Postal service workers share concerns over payroll glitch

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – A glitch in the payroll system for the U.S. Postal Service has up to 45,000 employees wondering what they’ll be taking home at the end of the week.

USPS workers started reaching out to KBTX Tuesday saying some paystubs were showing $0.00 for almost 200 hours worked. With employees working through a record-breaking hot summer, up to 14 hours a day six days a week, they tell KBTX frustrated is an understatement.

Two USPS workers spoke to KBTX anonymously due to fear of retaliation.

“We’re living check to check like everybody else. We are normal people, we are just out there working trying to get the mail delivered. We are very overworked and underpaid,” one rural worker said. “We still have to pay mortgages. We have to pay rent and car notes. Our bills don’t stop, late fees don’t stop because the post office doesn’t know when they’re going to pay us.”

Another worker said with rent payments and bills due early next month, many people don’t know what they’re going to do.

“I’ve been lost for words,” they said. “It’s just horrible because having to pay the bills, knowing the bills are coming up, you could be forced to move out or lose anything, you lose your car, most of us have kids. We don’t know what to do.”

USPS representatives sent a statement after KBTX reached out about the payroll concerns.

“The Postal Service identified a programming issue within its payroll system that impacted some rural carriers’ paychecks to be issued on Sept. 1, 2023. We have taken immediate steps to ensure employees will be paid through a salary advance in the form of a money order. The programming issue has been identified and remediated.”

When asked for specifics about those advance payments, KBTX did not receive a response.

According to the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, those will not be complete paychecks.

In a statement to Union workers, they said “All impacted carriers will receive 65% of their gross pay, that number calculates closely to the average net take home. Rural carriers will not be required to pay it back until the Postal Service has repaid them the correct amount. Please remember, while we understand carriers have done 100% of the work, the ‘take-home pay’ is not 100% of the gross pay.”

This pay also does not include mileage reimbursements, something vital for many rural carriers to get the job done each day.

“That’s still a problem. We did 100% work, so we need 100% of our checks,” one of the carriers said. “We rely on our own money to take care of our responsibilities, to get the mail and packages out. We work 10 to 12 hour, shifts, we work six days a week. We only have one day off. And to not receive a check for working that hard. It’s hot outside. A lot of us are really in limbo. Don’t know what we’re going to do, we don’t know how we’re going to make it.”

Carriers asked residents to be patient with them as this issue may have exacerbated short-staffing concerns.