I worked for the USPS at their national training facility, and most of the people there were contractors. The "real" USPS employees, the ones being trained, we

I worked for the USPS at their national training facility, and most of the people there were contractors. The "real" USPS employees, the ones being trained, were employees. Apparently the reason was due to USPS employees getting really good benefits as they get to participate in the federal retirement program which includes a pension. They don't want to have to pony up for all the support staff, even though we worked at a facility, 8-5, 40 hours or more a week, with basically an infinite contract length. They paid for our healthcare plan as well - like an employee might get? :) There wasn't really anything to complain about, as the pay and benefits for even the contractors were really nice (we had "unlimited PTO" before it became a thing in the startup world), but the debate about employee vs contractor is interesting in this particular case.