By Doug Cunningham

The National Association of Letter Carriers has reached a tentative agreement with the U.S. Postal Service that limits the privatization of city mail carrier jobs. The agreement calls for 8.85 percent raises over five years in addition to regular cost of living adjustments for 222,000 union city mail delivery workers. Letter carriers will have to pay more for health insurance premiums under this tentative deal – five percentage points more over five years. This deal won’t end the issue of contracting out some city mail delivery, but a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate by Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin might. Twenty-five other senators back it. It’s called the Mail Delivery Protection Act of 2007”. It forbids the U.S. Postal Service from entering into any contract “with any motor carrier or other person for the delivery of mail on any route with one or more families per mile”.

By Doug Cunningham

Your friendly unionized neighborhood letter carrier will be collecting food donations this Saturday that go to local community food pantries around the country. The National Association of Letter Carriers’ Drew Von Bergen says this is an especially critical time of year to donate food.

[Von Bergen 1]: “Schools are pout and all those people who really rely on the school lunches as their really only nutrition during the day don’t have it. And therefore the need on the families is greater.”

This is the largest one day food drive in the world. A hundred and twenty million post cards promoting it have been mailed and each year more than 70 million pounds of food are collected. But Von Bergen says the need is even greater.

By Doug Cunningham

The National Association of Letter Carriers is going to arbitration after the union says talks with the U.S. Postal Service had reached impasse.
The union says the last offer it got was insulting - removing cost of living increases from wages and hiking health care costs among other things. Three other postal worker unions continue to talk with USPS.

By Doug Cunningham

All four postal workers unions are in talks with the U.S. Postal service on new contracts. The contract negotiations have been extended. For three unions – the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Rural Letter Carrier’s Association and the National Postal Mail Handlers union – the talks have been extended until November 30th. The American Postal Workers Union agreed to talk beyond the original deadline of November 21st but did not agree on a final deadline. The postal talks resume on Monday, November 27th.