Samuel Messidor
The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) has presented a tentative agreement with the post office (USPS) to its 300,000 active and retired members after nearly two years of working under an expired contract. The proposed agreement presents a pathetic 1.3% pay raise a year over the life of the contract, which is called the 2023-2026 agreement, a name reflecting its much-delayed release. The voting for the new TA is set to take place by mail-in ballot between December 9 and January 13.
The NALC is the postal worker union for “city letter carriers”, and is one of four unions representing workers at USPS, which are divided between crafts and bargain divided from one another. It is illegal for postal workers to strike, even with an expired contract.
Beyond the wage “increase”, which does not keep up with inflation, the union bureaucracy brags that new vehicles purchased by USPS will have A/C and that the pay rate for hours worked in excess of 12 a day will be 2.5 times the base wage.
The “City Carrier Assistant” (CCA) position is not eliminated by the TA, breaking promises made by union bureaucracy to rank-and-file according to letter carriers in touch with The Worker. The CCA classification is bottom tier in the two-tier system concession given up by the NALC. CCAs often work gruelingly long days, without the regular cap on overtime hours, and have no guaranteed weekends, driving up work tempo for the entire workforce. This “temporary” concession would be extended by at least another 2 years under the TA.
There will be no Cost of Living Adjustment for City Carrier Assistants, and the “minimum office time” is lowered in the morning, meaning a higher work tempo while carriers prepare their routes.
The negotiations were closed, meaning the rank-and-file had no information about them. During the long course of the negotiations, workers were told by union officials to be patient and trust the bargaining team who were negotiating for a “historic” contract, according to letter carriers in touch with The Worker and carriers interviewed by monopoly media.
One letter carrier said of the TA to The Worker “It’s a load of garbage, a total bust.” Letter carriers on social media are speculating whether the TA is an attempt by Postmaster-General DeJoy and NALC President Renfroe to bust the union as part of the “Delivering for America” post office restructuring. The sell-out nature of the contract is a continuation of the trend at USPS, where in 2023 rural carriers saw significant pay cuts under their new contract.
Though the workers cannot legally strike, city carriers are voicing their disapproval of the TA through demonstrations, statements to the monopoly media, and “Vote No” campaigns, online here and here.
The NALC bureaucracy has already taken to threats against the rank-and-file, stating to monopoly media that the contract should be accepted because a rejection would mean a forced federal mediation process, potentially leading to a worse deal.
Postmaster-general DeJoy’s USPS restructuring plan “Delivering for America” is moving ahead despite being delayed in part by postal worker and community protests. The plan hopes to “modernize” the post office by shutting down local, traditional offices and replacing them with massive warehouses akin to UPS’s and Amazon’s systems. This will mean layoffs and tempo increases for those who are left. The job is already so fast-paced and dangerous that $2.1 billion of the USPS budget deficit, which DeJoy’s plan claims to address, comes from workers comp payouts.
North of the border, 55,000 Canadian postal workers have been on strike since November 22 for better working conditions and pay. On Tuesday, the Canadian government ordered the striking workers back on the job while promising to investigate the postal corporation for failure to bargain in good faith.
image: Letter Carriers demonstrate against the TA, retrieved from a video by “More Perfect Union”
