Postal Workers Accused of Intimidation

The president of the Chinese-American Postal Workers Assn. has accused two Pasadena post office employees of intimidating their subordinates into buying life insurance and causing a postal clerk to be fired for reporting the alleged activities to her union.

Patrick Wang, president of the Monterey Park-based association, said he has taken over former machine clerk Yvonne Gossette’s case since her dismissal in January. He said that night superintendent Steve Sritapan and acting supervisor Gilbert Yeh, both part-time agents for A. L. Williams Insurance Co., have used their authority to sell life insurance and are responsible for Gossette’s dismissal.

Sritapan and Yeh could not be reached despite repeated attempts.

Postal Service officials, however, said that charges against Sritapan filed by Gossette in June were found without merit and although Sritapan was selling insurance to employees, he was not doing it during regular business hours.

“This is his part-time job, there is nothing wrong with that,” said Frank Bignami, manager of mail processing who is Sritapan’s direct supervisor. “He didn’t force anybody into buying.”

But Gossette, who is Chinese-American, said that when Yeh and Sritapan asked her to buy the life insurance, she felt as if she had no choice. “When your boss is sitting there handing you the pen, what are you supposed to do?”

Wang agreed, saying: “Chinese people are scared easily. They come to this country to live a good life and have a nice job. They don’t want to do anything to lose that.”

Gossette filed a grievance with the American Postal Workers Union in June. A two-week investigation found nothing to substantiate her claims, said David Encina, who was at that time the vice president of the union.

During the time of the investigation, Gossette was training for the second part of her proficiency test to be a permanent employee. She did not pass the test, and was let go, postal officials said.