Postal Chief Scolds Critics Who Link Job Stress, Killings

In his first public comments about last week’s shootings at an Escondido post office, Postmaster General Anthony M. Frank said Thursday that he “bitterly resents” critics of the Postal Service trying to “make political hay” out of the rampage in which a postal worker killed two associates and fatally wounded himself.

“Obviously, it’s a matter of great moment to me,” Frank said by telephone from Atlanta, where he was addressing a gathering of postal employees. “But when you shoot your closest friends and your sleeping wife, is it fair to blame work on that? Is that the fault of the Postal Service?”

Colleagues of John Merlin Taylor, the postal worker who shot his wife in the head and then drove to work where he killed two co-workers with a semiautomatic handgun before shooting himself, have portrayed the veteran employee as a work-weary victim who exploded under the stresses of the job.

Surprise Appearance

Last weekend, Frank made a surprise appearance at the Orange Glen substation where Taylor’s rampage occurred. He said he went to offer “sympathy and support” and to see “firsthand what the situation was like.”

Frank said he was “satisfied” with the work of San Diego County Postmaster Margaret Sellers, who this week instituted a series of “quality circles,” in which local workers will be allowed to confront superiors and air complaints.

“As near as I can tell, she’s awfully good,” Frank said. “Of course, I don’t work with her day after day . . . but in terms of attitude and performance, I would say San Diego is one our top divisions.”

Nevertheless, grievances among postal workers have been high in the county, with employees charging harassment on the part of supervisors and that the service has fallen behind in keeping up with the explosion in population in of one of the country’s fastest-growing regions.

Frank conceded that the growth of San Diego County was having a “huge impact” on mail delivery and on the collective spirit of postal workers.

‘It’s Very Difficult’

“It’s very difficult,” he said, “especially when the population of the United States is going up 0.9% per year, but San Diego is growing at a 10% per year rate. I admit, it’s very hard to keep up with.”

Despite the growth, Frank said he foresees no new post offices, nor does he expect any measures that might alleviate the crunch anytime soon.

When told that Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) had complained earlier this week of a contract station serving 20,000 people in Otay Mesa and of crowded conditions at a post office in Encanto, Frank said angrily, “Why don’t Mr. Bates and his colleagues in Congress give us more money? Why don’t they put their money where their mouths are?”

Frank said that, a year and a half ago, “Congress cut back our real estate budget (meaning the construction of new post offices) by 75%. The cutback was reduced to 50% for this fiscal year, but with 75% cuts one year and 50% the next, it’s pretty damn hard to do anything. I spend one dollar over (budget), and I go to jail. We can sit here and talk about Otay Mesa all we want, but the truth is, we don’t have the money.”

John Worthy, vice president of the La Mesa branch of the National Assn. of Letter Carriers, said Frank is “earnestly trying to do a good job.” But Worthy contended that Frank’s efforts are hurt by “gross mismanagement” on the local and regional level. He used as an example problems at the El Cajon post office, where Sellers conducted her first quality circle session on Monday.

Worthy said the post office in El Cajon had been “really blowing up” over the suicide three months ago of retired letter carrier William Camp, whom co-workers feel was treated unfairly by management.

However, Worthy said he agreed with Frank in that “too many people are jumping on the bandwagon in trying to make hay out of the Taylor situation.”

Labor Disputes

The area’s growth, automation and threats of outside competition have all complicated the plight of the postal worker, but it is the acrimony with management that has made the situation almost intolerable, Worthy said.

Asked if he considers San Diego County a trouble spot or one of the more contentious territories in labor-management relations, Frank said, “Definitely not. It doesn’t seem to me as though there was widespread talk of stress prior to this tragedy.

“I admit that four suicides and two murders (affecting county postal workers in the past couple of years) is not a pretty situation, but I recoil at anyone hoping to make political hay out of someone else’s suffering. I don’t want to sweep this under the rug, but when someone commits a crime of (Taylor’s) magnitude, I can’t believe that it was solely because of his job.”

Frank said he hopes that, by 1995, the mail will be sequenced by route the moment letter carriers arrive for work. He said that “much of our stress these days” has to do “with carriers spending half their day sorting mail and then having to deliver it.”

He said the interplay between unions and supervisors in San Diego County “has not been good” and that part of the problem was “personality conflicts” between management and union bosses.

“We can’t let those filter down and damage the rank and file,” he said.

Asked why suicides and shootings had occurred not just here but around the country, he said, “I wish I knew. . . . One of the reasons I went to Escondido is that I’m searching for an answer. Part of it is that we have 800,000 people working for us. That’s two-thirds of 1% of all the people who work in the United States. I’d have to say we’re a genuine microcosm of what’s happening in American society. We can see in the paper what’s happening in the country in regard to murders and suicides.

“I don’t want to minimize this, but we are an extension of the world at large. And the world at large is troubled.”

Postal Service Deaths

Frank said an average of 25 postal workers a year are killed--in traffic accidents, suicides, holdups or shootings.

“I don’t know if 25 out of 800,000 is a significant number,” he said, “but I do know we have only 7% turnover a year. As a former banker, I can tell you that a bank would be happy with 40% turnover a year. Postal careers offer a gateway to the middle class for thousands of Americans, and most of these people are happy and productive. Postal work is nothing to be ashamed of.”

Frank, the nation’s 69th postmaster general, is former chairman and chief executive officer of First Nationwide Financial Corp., which he built from a small San Francisco company to the nation’s sixth-largest savings bank. In a troubled industry, his corporation made money each of his 17 years as chairman, growing from assets of $400 million to $19 billion.

But Frank is the first to concede that being “the best-known figure in the savings-and-loan industry,” as a prominent economist once called him, does not translate into automatic success as postmaster general.

Before taking his position last year, Frank had no experience with unions; with the Postal Service, he negotiates with four. In his former job, he oversaw 5,000, or 160 times, fewer employees than he deals with in the postal system. His S&L; had 381 branches; there are 40,000 post offices. His S&L; had $19 billion in assets; the postal service spends $38 billion every year.

Frank was born in Germany in 1931, the son of economists who fled the Nazi regime in 1937. He grew up in Hollywood and later was graduated from Dartmouth College. As a Democrat, he raised money for Sen. Alan Cranston (D-California) and went to the 1968 Democratic Convention as a delegate. But it was a friendship with Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kans.) that led to his appointment by President Reagan.

Frank said some of his managers have a “kick-tail-and-take-names philosophy” but added that discipline is sometimes necessary. He said that, nationwide, postal grievances have been cut in half during his tenure, but he pointed a finger at unions in saying that acrimony is not always the fault of management.

“It takes two to tango and two to tangle,” he said. “Relationships with unions are not as good as they should be, but, if measured by grievances, I’d say my record is pretty good.”

Frank said 1990 promises to be “a very difficult year” for the postal industry, with automation the key reason.

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that we’re redesigning and rebuilding the airplane while we fly it,” he said. “I know that some postal workers feel stressed by all that’s happening around them, but it’s called change. And none of us are in control of change.”