Union rank-and-file committee approves USPS wage deal

Union leaders in the US have expressed confidence that their members will ratify a new collective bargaining agreement with the US Postal Service. The American Postal Workers Union said its rank-and-file advisory committee voted unanimously yesterday to approve the terms of the deal agreed with the US Postal Service on Monday.

The “tentative” agreement runs through May 2015, based on a 3.5% increase in wages over three years from November 2012, retaining cost-of-living allowances but deferring them a year to help reduce financial pressure on the loss-making USPS.

The deal also includes certain protections against layoffs, along with thousands of jobs returned to union members as outsourced work is brought back in-house.

However, it also includes some compromises, such as changes to healthcare contributions, with the leadership noting that steps had to be taken to help USPS avoid insolvency.

Certain protections won for existing union members came at the expense of future members, who will start on lower salaries with new pay grades introduced for them to rise to the minimum pay grade seen under the previous collective bargaining agreement, which ran out in November 2010.

APWU President Cliff Guffey said: “I am hopeful and remain confident that the members will endorse this agreement.”

In a statement, the APWU’s rank-and-file bargaining committee said yesterday that the agreement with USPS could “best be described as a ‘new’ direction”, but suggested that the deal could be improved upon in future collective bargaining agreements.

The committee urged members to read the full agreement before making a decision.

The APWU’s bargaining team is set to brief members at events around the country in the next three weeks, starting today in Charlotte, North Carolina, ahead of a full ratification vote.