June 2024 Update
Let’s look down the road a bit. Where are we going to be a year from now? A year from now we will be engaged in an activity of paramount importance to all Mail Handlers and MHAs, contract negotiations. The 2022 National Agreement will expire on September 20, 2025, and around this time next year we’ll be sitting down at the bargaining table. So, when’s the time to start thinking about contract proposals? Well, how about now.
Personally, I keep a permanent notebook on my tablet in which I identify areas where the National Agreement could be improved. Many times, what finds its way into my notebook results from ideas received from Members or from problems we experience when administering the contract. I currently have 5 reasonably good ideas in my notebook. But currently they’re just ideas. And ideas are a long way from written proposals to change or add to current contract language. Yet, ideas are the starting point. I anticipate that the call for bargaining proposals will be issued by the National Union some time around the first of the year. That’s when the rubber needs to meet the road. What are your ideas? Now’s a good time for all of us to start thinking about our next contract.
Currently, we’re sitting in the bleachers watching the battle over the Letter Carriers (NALC) and the APWU contracts. The NALC contract expired on May 20, 2023, and the most recent information I can find is from April of this year. That was the announcement of the appointment of an arbitrator to decide the terms of their contract. So, we know that the Letter Carriers have been without a contract for more than a year. We also know that a year without a contract is a year without general wage increases or Cost of Living Adjustments. Will they recoup some portion of these lost increases in arbitration? Maybe, that remains to be seen.
The APWU contract is scheduled to expire on September 20th of this year, and they opened negotiations with the Postal Service on June 24th. Will the APWU be successful in achieving a negotiated agreement? That remains to be seen as well.
With the NALC and the Postal Service in the ninth inning, and the APWU at the plate, we have a year to wait in the on-deck circle. Still, to quote the late great Yogi Berra, “It gets late early out there.” The time for us to start planning is now.
JL