More than 240,000 letter carriers will get pay raises over the next three years under a binding arbitration decision resolving the contract dispute between the U.S. Postal Service and the National Association of Letter Carriers.
In a split-decision the panel, chaired by George R. Fleischli awarded NALC members a 2% pay hike, retroactive to last November when their contract expired; and increases of 1.4% and 1.2% in the second and third years of the pact. At that point NALC members, who also won increased health benefits, will be earning more than postal clerks for the first time since 1907.
Fleischli said the pay hike was justified because automation and other workplace changes “have made the work of city letter carriers significantly more difficult.”
But R. Theodore Clark, the postal service’s appointee to the panel, criticized the majority decision saying it “will have extremely negative consequences for the future of the postal service collective bargaining and the postal service’s ability to remain competitive in the marketplace.”
Postal officials would only say that it was “unfortunate that parity was not maintained with the negotiated agreements reached earlier” with other American Postal Workers Union and National Postal Mail Handlers Union.
Network
