WASHINGTON—More than 130,000 current and former U.S. Postal Service workers may be able to sue 
for damages, after the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled in March that management had deliberately tried to drive out people injured on the job. The EEOC found that the Postal Service’s National Reassessment Program, supposedly intended to eliminate non-productive jobs, was actually a scheme to force injured workers doing modified duty to either quit or go back to their regular jobs. The commission said the elimination of some jobs as “make work” led to “slowdowns and bottlenecks in delivery operations,” and that “extensive email trails” revealed management’s intent to create a hostile environment for disabled workers, with comments like “look for some miracle recoveries” and “see you bums at Walmart.” The American Postal Workers Union estimated that more than 130,000 workers who were on permanent-rehabilitation and limited-duty jobs between 2006 and 2011 were eligible to sue. The union’s challenge to the scheme discouraged other federal agencies from adopting similar policies, Jeremy Wright, a partner at one of the law firms that represented workers in the case, told Global Government Forum. Read more
