Dispatch: Letter Carriers Are Gearing Up for Another Contract Fight

Members of the Letter Carriers (NALC) have kicked off their next contract fight. Negotiations began February 25, and their current agreement expires in May. On Sunday, February 22, letter carriers held rallies across the U.S. as part of their “Fight Like Hell” campaign.

By calling the national day of action, union leaders are responding to a simmering ground-up effort by members demanding a real contract campaign and more transparent bargaining. In past years members didn’t play much role, or get much information, until it was time to vote on a tentative agreement. But the success of a grassroots “vote no” movement last time made the union take notice.

Sindhu Sundar spoke on February 26 with Derek Dolbeare, head of the organizing committee at NALC Branch 79 in Seattle, Washington. The following is a condensed and lightly edited version of Dolbeare’s remarks. –Editors

We had about 70 people here [at the rally] in Seattle [on Sunday], which I felt like was pretty good, considering the day was rainy and windy! There were six rallies just here in Washington.

[On how it came together:] I was in communication with several other NALC branches across the country, back in October or November, and we put forward a date for February 22. It seemed like the best date to get everybody out, and it also lined up with when contract negotiations would re-start.

In Seattle, at NALC Branch 79, we actually have a union band which is made up predominantly of union members and family of union members who play instruments! It’s my understanding that it used to be more common back in the olden days. But I think we’re the last letter carrier band along the West Coast? I don’t know how many union bands there even are along the West Coast! But we were very excited to get them there.

SUPPORT LABOR NOTES

BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR

Give $10 a month or more and get our "Fight the Boss, Build the Union" T-shirt.

[Overall,] it’s been tough! Last year, there actually was a lot of energy behind everything, which had to do with attacks against the post office [by the Trump administration]. But also, frustrations have been building for a while—none of the issues [in this contract fight] are new.

And then it all came to a head with our contract fight last year leading into arbitration. We overwhelmingly rejected that contract, and there was a lot of energy behind that. We’re starting to build that energy back, but it’s hard. There’s a lot of tentativeness from people about getting too involved and investing too much time because they worry that we will not be supported by the national union.

In terms of our big issues—one of them is pay. We get paid uniformly regardless of location, in places like Seattle, [where] it is a lot harder to live on the same pay rate than it is in somewhere like Billings, Montana.

So, one of our big fights here is to get the pay raised so that the starting salary is enough to live somewhere like Seattle.

We also have a really big problem with contract compliance. Our process for resolving grievances is fundamentally broken, in a way where it takes months if not years before a grievance gets resolved. We have situations where people are quitting before their grievance gets resolved, because they’ve been waiting months for a supervisor that’s been harassing them to be demoted or fired or chastised in any way.

One issue that we don’t necessarily have in Seattle, but is a problem in our union at a large scale, is this—basically, before you become a full-time career employee, you have to start off as what’s called a CCA, which is a City Carrier Assistant. And that’s a non-career position that you have to fill for at least two years, most of the time, before you become a full-fledged employee. The pay for that is a lot lower, the benefits are significantly worse. We’d like to see an end to that as a whole.