When the government stops non-essential services, the essential services remain open. Due to lack of funding, a government shutdown happens. Every fiscal year, the president drafts a budget. The federal government should approve that budget of the U.S. Still, due to delays in the approval of the budget or the disagreement of the new budget, a government shutdown gets implemented. Postal Service comes under essential services, which remain open. Today’s topic- Are Postal Workers Paid During Shutdown?
The Budget Control Act of 1974 made the Government shutdown responsible. The act was introduced to limit the president’s powers that could refuse to use the funds as directed by the government. Most countries have the mechanism to prevent such shortcomings, which can lead to shutdowns, but their citizens have to pay the price for the political clash between the government and the president. Talking about Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Bangladesh, the government is forced to resign if the budget fails to pass.
The shutdown scenario mainly occurs only in U.S. Government. But in the shutdown, too, there are some agencies and services, which remained open at all costs. These services cannot be stopped as they could be disastrous, including healthcare, FBI, drug enforcement agencies, armed forces, border protections, air traffic control centers, police, fire department, and postal services. And for all these services, the workers are paid continuously as payments of all these services are allocated under a particular budget.
The employees get unpaid leaves, even though the services stops, as these services are not self-funded. More than 800,000 employees were affected by the shutdown of the year 2019, which was also one of the most prolonged shutdowns since the act’s inception, and that lasted for 35 days. But for the postal workers are exempted from the shutdown, and things don’t get change for them for various reasons and the workers have to work as usual in the fields and get paid for their services.
Reasons Why US Postal Services Are Essential Services
According to universal service obligation, regardless of where people live, either rural or urban, it guarantees that everyone can send and receive mail. As many rural communities still have no other options for communication. Moreover, rural communities see the postal services as an information-sharing hub. At the time, postal services have proved themselves as to why they are termed as necessary services. Postal services also play a crucial role in more than half of the emergency support functions in the national response framework, which have proved to share information to these areas about natural calamities like hurricanes, earthquakes, and many more. Due to this reason, they are designated as the first federal agency present after the disaster. Even after the calamities, their work doesn’t end; they distribute medicines and information.
For example, after hurricane Katrina, USPS was responsible for locating many lost children and guarantees their safety. After hurricane Maria, postal services workers identified many vulnerable workers who got stuck in the calamity.
Citizens of America are also dependent on postal services for their medications and couriers worldwide.
Why Postal Services Gets Paid During Shutdowns?
Postal services come in the category of essential services. The U.S. postal services (USPS) receive no tax money for their operation and expenses; therefore, shutdowns don’t affect their salaries. It gets its funding from various others sources. Some of the sources are:
- Stamp Sales
- Service fee
- Cost of Shipping Couriers
As, these services generate their cash flow, which helps in keeping postal services moving.
How Is The USPS Managed?
Postal services are not run by taxpayer money, as they don’t come under the government budget. Formation of the board of governors, consisting of 11-panel members, takes place, and a separate postal regulation commission consists of 5 members appointed by the president. But, during this pandemic, the mail volume is declined by 30 percent, and in the year 2020, an overall loss of more than 13 million dollars was projected.
Pandemic vs. US Postal Service
The pandemic has affected every service, but how has the pandemic affected this essential service? Which is already self-funded and not funded by the government. They may have survived most of the shutdowns, but this pandemic came out to be very difficult for USPS. As, the revenue generated was not enough, to cover up expenses and salaries of the employees. This is because the postal services are not allowed to increase the prices of their services. After all, everyone should enjoy essential benefits, whether rich or poor, rural or urban. To take USPS out of the black hole, the government provided a loan of around 10 billion dollars to USPS to overcome the difficult times, but in that case, the postal workers were also paid correctly and in time.
Conclusion
Yes, the postal workers are paid during shutdowns and pandemics too. They are essential services, and the taxpayer’s money does not fund it; they use all the cash generated from their revenues only. It is the government institution that owns the U.S Postal Service but is independent in the operations; for this reason, it is called the quasi-government agency. Though they are government employees, the shutdown never stopped them from doing their duty towards humanity.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is shutdown is a yearly procedure?
No, shutdown only happens in specific conditions when there is a disagreement with the new budget.
- Do, postal workers, are allowed to work on the fields during the shutdown?
All the operations of postal services remain open, and it is not affected by shutdown in any way.
- Does shutdown have a fixed duration?
No, the government shutdown doesn’t have a fixed duration; the recent shutdown of 2019 by the trump government was one of the most extended shutdowns, which lasted for 35 days.
- If the government does not fund postal services, do workers get the benefits after retirement?
The government does not fund the postal service, but government institutions own them. So, postal workers get all the benefits as actual government employees get. The postal service workers are paid pension payments.
