GAO tells Postal officials to study pay disparities

The Postal Service needs to evaluate pay differences between postmasters and supervisors and the clerks and carriers they manage, according to a new General Accounting Office report. Under the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act, the agency is required to pay employees market-rate salaries, while providing "adequate and reasonable" pay differences between postal clerks and carriers and supervisors and postmasters. Under the Postal Service's job hierarchy, postmasters are in charge of post offices while front-line supervisors manage clerks and carriers. In 1996, Postal Service officials put in place the Supervisory Differential Adjustment, a measure that is supposed to ensure that postmasters and supervisors earn more than the employees they manage. In its report, "U.S. Postal Service: Few Craft Employees Earned More Than Their Postmasters, But Adequacy and Reasonableness of Pay Differences Remain Unclear" (GAO-01-1025), GAO researched the 1970 legislation and used payroll records to determine if pay disparities existed at the Postal Service. Rep. John McHugh, R-NY, requested the GAO report. GAO's research determined that of the 48,272 clerks it studied, two had a base pay level that exceeded the base pay rate of the local postmaster. But, with overtime pay added in, 727 of 191,694 clerks earned more money than their supervisors. "Employees have the right to earn overtime, which managers don't," explained Charlie Moser, president of the National Association of Postmasters of the United States (NAPUS), one of the organizations GAO contacted for its report. Under the 1970 act, unions representing supervisors and postmasters have the right to sit at the table with the Postal Service when it develops pay policies, but only organizations that represent supervisors have the right to meet monthly with Postal officials and demand a fact-finding panel to review agency decisions they don't like. Unions that represent postmasters aren't afforded the same protection. Two bills introduced in the 107th Congress, H.R. 250 and S. 177, would give unions representing postmasters the right to take agency decisions they don't like to binding arbitration. GAO was unable to say definitively if pay disparities exist at the Postal Service because the 1970 Postal Act was not clear about what an "adequate and reasonable" pay differential was. There is also contention between the Postmaster General and representatives for NAPUS and the National League of Postmasters of the United States about whether pay disparities exist between postmasters and the clerks and carriers they supervise. To settle the issue, GAO recommended that the Postmaster General use payroll information to determine if pay disparities exist and if so, why they exist. Postal officials should also more closely define what constitutes "adequate and reasonable" pay differences, GAO suggested. NAPUS agreed with GAO's conclusion. "If they study this then they will find that out that pay disparities do exist," Moser said. "We're very pleased that the GAO study came to this conclusion… because it's fair." A spokesman for McHugh said the lawmaker plans to offer postal reform legislation later in the 107th Congress that may address pay disparity issues at the agency.