A lasting legacy of Pete's time at McKinsey was their consulting team's cost cutting moves, that were shortly followed by the creation of the low paying, non-career CCA position at USPS. A position reviled by basically anyone that has worked it, responsible for our huge turnover https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1289924996090023937

City Carrier Assistants, and their Rural Counterparts, are letter carriers in every sense of the word, and in every job duty work the exact same job as full-time career employees. They were created in 2013 as a low-cost compliment to their full time counterparts.

The postal service originally wanted them paid a hair over minimum wage (the negotiations are believed to have started at $10 with no benefits, a laughable sum considering it can be made at a job that is far less rigorous and demanding), but negotiations brought that to $15.

The benefits package was also miniscule, given the career benefits available to others. OT available, yes, but no guaranteed hours, no sick leave, no set schedule, no retirement, no guaranteed career start date, and only a small handful of pricy health plans

Some of these conditions have since modestly improved, and CCAs have since had an easier time converting to career status employees, but the early legacy was chaotic and gross.

70+ hour work weeks with no ability to decline OT. On-call duty 7 days a week. 30+ consecutive days without time. Managerial abuse throughout probationary periods. Minimal training. Turnover exceeding 50 percent inside 90 days.

If you noticed the quality of your mail service dip around that time in 2013, it was probably due to the substitute having been on the job for two weeks, replacing someone who lasted four. Easily identifiable by the fact they rarely wore USPS uniforms.

It wasn't uncommon for CCAs to just drive back to the office midshift and hand the keys to a supervisor and walk off. They would work 13hr shifts until 10pm, then be back in at 8am the next day. Then, on Sunday, come in to deliver Amazon packages

If you had the misfortune of being hired during the holidays, you should have kissed your family goodbye on day one, because it wasn't uncommon to be in every single day between Thanksgiving and MLK day. If you had a benevolent boss, maybe two days off in there.

And to add insult to injury? No guaranteed assignment. A new route every day was very possible. If your office was large enough, you could easily go a month without the same route twice, especially if you didn't win "opting rights" to a vacant route.

And Pete and his McKinsey team? When they pitched this idea to USPS, they wanted it to pay a little better than McDonald's. An absolute joke considering I've worked with veterans who told me this job was more stress on their body than basic training.

And the timeline for when you might get full time career protections? Entirely random. A big office with lots of route vacancies? Heck, could be a couple months. Small office in a district where they drag their feet? Five years. Maybe even more.

Conditions have since improved, broadly. There are now more flexible schedules. Pay is closer to $18/hr. You have a maximum amount of time until guaranteed conversion. But the legacy remains.

Pete and his friends helped wreck the career and noncareer system at USPS. Tens of thousands of burned out workers who never saw their families, for table scrap wages, for years. Who walked off the job after abuse and scant union protection.

It's the legacy of any corporatist stooge given the "in" to fix a sabotaged government agency. No request for a repeal of PAEA. No recommendation for expanded financial services. Just "hey, let's break the backs of some plebes and destroy the quality of service."

It's a solid lesson in just how untrustworthy democrats can be, too, when not held to account. This man of the "party of the working class" was glad to shatter one of the best middle class pathways in America. Don't let him continue his phony everyman facade.