Members of the National Association of Letter Carriers have rejected a sellout tentative agreement by 71 percent, in a 63,680 to 26,304 vote.
That’s a turnout of 48.4 percent—and more “no” votes than the total turnout of 63,452 votes for the last contract. This result is a rejection of the current national leadership and its approach.
Hundreds of letter carriers joined the new network Build a Fighting NALC (BFN) in organizing the first real vote-no campaign in the NALC since 1978, working alongside the Concerned Letter Carriers and the Mike Caref for President campaign in a broad reform movement.
The issue of pay has been central. General inflation has increased more than 20 percent since 2020. Letter carriers were lauded for essential work through the Covid pandemic, and we received no hazard pay. But our national union leadership promised that this contract, at last, would include “record wage increases” and eliminate the tiers, moving to an all-career workforce.
Letter carriers had to wait for more than 500 days, since the contract expired in May 2023, to hear anything from our national leadership about the process of negotiations. While we were being left in the dark, we saw the Auto Workers wage their Stand-Up Strike, the Teamsters at UPS build a real contract campaign and prepare for a strike, and Boeing workers wage a 53-day strike—all winning record contracts with huge raises.
