News & information
On Feb. 22, NALC and the Postal Service officially opened collective bargaining for the 2023 USPS-NALC National Agreement. Since then, ongoing bargaining committee discussions as well as main table negotiations have taken place on specific issues that affect city letter carriers.
As part of the bargaining process, members of the NALC Executive Council—resident officers, national business agents (NBAs) and trustees—along with letter carrier staff members from NALC Headquarters were each assigned to bargaining committees. Those bargaining committees, utilizing their own experiences as well as ideas and concerns heard from the NALC membership, worked vigorously to craft bargaining proposals designed to improve the working conditions of city letter carriers. As of yesterday, all those initial bargaining proposals have been crafted and officially submitted to USPS for consideration.
The current agreement between NALC and USPS is set to expire at midnight on May 20. As a push to reach agreement on those proposals, as well as an economic package that rewards letter carriers for their hard work, NALC and USPS representatives will spend the final week meeting day and night at a Washington, D.C. metro area hotel.
If the parties fail to reach an agreement by midnight on May 20, the next step is a legally mandated 60-day mediation period. The parties can use the mediation period to continue negotiations while simultaneously seeking to agree on a neutral arbitrator should it become necessary. If contract negotiations and mediation fail, each party would then present its case to a three-member interest arbitration board—one member named by each party and a third, neutral member selected jointly as board chairperson. The arbitration board would then issue a final and binding decision setting the terms and conditions of our National Agreement.
NALC remains committed to achieving a negotiated agreement but will not hesitate to present our demands in interest arbitration if necessary to gain a contract that properly rewards city letter carriers for what they do day in and day out in service of America’s public.
Stay tuned for future updates as NALC officers and staff continue working with the USPS to reach agreement on a new contract.