COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Almost 200,000 active letter carriers will receive their ballots this week to vote on a tentative agreement between the National Association of Letter Carriers union and the U.S. Postal Service.
The tentative agreement was completed in October after more than 500 days of waiting for a new union contract. Despite the frustrations among union members in waiting so long, some letter carriers said they still plan to vote against the tentative agreement.
The agreement offers a 1.3% raise for career latter carriers, and a 2.3% increase for noncareer letter carriers, as they do not get cost of living adjustment payments. The agreement also requires all new vehicles to have air conditioning and automatically gives carriers pay and a half for overtime, rather than them having to file a grievance. Mail carriers said they felt the proposed changes were hardly gains, and in some instances, could give management more tools to treat workers unfairly.
Despite one union representative telling NBC4 in October that they anticipated a ratification vote in mid-November, the ballots were not released until this week. According to the union, ballots are being mailed between Dec. 9 and 13, moving west to east across the nation in phases. The ballots will be handled by a ballot committee made up of 15 union members from branches across the country, who will help the 185,894 eligible members cast their votes.
Nearly 50 union branches are encouraging their members to vote "no" as quickly as they can. Among them are four Ohio branches, in Cincinnati, Columbus, Hamilton and Youngstown. President Erick Poston of Cleveland's NALC branch said around 50 letter carriers across Cuyahoga County held a rally last Sunday to advocate for voting against the tentative agreement.
"Several hundred of our members are upset with the current tentative agreement," Poston said. "Letter carriers in our branch felt that the agreement would and should reward them for their performance and efforts as essential workers during COVID, lack of staffing, hostile work environments, as well as the changing weather conditions in Northeast Ohio."
Columbus’ union chapter, Buckeye Branch 78, formally opposed the tentative agreement after its November meeting. According to Buckeye Branch 78, 100% of its union members attended the meeting and actively voted to stand against the proposed contract.
In the resolution to vote no, Buckeye Branch 78 representatives wrote that letter carriers deserve more than "modest economic gains," which they said did not adequately compete with the salaries of USPS competitors. They also pointed to Renfroe's promises of a "historic" contract and said the agreement failed to live up to the expectations set by union leadership.
"The job in the 1990s was coveted and respected, hardly no one left the service. Today, we receive resignations from carriers, newly hired up to five years (of work), on a weekly basis," Poston said. "Assaults on letter carriers, dog bites and vehicle accidents are at an all-time high. Yet management's answer is to hurry up, you are not performing fast enough."
In 2023, Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland were all among the top 10 cities with the most dog bites against mail carriers. In May, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said serious crimes against postal workers have increased nearly sevenfold since 2017. At least 10 mail USPS workers have been killed on the job in 2024 alone, including Jont'e Davis, who was shot and killed inside his Warren, Ohio, postal van in March.
The vote comes in the midst of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers strike, with more than 55,000 postal workers trading postal routes for picket lines and dramatically halting the Canadian post. On Tuesday, the NALC social media posted a letter from Renfroe expressing solidarity with the CUPW during its strike.
“We stand with you in your fight for fair wages, safe working conditions, the right to retire with dignity and the expansion of public postal services,” Renfroe wrote.
Some postal workers took to social media and accused Renfroe of hypocrisy in his statements, feeling he did not offer the same protections in the contract negotiations. NALC members have voiced solidarity with the CUPW strike, but they do not have the same opportunity.
Since the Great Postal Strike of 1970, postal workers have enjoyed more protections under the hard-fought Postal Reorganization Act but lost the bargaining chip they used at the time. According to the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, postal unions have since been federally banned from even advocating for the right to strike.
This leaves just one route for mail carriers to gain labor protections: rely on union leadership to negotiate. With all ballots mailed by the end of this week, union members will be able to express their opinions of the negotiated contract. Votes must be returned by Jan. 13, and local and national leaders are encouraging members to vote as soon as possible.
