Pay Raises Coming for 130K Postal Employees, Along With Higher Health Care Costs

A union representing 131,000 employees has ratified its contract with the U.S. Postal Service, providing a 4.2% pay increase for the workers but shifting more of their health care costs onto them. 

The National Rural Letter Carriers Association ratified the new three-year contract after reaching a tentative deal in May. The union called the contract “fair and reasonable,” while postal management stressed it would rein in labor costs and expand the use of part-time, non-career employees. The contract is retroactive to May 2018 and will expire in May 2021. 

The rural letter carriers will receive a 1.3% pay raise retroactively and three additional increases over the life of the agreement. They will also receive cost-of-living adjustments on top of those wage increases. The Postal Service, however, will drop its contributions to employees’s health care from 73% of premiums to 72%. The contract will boost health benefits for non-career rural carriers as well.

The agreement will make it easier for the Postal Service to use non-career carriers for routes outside their normal post offices. The contract also will create a task force to address the hiring and retention of the non-career employees. The two sides agreed to develop a “joint workforce improvement process” to improve the relationship between management and rural carriers while creating a safer work environment.  

“Overall, this contract results in continued restraint of rural carrier labor costs while giving the parties the opportunity to focus on implementing new engineered work standards for rural carrier employees,” said Doug Tulino, USPS labor relations vice president.

Ronnie Stutts, the NRLCA president, told his members the talks with President Trump’s postal task force, the 2018 midterm elections and the Postal Service’s ongoing efforts to “rightsize” its workforce delayed negotiations and led to the expiration of the previous contract. 

Eighty-six percent of union members who returned their ballots voted to ratify the contract.  

NRLCA’s urban counterpart, the National Association of Letter Carriers, also avoided arbitration by reaching a voluntary agreement for its 213,000 members with the Postal Service in 2017. The American Postal Workers Union meanwhile, which represents clerks, mechanics, drivers, custodians and others, remains at an impasse with the Postal Service. The two sides are heading to a third-party arbitrator after the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service deemed them too far apart to help. USPS has sought to limit layoff protections and is offering a one-time lump-sum stipend rather than wage increases, the union said.