Postal Workers

More than 5,000 Venezuelan postal workers have launched a strike paralyzing mail processing and delivery in Caracas and Maracaibo, the country's two biggest cities, labor leaders said Tuesday.

The Postal Service may be fading away, but I have a memory of it and one of its employees that will never be marked "Return to Sender. " This was an incident from the late 1960s, an era of economic anxiety, fear and xenophobia. My father, who immigrated to the United States from Israel in 1962, had a spirit that was buoyed by patriotic participation in baseball, voting and his excitement about mailing a letter to a friend with a new stamp. He got a little confused one day, however, when he brought home a batch of green trading stamps after a shopping spree for his favorite things — automotive parts.

A substantial number of District of Columbia postal workers are choosing not to complete a two-month prescription of antibiotics to prevent anthrax because of unpleasant side effects. Hundreds of those urged to take the drugs have complained about strong reactions to Cipro or doxycycline, the two antibiotics distributed to 2,100 workers from the Brentwood mail facility after letters leaked airborne anthrax spores at the plant in mid-October.

After three years of brutal recession and tepid recovery, the outlook for the U.S. economy this year may boil down to a tale of three workers and their families ? their hopes, fears and, most of all, their decisions on spending the money they earn. For now, they seem to be getting their spending mojo back. But they are moving forward with a new caution, a hard-earned sense that events could quickly turn for the worse and they'd better be prepared. In an economy that relies on consumer spending for 70% of the nation's gross domestic product, nothing really matters as much as what the 90% of U.S. workers with jobs decide to do with their money ?

Thank you for enlightening the public about the tension involved in being a postal employee. As a letter carrier for 12 years, I've seen an amazing array of incompetent and sadistic managers. Mail is curtailed and discipline is issued by a top-heavy and self-serving staff. The money is good and the feedback from the people on my route is wonderful or I'd have quit long ago. MARK J. DINIAKOS Thousand Oaks

Hundreds of postal workers, waving placards and chanting their defiance, marched to protest an experiment by the U.S. Postal Service to use Emery Worldwide Airlines to handle its Priority Mail. The rally drew almost 500 people from around the Northeast. The Postal Service awarded the company a $1.7-billion contract to handle two-day-delivery packages.

Re "They're Going Postal Over Billion-Dollar Profits" ("Beatts Me!" Jan. 11): As a postal worker, I can say I was a bit upset with the remarks Anne Beatts made. In her story she stated, "Today, thousands of postal workers are eligible for bonuses up to $12,000 apiece based on performance and customer satisfaction." Let me clear this up for you right quick. The only "workers" eligible for these bonuses are in management. From lower-level management all the way up to Postmaster General Marvin Runyon.

A group of South County postal workers said Friday that they are stretched beyond their capacity and cannot finish their routes, and they put part of the blame on an automated mail sorting machine at the San Juan Capistrano branch. Homes on some routes do not get their mail until after 5 p.m., and some mail carriers are putting in unwanted overtime every day, said Mike Rotcher, a 15-year postal employee. Postal authorities admit that there are some kinks yet to be worked out with the new system.

President Obama's proposal on Monday to freeze federal workers' pay was an unexpected announcement that represented the first in a series of White House moves to seize the initiative from Republicans on the economy. The preemptive move was timed to precede a White House meeting Tuesday with congressional leaders on the subject of expiring George W. Bush-era tax cuts, and came just days before a final report from Obama's fiscal commission on how to shrink the federal deficit. "The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require broad sacrifice," Obama said from the White House.

A federal judge on Monday approved a $750,000 settlement for a 13-year-old girl whose father was shot and killed by Inglewood police officers in 2008. The death of 38-year-old Kevin Wicks, a postal worker, sparked protests and criticism of the department at the time because the officer who fired the shots had been involved in a fatal shooting of an unarmed suspect two months earlier and had been allowed to return to duty. That officer, Brian Ragan, is no longer employed by the department, said Lt. Oscar Serrano, a police spokesman.

"Looking for Eric," the wonderfully wry new film from British director Ken Loach, is a melancholy comedy about wins and losses in soccer, life and love, and the power of a few pals, a few pints and the esoteric musings of a French footballing superstar to carry you through. Set in working-class Manchester where the accents are so thick you may long for subtitles, there are two Erics that circumstance has backed into the same contemplative corner — soccer sensation Eric Cantona playing a ruminating, newly retired version of himself, and Eric Bishop (Steve Evets)

The owner of a pit bull faces the possibility of three years in prison after her dog attacked a letter carrier, Orange County prosecutors said Monday. Sheri Moody's dog allegedly jumped into a neighbor's yard on Sept. 4 and knocked the mailman to the ground, causing a large cut to his face and an injury to his left eye, which might require reconstructive surgery. Moody, 54, was charged Monday with one felony count of allowing a vicious animal at large to cause serious bodily injury.

Pity the poor Costa Rican postman. Sure, he doesn't have to deal with sleet or snow. But consider what passes for an address here: From the Tibas cemetery, 200 meters south, 300 meters west, cross the train tracks, white two-story house. That's actually a pretty easy one. Making his rounds on the outskirts of this capital city one recent morning, carrier Roberto Montero Reyes pulled envelopes from his canvas sack whose addresses read like treasure-hunt clues or lines of haiku.

A popular 60-year-old mail carrier remained in intensive care Wednesday, two days after he was attacked by a pit bull on his route in Torrance, police said. The mail carrier, a Cerritos resident and 25-year employee of the U.S. Postal Service, was walking by a house in the 700 block of Amapola Avenue on Monday.

The annual mail-carrier food drive will be held Saturday. Letter carriers across the country will collect nonperishable food items such as canned goods left by customers along their routes. The food will be donated to local charities.