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The 213,000 members of the National Association of Letter Carriers will vote this summer on a new 40-month contract with the U.S. Postal Service, featuring two raises and a pay upgrade for each carrier and for city carrier assistants, a narrower pay gap between CCAs and career carriers, and more opportunities for CCAs to become career carriers.
On May 12, the union’s executive board unanimously recommended members approve the pact, NALC President Fredric Rolando said. If they do so, NALC will avoid binding interest arbitration. Several postal unions were forced to use that in recent contracts. The recommended NALC pact is retroactive to May 21, 2016, and runs through Sept. 21, 2019.
“I’d like to thank all the officers and staff who worked so hard to help reach this tentative national agreement,” Rolando said. “Most importantly, I want to thank our members for their patience and steadfast solidarity during the long bargaining process.
“The strength and unity of our union has always been our most important asset in collective bargaining. Although we were fully prepared, if necessary, to fight for our interests in binding interest arbitration, I am very happy tour members will have a chance to make the final decision about this contract through the ratification process outlined in our constitution.”
The contract is important because NALC members deliver the mail nationwide, except in rural areas, which the Rural Letter Carriers handle. The Postal Workers and the Mail Handlers/Laborers take care of other USPS tasks.
NALC’s Executive Council said the new pact “rewards all letter carriers for their contributions to the Postal Service’s extraordinary comeback following the Great Recession.”
Besides the narrower CCA-carrier pay gap the pact preserves regular general raises, annual cost-of-living adjustments, protections against outsourcing and layoffs and “other contractual elements that define our standard of living.”