Over 200,000 letter carriers, organized in the National Association of Letter Carriers’ Union (NALC) have been without a contract since May of 2023. In October of last year, a Tentative Agreement was reached which offered insulting wage increases of 1.3% per year over three years, maintained all the various wage tiers already in place, and did nothing to address contract compliance, the continuation of mandatory overtime, and a host of other issues. This past week, NALC members overwhelmingly rejected this contract.
This is the first time the NALC has rejected a TA since 1978. This was not the result of an automatic process, but was the result of a hard-fought campaign, led by members of Build a Fighting NALC. BFN is a group of rank-and-file letter carriers who seek to transform the NALC into a democratic, fighting union. Socialist Alternative members have been at the center of this project, uniting workers of all political persuasions behind a program calling for open bargaining in contract negotiations, $30 an hour starting pay, an end to mandatory overtime, for union officials to take a worker’s wage, and winning the right to strike.
Socialists have a vital role to play in rebuilding the labor movement. While there are important exceptions, most unions have had their layer of activists hollowed out over the past 40 years of neoliberalism. These were decades of retreat and demoralization. Traditions of class struggle were lost. It is our job to stimulate and help revive these methods, necessary to reversing the long-term process of decline, and give the thousands of young workers looking for an alternative to business unionism the tools they need to succeed. We republish below a statement from the BFN Coordinating Committee on the success of their Vote No Campaign. Go to www.fightingNALC.com to learn more and get involved in BFN!
“Members of the National Association of Letter Carriers rejected the sellout 2023-2026 National Agreement, with 63,680 to 26,304, with a turnout of 89,984 (48.4%) compared to a turnout of 63,452 votes for the 2019-2023 contract. This result is a victory for our union, and a rejection of the current national leadership and its approach.
Hundreds of letter carriers joined Build a Fighting NALC (BFN) in organizing the first real Vote NO vote campaign in NALC since 1978, working alongside other forces in the reform movement (like Concerned Letter Carriers, and Caref for President) to build the campaign. We organized parking lot meetings and rallies to discuss the TA, organized Vote NO group photos in stations and parking lots, and passed Vote NO recommendation resolutions at General Membership Meetings in 55 branches across the country, including Branch 9 Minneapolis, Branch 41 Brooklyn-Staten Island, Branch 79 Seattle, Branch 34 Boston and many more. It was this organizing at the station and branch level that pushed the NO vote across the finish line!
Over the past several years, NALC members have had our paychecks eaten away by inflation, we’ve faced bullying, harassment, and attempts at speed-ups (management pushing One Hour Office Time, and harassing us to run our routes), and were kept in the dark by NALC national leadership for over 500 days after our last contract expired. At the same time, members saw unions like the UAW wage the “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, and win record contracts with huge wage increases. In this context, NALC members, pushed forward by BFN and other forces in the reform movement, organized a Vote NO campaign. We decided to take a stand, and to not just accept the crumbs we were given. NALC members are standing up, and demanding a strong contract!
Several branches across the country, including Branch 9 in Minneapolis, and Branch 1100 in Los Angeles, will be holding contract rallies in the 15-day window where NALC and USPS can renegotiate the contract. We should have no illusions that we can rely alone on having a strong case in arbitration, we need to publicly demand a strong contract. Our strength is our 290,000 members and our millions of supporters across this country, and we need to demonstrate that strength. For this reason, BFN demands NALC national leadership joins with these branches, and calls for national contract rallies as we head into arbitration. To win over the general public to our side, and show the arbitrator why we voted NO, and what we demand.
This was just one step in the right direction, even a strong contract will not address all of the issues letter carriers face. We need the rank and file to organize and fight every day in every station, which is why we launched Build a Fighting NALC as a national rank and file reform caucus. We are organizing BFN chapters across the country to build our power on the workroom floor to fight for things like a $30/hour Starting Wage, an End to Mandatory Overtime, the Right to Strike, and more! Get involved! Sign up at fightingnalc.com/join-bfn.
– Build a Fighting NALC Coordinating Committee”