Arbitration ahead for Postal Service and National Association of Letter Carriers
April 18th, 2012 | Postal Service | Posted by Sean Reilly
Well, that didn’t take long. Less than a month after National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando said the union was “committed” to reaching agreement on a new labor contract through mediation, it’s now headed to binding arbitration with the U.S. Postal Service, according to a release posted on a USPS site. The arbitration process will wrap up later this year, the Postal Service said.
A NALC spokesman had no immediate comment this morning.
The news comes three months after impasses were declared in the Postal Service’s negotiations with both the NALC and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. Although the unions’ previous contracts officially expired in November, the terms remain in effect until new agreements are reached. After an impasse, the next step is normally mediation, followed by arbitration. Talks with the mail handlers union remain in mediation, according to the Postal Service.
Although both USPS and union negotiators are typically tight-lipped about the status of contract talks, there’s no question that the latest round has been exceptionally difficult. The National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association and the Postal Service are already in arbitration. Although the Postal Service clinched a new contract last year with the American Postal Workers Union, the final deal created a two-tier wage system that means new hires will make 10.2 percent less on average.
Tags: American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union, National Rural Letter Carriers Association
Postal Service and mail handlers heading into mediation
March 23rd, 2012 | Postal Service | Posted by Sean Reilly
For those keeping track of the three-ring show known as U.S. Postal Service labor negotiations, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union reports that a federally appointed mediator is now in place to help the two sides settle on a new contract. The mediation process can take 60 days; if it fails, the next step will likely be binding arbitration.
An impasse was declared in late January in the Postal Service’s contract talks with both the mail handlers union and the National Association of Letter Carriers. The NALC announced the appointment of a mediator last month. “We’re working hard,” President Fredric Rolando said in a statement today. “We’re committed to reaching an agreement through the mediation process.”
But the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association is already in arbitration. In an update posted earlier this month on its web site, the NRLCA reported that both sides had concluded their introductory cases before a three-member arbitration panel. As a matter of policy, USPS officials don’t publicly discuss labor negotiations. By the NRLCA’s telling, however, the Postal Service attempted to persuade the panel that its financial condition “requires dramatic actions to curb or reduce wages, COLA allowances, paid leave, health and other benefits that rural letter carriers and this union have worked hard to achieve.”
Tags: National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union, National Rural Letter Carriers Association, U.S. Postal Service
U.S. Postal Service labor negotiations collapse
January 20th, 2012 | Postal Service Postal Service | Posted by Sean Reilly
This probably comes as a surprise to just about no one, but an impasse was officially declared today in contract talks between the U.S. Postal Service and two unions: the National Association of Letter Carriers and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. The next step will presumably be mediation or binding arbitration.
The impasse comes two months after prior contracts with both unions officially expired Nov. 20. All sides kept talking after that through two extensions, but could not agree on another extension to keep negotiations alive past today. The parties “currently are discussing how they will proceed,” USPS spokesman Mark Saunders said in a news release. “The existing contracts will be followed until terms of a new contract are resolved.”
The Postal Service is already in arbitration with the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association. Members of its fourth union, the American Postal Workers Union, ratified a new contract last year that will run until May 2015.
No official word on what triggered today’s breakdown, but the Postal Service has made no secret of its desire for cost-cutting concessions, at least some of which labor was bound to resist. In a news release, NALC President Fredric Rolando said it was the Postal Service’s decision to end negotiations. Calling the decision a disappointment, Rolando said the union “will pursue a negotiated agreement through mediation and prepare to vigorously defend our members in interest arbitration, if it reaches that step.”
Tags: American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union, National Rural Letter Carriers Association
Contract talks to continue between unions and Postal Service
December 7th, 2011 | Postal Service Uncategorized | Posted by Sean Reilly
The U.S. Postal Service and two of its major unions will stay at the bargaining table for at least another week-and-a-half, all sides said today in separate news releases.
An earlier extension of contract negotiations with the National Association of Letter Carriers and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union was on track to expire today; that deadline is now midnight, Dec. 16. “We have been working in good faith to hammer out a new contract and we hope that this extension will lead to an agreement that our members can enthusiastically ratify,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said.
Previous contracts for both unions officially expired Nov. 20. The NALC represents more than 195,000 postal workers, the NPMHU more than 45,000. If negotiations fail to produce new agreements in either case, the next step would be arbitration, which is the path taken by the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Union. That process formally began Monday, according to a posting on the NRLCA’s web site.
Tags: Fredric Rolando, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union, National Rural Letter Carriers Association
U.S. Postal Service extends contract talks with two unions
November 21st, 2011 | Postal Service | Posted by Sean Reilly
No surprise here, but the U.S. Postal Service and two of its unions failed to agree on new contracts by yesterday’s deadline and have agreed to keep talking at least through Dec. 7.
Existing agreements with the National Association of Letter Carriers and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union officially expired at midnight Sunday. “The parties continue to discuss a host of important and complicated issues,” NPMHU officials said in a news release posted on the union’s web site. “The negotiations are at a very delicate stage, and of this writing, it still is impossible to tell whether an overall deal is likely.”
“We have been working in good faith to hammer out a new contract and we hope that this extension will lead to an agreement that our members can enthusiastically ratify,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said in a separate online release.
Rolando, incidentally, has scheduled a news conference this afternoon at the National Press Club at which he will outline a new approach to employee health benefits to save the “Postal Service billions of dollars, paving the way for financial stability and preventing major service cuts for the public and businesses,” according to a news advisory.
The mail handlers union represents more than 45,000 USPS employees who work in mail processing plants and post offices; the NALC represents more than 195,000 letter carriers who deliver mail mainly in urban areas, according to the Postal Service. In May, the financially struggling agency reached a deal with the American Postal Workers Union that will run until 2015. Talks with the fourth major postal union, the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, have reached an impasse, meaning a new contract in that case will be decided through arbitration.
Tags: American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union, National Rural Letter Carriers Association
Start date set for arbitration between the U.S. Postal Service and rural letter carriers union
September 22nd, 2011 | Postal Service | Posted by Sean Reilly
A three-member arbitration panel will begin hearings Dec. 5 on a new contract between the U.S. Postal Service and the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, according to a posting on the union’s web site.
The panel’s neutral member will be Jack Clarke, a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators and a veteran of the NRLCA-USPS southern area arbitration panel, the posting said. The union has named Joey Johnson, its director of labor relations, to the panel while the Postal Service has appointed Robert Dufek, its manager for labor relations strategies.
The first round of hearings will go through Dec. 8, according to the Postal Service, while additional sessions could continue into April if needed. The hearings will kick off more than a year after an impasse was declared last November in contract negotiations between the two sides. They nonetheless continued to talk for months after that, only deciding this summer to take the plunge to arbitration.
The hearings will alternate between USPS headquarters in Washington and the union’s headquarters in nearby northern Virginia, a Postal Service spokeswoman said.
Tags: National Rural Letter Carriers Association, U.S. Postal Service
Postal unions uniting for nationwide rallies
September 9th, 2011 | Postal Service | Posted by Sean Reilly
There’s nothing like the prospect of looming disaster to bring people together. The latest case in point: The U.S. Postal Service’s four unions are teaming up for an unprecedented “Save America’s Postal Service” day later this month.
The basic purpose is to gin up support for legislation by Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., that would let the Postal Service take advantage of billions of dollars in pension fund overpayments identified by an outside actuary to cover retiree health care obligations. Despite almost 200 cosponsors, that bill, like other proposed legislative fixes, is currently stuck in a congressional committee. But on Sept. 27, union members will be visiting the home offices of every member of the U.S. House of Representatives and also holding informational rallies, according to a joint website.
The four participating groups are the American Postal Workers Union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union.
These are of course dark times for the venerable mail carrier, one of the nation’s largest employers and a bastion of relatively well-paying middle-class jobs. The Postal Service, running short on cash, now wants to lay off up to 120,000 career workers in the next three years.
In a phone interview, Philip Rubio, a historian at North Carolina A&T State University, could not recall anything comparable in USPS labor history. “This does speak to the severity of the current crisis that the four of them would make common cause,” Rubio said. “It’s the kind of grass-roots effort that a lot of people will welcome.”
Tags: American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handers Union, National Rural Letter Carriers Association, North Carolina A&T State University, Philip Rubio
Arbitration ahead for Postal Service, rural letter carriers union
August 8th, 2011 | Postal Service | Posted by Sean Reilly
More than eight months after their contract talks hit an impasse, the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association and the U.S. Postal Service are headed to arbitration, according to a new USPS financial filing. While mediation would normally be the next move, both sides are interested in bypassing that step and going to straight to arbitration, the third quarter financial report says. The next step will be to select an “interest arbitrator” and decide on some dates for the proceedings.
A Postal Service spokesman had no further information Monday, but in a phone interview that evening, NRLCA President Don Cantriel said the decision to go to arbitration was made a week or so ago. “We just couldn’t accept where they wanted to go,” Cantriel said. While the rural letter carriers had offered concessions similar to what the American Postal Workers Union had accepted earlier this year, he said, the Postal Service then wanted to “completely alter” several of the standards in the evaluated system used to determine carriers’ pay. The effect would be “devastating,” Cantriel said.
“They basically want us to do the same amount of work for significantly less money.”
Under interest arbitration, the arbitrator decides which provisions the parties will have in their collective bargaining agreement, as opposed to interpreting and applying the terms of the agreement to decide a grievance, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
The impasse with the rural carriers dates back to last November, triggered in part by USPS proposals to freeze wages, cut benefits for current career employees and create a lower wage scale for new hires, the union said at the time. Nonetheless, the two sides had kept talking–at least until recently.
Don’t forget, by the way, that contracts with two other postal unions, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the National Association of Letter Carriers, expire Nov. 20. Talks on replacements will start about 90 days beforehand, the Postal Service has said. This May, APWU members overwhelmingly ratified the new contract that will run until May 2015.
[Post updated at 6:25 p.m. to reflect Cantriel comments.]
Tags: Don Cantriel, National Rural Letter Carriers Association, U.S. Postal Service
Issa, labor clash over five-day mail delivery
July 15th, 2011 | Postal Service | Posted by Sean Reilly
Postal unions and Rep. Darrell Issa are mixing it up again.
This time it’s over the California Republican’s bid to scrap a long-standing congressional requirement for the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail six days a week. That requirement is the main obstacle to the Postal Service’s ending most Saturday delivery, a step the agency says will save $3 billion per year.
In a letter last month, Issa asked Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., to drop the six-day language from an appropriations bill that her financial services subcommittee was drafting. Emerson didn’t go along, but Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, followed up this week with a separate letter to House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif., essentially asking for the chance to challenge the provision during debate by the full House.
But in a note on its web site, the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association says that five-day delivery would cost at least 80,000 jobs and urges members “to call, not email” a long list of lawmakers who could decide the issue.
Tags: Darrell Issa, Jo Ann Emerson, National Rural Letter Carriers Association
What does Postal Service-APWU contract mean for other postal unions?
May 23rd, 2011 | Postal Service | Posted by Sean Reilly
The U.S. Postal Service and its largest union have made it official, tying the knot on a contract that will run until May 2015.
“We worked together to negotiate a responsible agreement that is in the best interest of our customers, our employees and the future of the Postal Service,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in a statement noting that the agreement with the American Postal Workers Union took effect Monday. The APWU’s membership overwhelmingly ratified the agreement in a vote announced May 11.
“I am pleased that we were able to negotiate a contract that will strengthen the Postal Service for the future and protect the job security of union members,” APWU President Cliff Guffey said in his own statement.
The lengthy contract contains provisions allowing both sides to claim gains. But its most notable feature is the creation of a two-tier wage structure that, according to the Postal Service, will mean an average of 10.2 percent less money for new hires.
Historically, unions have been leery of these kinds of arrangements because they risk driving a wedge between older and younger members. But with the Postal Service in undeniably awful financial shape, it’s easier to push the pain off on to people who aren’t even part of the bargaining unit yet. And the Postal Service may not want to stop there, Donahoe suggested at a congressional hearing last week.
The mail carrier is still negotiating with the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association to replace a contract that formally expired last November; agreements with the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the National Association of Letter Carriers are up for renewal this November.
“We expect to see the same type of framework in those contracts that we’ve been able to negotiate with the APWU,” Donahoe said. Asked later if Donahoe sees a similar wage fork as part of that framework, USPS spokesman Mark Saunders said only that “we’re looking into negotiating contracts that are in the best interests of our customers, our employees and the future flexibility of the Postal Service.”
Tags: American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union, National Rural Letter Carriers Association