Letter Carriers (NALC) Members Reject Tentative Contract Agreement
The active membership of the National Association of Letter Carriers has voted to reject the ratification of the tentative 2023-2026 National Agreement with the United States Postal Service. The vote to ratify was 63,680 to reject the agreement versus 26,304 to accept it, as reported by NALC’s Ballot Committee chairman Paul Roznowski of Royal Oak, MI Branch 3126. The fifteen-member Ballot Committee monitored and observed the dispatch, receipt, and tabulation of the Ratification Ballot conducted by independent companies, MOSAIC of Cheverly, MD, and Survey and Ballot Systems of Eden Prairie, MN.
“In a democratic vote, the will of NALC’s membership has been made clear - the tentative agreement that represented the best offer the Postal Service put on the table is not good enough for America’s city letter carriers,” said NALC President Brian L. Renfroe in a statement on Jan. 31. We have earned more and we deserve more.”
Renfroe said that the union had notified the Postal Service of the results and its intent is to reopen negotiations within five days in accordance with Article 16 of the NALC Constitution. Negotiations are not to exceed fifteen days from when they are reopened. The NALC Executive Council will then meet to discuss whether to send a second ballot to each member for ratification or rejection of a potential new tentative agreement or to proceed to binding interest arbitration. Under the law, decisions of that arbitration board would be final and binding upon the parties. Renfroe said the union “is well prepared to fight like hell for a better contract in interest arbitration.”
Bangor-area NALC Branch 391 President Mark Rose, who voted against the tentative agreement, said that a major sticking point for many members was the tentative's agreement to only 1.3 percent wage increases for city letter carriers each year over the duration of the contract. Following the Great Recession in 2013, the federal arbitrator created the two-tier system for career employees withtwo different pay scales: one for senior employees hired before 2013, and one for new career employees hired in 2013 and after . The contract also dramatically cut pay for non-career employees, or CCAs, although it did give them a path to career status and limited their time as a CCA in most cases to two years before being converted to career status.
“Beforethe 2013 Arbitration Award , we had some non-career employees in Bangor who’d been there a year or two making $23 to $25 per hour. After being rehired as CCAs, their pay was cut back to $13- something an hour. They still haven’t gotten back to where they were,” said Rose. “So that’s probably why a lot of people are upset with the Tentative Agreement. ”
Rose estimates that the loss in pay per employee was about $100,000 over the roughly ten years it took to reach the top step .
Under the tentative agreement, three steps at the beginning of the pay scale would be eliminated, compressing the time it takes to reach top pay by a few years while denying immediate pay raises to most steps on the pay table. Rose said that everyone who got hired before 2013 in Tier 1 are all at the top of the wage scale, so while the proposal merges the two tables together it’s just an “accounting trick.” It slots tier 1 carriers into the second tier, since everyone hired before 2013 is at the top step, and the top step is the only one that's the same for the two tiers . It doesn't actually eliminatethe wage disparity when reaching the top step.
Rose said some older members voted for the deal because they were already paid at the higher scale while reaching the top step, but younger members felt stiffed, especially when they compared their wages to UPS drivers, who earn on average $49 per hour at the top rate.
“You’ve got the two tier wage system, which in my experience makes the atmosphere on the work room floor much more difficult because it creates resentment between employees," Rose added. “A lot of people were expecting the two-tier wage system to go away. I just think they neglected the newer people too much.”
In addition, Rose said many members are also opposed to the agreement’sloosening of the daily and weekly hours limitations, which are for most career carriers are twelve hours a day/60 hours per week. The creation of more overtime lists would be a real headache for a steward to monitor, and seems to only be in there as a way for management to avoid paying penalty overtime, he said.