City letter carriers have a new contract that runs retroactively from May of 2023, through November of 2026.
This is following contentious negotiations to reach a tentative agreement, and a down vote on that agreement from members in February. The arbitration award was announced March 24.
The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) is nearly 300,000 strong, and responsible for city mail delivery.
NALC President Brian Renfroe highlighted the compensation of the contract award.
It includes stepped retroactive pay increases, fewer tiers to achieve full career pay status and six cost of living adjustments.
A central concern during contract negotiations was the non-career, city carrier assistants (CCA) who have a different pay scale. They’ll receive pay increases as well.
But letter carrier and NALC member Austin Seibert said letter carriers he knows are upset because much of the tentative agreement they rejected, was back on the table during arbitration.
“(They) really didn't listen to the membership at all with that regard — we voted the whole thing down,” he said in a recorded response to the announcement of the award. “(We) did not get to voice our opinions on that per se. So now we are stuck with a very inadequate new contract.”
Seibert said this could cause both a demand for Renfroe to resign, and for letter carriers to quit in large numbers once they receive back pay.
Discussion of the contract were also mostly negative on the USPS Community Facebook page, with 222,000 members.
Seibert said talks of privatization rushed the arbitration process. The normally two-week arbitration period was reduced to two days.
To him, the new contract is essentially just the second offer from the USPS. The second offer was originally rejected by NALC negotiators, which triggered arbitration.
Outgoing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy proposed cutting 10,000 USPS workers through voluntary early retirement.
Learn more about the 2023 to 2026 contract here
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