can be found in the Postal Service's own handbook, the EL 505 (pages 224 - 226, sections 11.7 to 11.9). Under handbook 505 there is a very specific procedure spelled out when creating a rehab assignment. The process begins with a medical evaluation of the worker. Then duties are structured around those medical restrictions. Before the job is offered the specific duties must be reviewed by medical authorities. The handbook specifically prohibits vague terms such as "other assigned duties" on the job offer. Instead, the handbook requires each assigned function be spelled out and medically approved before it is offered to the injured worker. The injured worker and the treating physician must agree to the job offer as specified.
In this arbitration case the local Postmaster made unilateral decisions to assign the rehab employee to duties outside of the specific rehab job offer. The injured worker did not object but the Union did. The position of the Union was straight forward. You gave her specific duties and she should only do those duties.
The Postal Service's position was also straight forward. The employee was rehabbed into the office as a PTF clerk and we can assign her other duties as long as they do not violate her medical restrictions.
I presented the case at arbitration. It was pointed out to the arbitrator that the 505 handbook is the controlling document. We argued that Postmasters and supervisors are not medical authorities. Any change to a rehab job must go through the 505 process. Until such a medical review is conducted management is required to use the rehab employee only on the specific duties spelled out in the original job offer.
The arbitrator agreed and ordered the Postal Service to refrain from using the injured worker on any duties outside of the specific job offer. Clearly, this is not a permanent solution to the growing problem out there but at least we can put some restraints on the abuses taking place in the field. The key here is to use the EL505. (Arbitrator Sulzner, B98C-4B-C 99154643)
