National Association of Letter Carriers

Last month, I wrote about some of the crazy things that have been happening with letter carriers lately. I had mentioned that there would be rallies coming up to get our message regarding possible attempts to privatize the Postal Service. These rallies were held around the country on March 23, including one on the Boston Common. I want to thank all the Branch 25 letter carriers, active and retired, and their family members who took the time to attend. We had carriers from Beverly, Billerica, Chelmsford, Concord, Danvers, Dracut, Gloucester, Haverhill, Holliston, Lawrence, Lowell, Manchester, Marblehead, Maynard, Peabody, Reading, Salem, Wayland, Wilmington and Winchester attend. There may have been some offices I missed as well.

It was a blustery but sunny March day. Congressman Stephen F. Lynch from Massachusetts’s 8th District, a longtime supporter of workers, Unions, and the Postal Service, was the featured speaker. Thanks again to all the members and family members who attended. There are some pictures from that day in this issue of the Wake Up!

The day after the rally, Arbitrator Dennis R. Nolan issued his award, which set the terms of a three-year collective bargaining agreement for letter carriers. The full award can be found on NALC.org. It doesn’t change much from what was in the Tentative Agreement (TA), which the membership voted down in January. The arbitration decision calls for three general wage increases of 1.3%, 1.4%, and 1.5%. These increases will take effect for November 2023, November 2024, and November 2025, respectively. The two that have already happened will be paid retroactively. The raises in the TA voted down by the members had increases of 1.3%, 1.3%, and 1.3%. The award also provides for 6 COLA’s to be paid during the contract. CCA’s will receive an additional increase of 1.0% on top of the general wage increases.

Steps AA and A will be eliminated from Table 2, and the annual rate at Step P (top step) will be increased by $1000. The original TA had Steps AA, A, and B being eliminated. As of now, there is no time frame yet on when back pay will be calculated or when carriers can expect to see it in their checks. All of the work rule changes that were previously presented as part of the TA have been included in the new agreement. This agreement is in effect retroactively from May 21, 2023 through May 22, 2026. That’s only about a year away, so we’ll be back at the bargaining table before you know it.

I had the pleasure of attending the NALC Heroes Celebration Ceremony, which was held in Washington, DC on March 20. Dave Moulton from Salem was one of the carriers selected as one of this year’s heroes. There were ten letter carriers from around the country who were honored. They all did amazing things and acts of courage, from giving CPR to someone whose heart had stopped, pulling an attacking dog off of a little girl, to helping pull an accident victim out of a burning car. In December 2023, Dave was delivering his route in Salem when he noticed a three-year-old child wandering in the street with no shoes or jacket on. The child was about to run into traffic when Dave was able to grab the child, get him safely out of the road, and call 911. The child had escaped from a daycare without anyone noticing. He was able to be reunited with his family unharmed thanks to Dave’s quick thinking. Congratulations to Dave and all the other award recipients! There are a few pictures from the event on Page 7 of this month’s issue.

The same day Arbitrator Nolan’s award was released, it was announced that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was stepping down from his job. DeJoy had previously announced that he would be resigning in the near future but that he would be staying on until the USPS went through the process of finding and selecting his replacement. Apparently, that will not be the case. I’m not sure what this will mean for the Postal Service or letter carriers, but it’s probably not good news. DeJoy has been somewhat of a polarizing figure since he took over almost five years ago. We are about halfway into the Postal Service’s Ten-year Delivering for America Plan, which has brought on changes in transportation networks and the sorting and delivery centers, like the one we have in Woburn. It remains to be seen whether or not this plan will continue now that he has stepped down or not. With the current administration and political climate, however, it is unlikely that whoever is appointed as the next postmaster general will be supportive of letter carriers or labor unions in general. We will have to see what’s next.

Like I said last month, there are a lot of potential changes coming, and most of them don’t seem to be good for us letter carriers. I know despite that, letter carriers will keep pushing forward and fighting the fight! Never give up ... never walk away ... always fighting!

In Solidarity,

Daniel P. Wheeler

The front cover of this month’s Wake Up! Says “Hell No!” Hell no to what you may ask? Hell No to dismantling the United States Postal Service as we currently know it! The talk of privatizing the Postal Service is nothing new. They have been talking about it during my entire 30-year career, in fact. However, currently potential changes seem more possible than ever. There has been a lot of speculation about what may actually happen or not happen in the last couple of weeks. There is a gap in time between when I am writing this and when you will be reading it. Things may or may not change between now and then, but I will explain the situation as it stands at the moment.

There have been many recent developments. On February 18, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced that he would be stepping down from his position. He didn’t give an exact timeline for his departure. He said he would stay on until his successor was found but didn’t indicate when that would be. Next, on February 20, the Washington Post posted a story saying that President Trump had plans to fire the members of the Board of Governors, eliminate the Postal Regulatory Commission, and possibly fire other upper postal management. This would be in advance of planning to end the USPS operating as it has since 1971 and putting it under the control of the Treasury Department.

This would end the USPS operating independently and make it an official part of the federal government, as before the 1970 strike. This news caused much concern and speculation; if this happened, it could have devastating effects on letter carriers. NALC National President Brian Renfroe held a meeting for branch presidents on Friday, February 21, to fill everyone in on what was happening. Brian stated, “Make no mistake, they are going to try to do this ... don’t believe any reports that say otherwise.”

The NALC fully anticipates the administration to try and cancel our collective bargaining agreement. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) does not currently have a quorum because of recent firings, so it would be of no help if that happened. NALC leadership felt it would be beneficial to have an agreement in place if any of this happens and not to be still working under our expired one. To that end, the executive council voted to proceed to expedited arbitration to get an agreement as soon as possible.

So what does that mean? Under expedited arbitration, the NALC and USPS will present only the financial part of the contract to the arbitrator. All of the work rules parts will be stipulated whether they are agreed on or not. President Renfroe said he hoped to start hearings on this as soon as the last week of February. I’m unsure how long it will take to begin the expedited arbitration and get a decision. Still, it will be much sooner than we would have proceeded with regular arbitration as originally planned. The thought is that if current senior postal leadership is fired, no one may be left to bargain with, or the people who replace them will have no interest in bargaining.

Just because the administration attempts to do something doesn’t mean it has the legal right to or that it would be successful even if it did. However, through the first month, it is clear that potential legal challenges will not deter them from attempting these moves. It’s no secret how vital the Postal Service is to millions of Americans daily. The Postal Service employs 640,000 people, including 73,000 veterans. Any attempt to dismantle the Postal Service is an attack not only on all the hard-working employees but also on the American public. As I said at the start of this article, we don’t know exactly what will or won’t happen. The question is, what can we do to prevent it from happening?

The USPS is always listed as the most trusted government entity by the American people. We need their support now more than ever. The NALC held a “Save the USPS Rally” In Washington, D.C. on February 25 and had a Day of Action the next day to send the message loud and clear to the White House to scrap any potential plans they may have to dismantle or disrupt the Postal Service. We can help by letting our elected representatives know how we feel about this and encouraging the non-postal public to do the same.

More information on local day(s) of action or rallies will be forthcoming. For now, we need to be ready for anything and everything! The near future will be interesting for sure! Stay tuned for more to come. Come to the next branch meeting for the latest information.

In Solidarity,

Daniel P. Wheeler

On January 5, President Biden signed the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82) into law. The legislation, which had overwhelmingly passed in both the House and Senate, ensures that affected Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) retirees will no longer face unfair reductions in their Social Security benefits. The Social Security Fairness Act repeals the WEP and GPO provisions in Social Security law.

The Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) are federal laws that reduce Social Security benefits for individuals who receive pensions from jobs where they did not pay Social Security taxes. GPO affects spousal or survivor benefits, while WEP impacts retirement and disability benefits for those who also have a pension from non-covered employment.

This law will affect many CSRS retirees from the Postal Service. December 2023 is the last month that WEP and GPO will apply. This means that those rules no longer apply to benefits payable for January 2024 and later. Important Reminder: Social Security benefits payable for January 2024 would generally have been received in February 2024. We have already received calls from retired members asking when they can expect payments. The answer is probably later than sooner. The Social Security Administration issued the following statement on their website on January 24:

“SSA’s ability to implement the law in a timely manner and without negatively affecting day-to-day customer service relies on funding. The Act did not provide money to implement the law. The law requires SSA to adjust benefits for over 3 million people. Since the law’s effective date is retroactive, SSA must adjust people’s past benefits as well as future benefits. Though SSA is helping some affected beneficiaries now, under SSA’s current budget, SSA expects that it could take more than one year to adjust benefits and pay all retroactive benefits.

Callers to SSA’s National 800 Number hear a message about the Act. This message has helped tens of thousands of people avoid holding for a representative. However, more than 7,000 people each day still choose to wait to speak to a representative about the Act. These calls, as well as visitors and appointments in local offices, will continue to increase over the coming weeks and months.

Helping people with this new and unfunded workload is made more difficult by SSA’s ongoing staffing shortages, including operating under a hiring freeze since November 2024. This hiring freeze is likely to continue. All SSA customers, including those not affected by the Act, will face delays and increased wait times as SSA prioritizes this new workload.”

We will pass on any new information to our members as soon as we get it.

In Solidarity,

Daniel P. Wheeler

Congratulations to Lawrence’s Dan Abate who won the attendance prize at the January branch meeting!

Happy New Year to the members of Branch 25! We made it through 2024, and we are on to 2025. I will start this month by saying that I hope most active carriers have taken the time to fill out and mail in their ballots for the Tentative Agreement. The original due date to return ballots was January 13. However, they just announced that the date to get ballots returned has been extended by two weeks until January 27. So, if you have not mailed your ballot yet, there is still time. I encourage everyone to make their voice heard and cast their vote.

As we enter the new year, a couple of things are happening throughout the branch that are worth noting. The first is the new safety blitz the Postal Service implemented last month. James Metilinos has written about this in more detail on pages 4-5 of this month’s Wake Up! So, I won’t go into a lot of details here, but active carriers should be aware of this. After reading over the training material issued by management to their people, it is clear to me that this program is designed as more of a “gotcha” method to try to catch carriers doing something wrong rather than promoting safety.

Please take the time to read James’ article and be aware that management will focus on catching carriers with safety violations in the immediate future. It could be local management, people from the district, or other management making these observations, as has been the case so far. Please be safe and aware out there!

Another thing that I have noticed in our offices is the questioning in PDIs becoming increasingly predetermined and aggressive. For a while now, most, if not all, local management has been instructed that PDI questions are to come from the district level. The questions are designed more to get us to admit guilt and answer a different version of the same question multiple times rather than to actually get answers as to what happened so local management can then make their own conclusion. It seems like more and more the conclusion has been arrived at by labor, and they are looking for the PDI to confirm that for them.

Remember that a PDI is management’s obligation to complete a fair and thorough investigation, not just a formality, to get concurrence on a conclusion of guilt they have already pre-determined!

Last year, 525 total grievances were filed, an increase of almost 4% from the 508 total filed in the previous year. The breakdown by installation is listed below. Thanks to all the stewards in the branch who keep the grievance process moving promptly and properly!

In Solidarity,

Daniel P. Wheeler