Post office reaches tentative agreement with mail carriers

Some 200,000 mail carriers have reached a tentative contract deal with the U.S. Postal Service that includes backdated pay raises and a promise to provide workers with air-conditioned trucks.

The new agreement, which still needs to be ratified by union members, runs through November 2026. Letter carriers have been working without a new contract since their old one expired in May 2023. Since then they have continued working under the terms of the old contract.

Both the union and the Postal Service welcomed the agreement, which was announced Friday.

Among other improvements, the deal increases the top pay and reduces the amount of time it takes new workers to reach that level, Renfroe said. He credited Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and his deputy for bargaining in good faith throughout the arduous process.

As part of the agreement, all city carriers will get three annual pay increases of 1.3% each by 2025, some of which will be paid retroactively from Nov. 2023. Workers will also receive retroactive and future cost-of-living adjustments.

There is also a commitment from the Postal Service to “make every effort” to provide mail trucks with air-conditioning.

In the summer the Postal Service began rolling out its new electric delivery vehicles, which come equipped with air-conditioning. While the trucks won’t win any beauty contests, they did get rave reviews from letter carriers accustomed to older vehicles that lack modern safety features and are prone to breaking down — and even catching fire.

Within a few years, the new fleet will have expanded to 60,000, most of them electric models, serving as the Postal Service’s primary delivery truck from Maine to Hawaii.

This is the second contract negotiated since DeJoy was appointed in 2020. It is expected to take several weeks for union members to ratify it.

Rural mail carriers are not covered by the contract because they are represented by a different union.


AP Photo/Michael Conroy