The Broken Promises of ‘Zero Tolerance’

By Ken Hamrick

On a Thursday morning in November, a letter carrier who had lost an arbitration for removal walked into the back of the Michigan post office where he previously worked, carrying a sawed-off rifle under a raincoat. He went directly to his manager’s office and began shooting people. The “loud sounds like popcorn popping”* were first heard throughout the building, followed by screams as he methodically went from room to room, seeking those on his list. Many ran for the exits, with some jumping out of windows or trying to hide. Charlie Withers, Chief Steward for the letter carriers, described the scene in his book, Tainted Eagle: The Truth Behind the Tragedy:

… General foreman Christopher Carlisle was the first to have been shot and killed in his office as he sat at his desk. Rose Proos was shot next along with Sue Johnson; both were working in areas outside of Carlisle’s office. It was Sue Johnson who had called 911 and had been the first to identify Tom McIlvain as being the shooter. Tom then scurried through Carrier Unit II (where he had worked), and towards Personnel. Outside the Personnel area he fired from the hip and shot Clark French who was exiting through a small space along with a manager…

Tom then went inside the Personnel section, fired a few shots outside Howard Burnes’ office and then attempted to enter Leonard Brown’s office, but quickly left after reloading another clip into his rifle. He then broke into the office next to Brown’s, Keith Ciszewski’s office. Keith had just lowered a female employee out of his window and was attempting to exit through the same window when Tom came in. The window was very narrow and wouldn’t open all the way; Keith was caught in the window when Tom shot him. Keith fell from the window back into his office and knocked over his desk. Tom then exited Finance when he came upon a female manager who was trying to hide. Tom told her she wasn’t the one he wanted and kept moving on up the stairs into the Workman’s Comp office. Upon entering, he shot and killed Mary Benincasa and wounded Joel Whyte and Allen Adams. […] Tom left down the steps and at the bottom landing critically shot himself, it was here that the Royal Oak police found him with a fatal wound to the head.*

He had killed four people and wounded eight, expending about a hundred rounds. Then… he shot himself. Someone then pulled the fire alarm, “which blared loudly.”* Blood and mail were strewn on the floor… as were the scattered bodies of postal workers. People poured out of the building into the parking lot, carrying the injured. Many wept and embraced their friends. People were stunned and shaking—and they were angry! According to Withers, they hated the postmaster and his management staff who had “created the ‘hell’ within the Royal Oak post office [that] ultimately led to this tragedy.”*

The Precipitating Conditions

The reaction of the Postal Service was to characterize this as the insane act of an unstable individual who should never have been hired. But this spinning of the narrative was quickly refuted. For one thing, this was the twelfth in a series of such postal shootings, and the excuse of putting all the blame on the shooter had worn thin. How many times does this need to happen before the focus turns to identifying contributing factors and making real changes to prevent this from happening again? Additionally, the management abuses of workers in this facility had already been brought to the attention of senators and congressmen, but without relief. According to a Congressional report, “A 631 page file containing 247 separate documents regarding those complaints [about Royal Oak] had been turned over [to the Postal Service] by staff of Senator Carl Levin and Representatives Sander Levin, Dennis Hertel and David Bonier” just one month before the tragedy.ǂ Now, there would be a Congressional investigation of Royal Oak and a Joint Hearing of Congress about the problem of violence in the Postal Service. This time, it seemed as if accountability would not be swept under the rug.

However, Congress was already aware of problems in the Postal Service. Between 1986 and 1991, “the personnel management and labor relations activities of the Postal Service [had] been repeatedly reviewed by the Committee. These oversight activities repeatedly revealed an autocratic management style within the Postal Service, a style both admitted to and regretted by Anthony M. Frank, former Postmaster General [until 1992]…”ǂ What was uncovered at Royal Oak (and in the Postal Service in general) has mostly been forgotten! Just ask the next Postal employees you meet if they have heard of Royal Oak or the Joint Statement. I had not until I was researching grievances in 2014. We do not like thinking about such terrible things, but we cannot afford to let this be forgotten.

Here are just some of the abuses uncovered by the investigations:

The postmaster and his team of managers were transferred from Indianapolis to Royal Oak, MI, after having been so abusive that the GAO investigated their abuses in Indiana… Senator Levin “described the findings of [the GAO] as follows: ‘….[The] Postal Service’s management style caused tension between it and its employees and their union. This tension was blamed for heart attacks suffered by three employees and numerous physical confrontations by supervisors. Many of these supervisors have been brought to Royal Oak… The GAO report also found that in a two year period the Indianapolis division issued 2,700 disciplinary actions against a workforce of 4000.” These same abusive patterns were transferred to Royal Oak with the managers who caused them (who were themselves promoted to higher positions in the transfer).ǂ

Management flooded the system with spurious discipline that they knew they could not win. According to Withers, they brought this theory with them from Indianapolis: “He (Carlisle) could put you out on any charges he wanted to put against you. It wouldn’t matter if you had even done anything wrong, he could manufacture any incident he wanted in order to put you out on a suspension. He could keep you out as long as he wanted by denying any grievances that were filed… He knew the grievance procedure would be a long drawn out process, and because of this as time went by you had no income… you could lose your car, home, and in fact you could lose your family. He may have to bring you back to work but ultimately he had destroyed you, and by doing that… he won. He let it be known that this was his philosophy, and he would use it time and again…”*

“Sometimes the [Royal Oak] supervisors would get extra keys…, go out [on the street] and unlock the vehicles and then sit and wait for the carriers to return from delivering the street. They would confront the carriers on their vehicles not being locked… Management would then issue discipline… for failure to secure the mail. This was done repeatedly…”*

“One female carrier, who was 6 weeks pregnant, was given a letter of warning for falling down on the cement which resulted in her losing the baby.”*

“The management style at Royal Oak is best exemplified by Chris Carlisle. Numerous interviews indicated that he was an ‘in your face’ type of supervisor… It is reported that [he] would stand behind an employee and berate him or her hoping to provoke a response from the employee. If the employee then accosted Carlisle, he would discipline the employee. This management tactic is reprehensible and should be grounds for immediate dismissal of the supervisor and any superior supporting such tactics.”ǂ

“Discipline at Royal Oak was used to harass, coerce and intimidate employees. On the job injuries became a cause for automatic disciplinary action. Employees believed that discipline was being used to intimidate, not to correct…”ǂ

McIlvaine’s grievance for his Notice of Removal took over a year to make it to Arbitration and be finally denied—during which time McIlvaine was kept in a non-paid status, but was unable to apply for unemployment benefits due to not yet being terminated. Even Congress recognized this as an “unconscionably long” period of time and an additional form of abuse.ǂ

The Joint Statement

But this was 1991, and despite the determination of all to make the necessary changes to keep such awful tragedies from recurring, the most important lessons quickly faded from memory. “The Joint Statement on Violence and Behavior in the Workplace,” (JSOV) which was signed and committed to by the Postal Service and all the unions but one, in 1992, was a good place to start. To adequately understand the JSOV, we must understand why it was written.

The Joint Statement was a joint response to what happened at Royal Oak. One such incident is too many, but twelve? A burning desire to prevent such mass shootings was shared by all. This must stop!! With a determination to make real changes to the postal workplace—the kind of changes that would reduce the likelihood of such killings—a new set of standards for behavior was hammered out and agreed to in the form of this public statement—which an arbitrator has since ruled is a permanent part of the contract. Every standard set in the JSOV was prompted by real-life abuses, failures and actions that happened at Royal Oak and precipitated the tragedy. Let’s analyze it by paragraph:

JOINT STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE AND BEHAVIOR IN THE WORKPLACE

We all grieve for the Royal Oak victims, and we sympathize with their families, as we have grieved and sympathized all too often before in similar horrifying circumstances. But grief and sympathy are not enough. Neither are ritualistic expressions of grave concern or the initiation of investigations, studies, or research projects…

Right from the first sentence, it makes clear that what follows is a response to the Royal Oak tragedy. It then acknowledges that this sympathizing and grieving happens “all too often”— postal workplace shootings happen all too often. Then it lists the common responses that “are not enough” to keep this from happening again. Every sentence that follows must be understood in light of this opening paragraph, which sets the primary purpose for the whole Statement: to prevent postal mass shootings like Royal Oak. The usual responses having been insufficient, the next paragraph states the reason for the unprecedented measures that it will set out below.

The United States Postal Service as an institution and all of us who serve that institution must firmly and unequivocally commit to do everything within our power to prevent further incidents of work-related violence…

We see in this paragraph that if we really want to prevent such tragedies, everyone in the USPS “must firmly and unequivocally commit to do everything within our power to prevent” them. Since preventing management abuses is the only possible way to prevent another Royal Oak, then ask yourself, is the Postal Service doing everything within its power to prevent management abuses?—Or are they firmly dedicated to ignoring such abuse and defending the abusers?

But notice the subtle expansion in focus from workplace shootings to “work-related violence.” It was not practical to expect the Postal Service to commit to the JSOV if it only addressed management abuses. Thus, we see in this language a secondary purpose emerging: to also prevent lesser acts of violence—bullying, threats, and non-lethal assaults. Considering that workplace shootings cannot be prevented without preventing management from bullying and abusing workers (which itself is a form of workplace violence), then it becomes clear that these are part of the same parcel. If by “work related violence,” all that was meant was abuses by management, then that would fall under the primary purpose, since management abuses precipitate workplace shootings—either both are prevented or neither will be. But since this language brings into its scope all lesser acts of worker-on-worker violence, then that includes a secondary purpose—and this will become important when we discuss the Zero Tolerance policy, further below.

This is a time for a candid appraisal of our flaws and not a time for scapegoating, fingerpointing, or procrastination. It is a time for reaffirming the basic right of all employees to a safe and humane working environment. It is also the time to take action to show that we mean what we say…

If the JSOV had only focused on workplace shootings and the management abuses that precipitated them, that would have been a “fingerpointing” that the Postal Service wanted to avoid. Therefore, it was written to encompass every aspect of behavior that might detract from a safe and humane workplace—but in addition to language specifically addressing management abuses. It is “time to take action…” to show that they meant what they said. Judging from the history that has followed, there is, sadly, nothing to show that they meant what they said—and much to show that they did not.

We openly acknowledge that in some places or units there is an unacceptable level of stress in the workplace; that there is no excuse for and will be no tolerance of violence or any threats of violence by anyone at any level of the Postal Service; and that there is no excuse for and will be no tolerance of harassment, intimidation, threats, or bullying by anyone…

“We openly acknowledge that in some places or units there is an unacceptable level of stress in the workplace…” This directly addresses management abuses. Continuing: “that there is no excuse for and will be no tolerance of violence or any threats of violence by anyone at any level of the Postal Service; and that there is no excuse for and will be no tolerance of harassment, intimidation, threats, or bullying by anyone.” At Royal Oak, management routinely harassed, intimidated, threatened, and bullied its employees, and this went hand-in-hand with the unacceptable level of stress. But along with this were the occasional threats that were eventually thrown back at them by their favorite target, McIlvaine. So, the language in this sentence addresses all employees in general.

We also affirm that every employee at every level of the Postal Service should be treated at all times with dignity, respect, and fairness. The need for the USPS to serve the public efficiently and productively, and the need for all employees to be committed to giving a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, does not justify actions that are abusive or intolerant. “Making the numbers” is not an excuse for the abuse of anyone. Those who do not treat others with dignity and respect will not be rewarded or promoted. Those whose unacceptable behavior continues will be removed from their positions…

“Making the numbers” is exactly what the most abusive managers at Royal Oak were praised for, leading up to the tragedy. “Dignity, respect, and fairness” were nowhere to be found in their treatment of employees. Many of that management “team” seemed to have been promoted precisely because they were “abusive and intolerant.” Now, there is the promise to remove such abusers from their positions, rather than promoting them. And there is the promise that abusive or intolerant actions are no longer acceptable, regardless of productivity goals. But again, the general language serves to warn both workers and management. Still, it is undeniable that this paragraph and the preceding are directed toward management abuses.

We obviously cannot ensure that however seriously intentioned our words may be, they will not be treated with winks and nods, or skepticism, by some of our over 700,000 employees. But let there be no mistake that we mean what we say and we will enforce our commitment to a workplace where dignity, respect, and fairness are basic human rights, and where those who do not respect those rights are not tolerated.

Our intention is to make the workroom floor a safer, more harmonious, as well as a more productive workplace. We pledge our efforts to these objectives.

[Signed & Dated: February 14, 1992]

Had they truly meant what they said and enforced this commitment in the thirty-two years since it was signed, the shooting at Royal Oak might have been one of the last. But the promises have not been kept. This same sad story keeps repeating. Thirteen such tragedies have occurred at postal facilities since the JSOV was signed—including the shooting at our own Dublin, Ohio, post office in 2017, with two more in 2021 and 2022, and the most recent happening last month, in St. Paul, for a total of twenty-five! That’s about one every two-and-a-half years! The fact that so many have occurred shows that the promise to create a postal “workplace where those who do not respect [the basic human rights of dignity, fairness and respect] are not tolerated” faded before the ink was dried. Today’s supervisors and managers do not even remember such words. “Winks and nods” might well describe how the primary purpose of this Joint Statement is completely disregarded every time that management does nothing when informed of abuses by managers and supervisors—which continues today.

The most important lesson reflected in the Joint Statement was the pivotal concession by the Postal Service that even those employees who have the potential for committing such atrocities are less likely to do so if they are treated with dignity, fairness and respect—and the implied admission that the unstable perpetrator had indeed been abused by management. The moral evil and mental instability of the shooter was not the only cause, as abusive Postal management bore much of the responsibility—and the abuses by some in management at Royal Oak were extreme enough to put their own mental stability in doubt! No longer would management in such tragedies be assumed to have acted with soundness of mind.

Thus, the JSOV’s repeated commitment to treat everyone with dignity, fairness and respect. It was no longer acceptable to point fingers solely at the shooter. Without this concession, signing the JSOV in response to the Royal Oak tragedy would have made no sense at all. As this was the most important lesson learned, and the most important commitment made, it was also, sadly, the first commitment to be abandoned.

The Zero Tolerance Policy

The Postal Service discarded this vital lesson by coming up with their “Zero Tolerance” policy. It was taken from the JSOV, where it states: “…that there is no excuse for and will be no tolerance of violence or any threats of violence by anyone at any level of the Postal Service; and that there is no excuse for and will be no tolerance of harassment, intimidation, threats, or bullying by anyone.” That is their Zero Tolerance policy in a nutshell. As was suspected by the APWU, which was the only union to refuse to sign the JSOV, the USPS began using this “Zero Tolerance” policy to discipline employees but refused to use it against supervisors and managers. Why did they not just use the entire JSOV as their new policy?—That is what they promised by signing it! The fact that they did not, but instead, felt the need to extract some of the language that addressed employees in general while leaving out the language that spoke specifically to management’s behavior, made their motives clear: The purpose of the Zero Tolerance policy was to give the impression that this was the implementation of the Joint Statement, while discarding the parts they did not like. The APWU was right.

Zero Tolerance makes it clear that management will discipline any employee who threatens, harasses, or commits violence; but the commitment to treat everyone with fairness, dignity, and respect—and the commitment to remove those who do not respect such rights—are absent. And you will never find in any posting of the Zero Tolerance policy the following sentences: “The need for the USPS to serve the public efficiently and productively, and the need for all employees to be committed to giving a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, does not justify actions that are abusive or intolerant. ‘Making the numbers’ is not an excuse for the abuse of anyone.”

The JSOV has a dual focus, primarily on management and secondarily on employees in general. Zero Tolerance narrows the focus to only employees in general—and in the process, leaves behind the primary commitment to no longer tolerate abusive managers and supervisors. As it stands, the Zero Tolerance policy is utterly incapable of preventing any workplace shooting, because of the simple fact that murderers are not afraid of being fired. Therefore, not only did the USPS fail to adopt the full focus of the JSOV, but it also abandoned the primary purpose to prevent workplace shootings! As a means of preventing another Royal Oak, the Zero Tolerance policy only makes sense if Tom McIlvaine had punched his victims in the nose rather than shooting them to death! Instead, it misses the point of the JSOV entirely.

How to Restore the Promised Focus

The Joint Statement’s method for preventing such tragedies was by a zero tolerance for abusive managers—not by a zero tolerance for less serious incidents by workers. The latter helps to make a more harmonious workplace, but it does nothing to prevent another Royal Oak. And while it is true that a worker bent on killing cannot be dissuaded by threats of discipline, abusive supervisors can indeed be dissuaded if the Postal Service would just discipline them the way that they so clearly promised to do in the Joint Statement. While there is no way to screen potential employees so that no more Tom McIlvaines are hired, it is not so difficult to screen supervisors and submit them to probationary periods so that no more abusive supervisors are kept on the job.

The results of abandoning the primary focus have been a dozen more such tragedies—and the days of the abusive supervisor are far from over; so, who knows when the next tragedy will occur—or if it will occur here? Limiting Zero Tolerance to less serious worker infractions has done nothing to prevent workplace shootings. If the Postal Service has any real interest in preventing such tragedies, it must apply zero tolerance to managers and supervisors who still think that threats, intimidation, and bullying are acceptable methods for motivating people. That kind of zero tolerance was the enlightened promise of the Joint Statement of 1992… and it remains a broken promise to this day.

The neglect of the Postal Service to address management abuses, after promising to do so in the JSOV, leaves them morally responsible for the increasing number of incidents and correlating deaths. The Zero Tolerance policy promises a safe workplace; but instead, it has fostered a continuation of workplace shootings by ignoring management abuses. A reduction in worker-on-worker violence, touted by such a policy, does absolutely nothing to prevent workplace shootings. Is there no one in Postal Management with the wisdom to see this??

As established above, there are two objectives that the JSOV intended to accomplish: 1) the primary concern to prevent workplace shootings; and 2) the secondary concern to prevent acts that are not in keeping with a harmonious workplace. While both objectives are concerned with preventing work-related violence, there is a stark difference in the level of importance for each. Whatever other labels might be used, there are two tiers of postal workplace violence reflected in the JSOV:

Tier 1 are workplace shootings and any acts that might precipitate such tragedies, the prevention of which is the primary purpose of the JSOV. However, workplace shootings cannot be prevented by mere warnings that perpetrators will be fired. We can only hope to prevent such tragedies by preventing managers and supervisors from abusing workers;

Tier 2 are lesser (non-lethal) acts of workplace violence committed by workers, the prevention of which is the secondary purpose of the JSOV.

The worst failure of the Postal Service’s Zero Tolerance policy is that it does not treat management abuses as rising to the level of Tier 1 importance as it should. Management abuses ought to immediately incur the kind of disciplinary attention appropriate for actions that could directly cause a workplace shooting. Therefore, all management abuses ought to be treated as urgent, Tier 1 violence precipitators, and incur immediate and severe penalties. It’s like the difference between smoking in an office and smoking next to a large propane tank: the latter is a far worse offense even though both are non-smoking areas. When a supervisor abuses a worker, it is a far worse thing than when a worker abuses another worker. The former has resulted in many postal shootings, but the latter has not. It is just common sense, given the power that supervisors and managers wield over workers. Abuses that are magnified by that power create an imminent danger to the workplace and should be treated with the utmost urgency and seriousness. To not do so shows an immense short-sightedness at best, and at worst, it shows a depraved apathy toward whatever shootings might happen in the future.

The insanity of a workplace shooting does not come from out of nowhere. There are seeds of insanity in every abusive act of management; and if the spread is unchecked, they may grow to full fruition in some unstable worker. In such tragedies, it cannot rightly be said that the shooter was the only one who was imbalanced and not thinking clearly. It’s time to insist that the Postal Service keep its promises and stop the insanity now!

Sources:

* The Tainted Eagle: The Truth Behind the Tragedy, Charlie Withers, Xlibris, 2009

ǂ A Post Office Tragedy
The Shooting at Royal Oak: Report of the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, House of Representatives, Investigation Into the Events of the Shooting on Thursday, November 14, 1991 at the U.S. Post Office at Royal Oak, MI.

Violence in the U. S. Postal Service
Joint Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Postal Operations and Services and the Subcommittee on Postal Personnel and Modernization of the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service
House of Representatives, September 15, 1992