Tag: USA

For now, Postal Service scraps plans for private carriers in urban areas The U.S. Postal Service has agreed not to assign new urban mail routes, including deliveries to a recently constructed Perth Amboy building, to private companies for at least the next six months.

The agreement reached during ongoing contract negotiations this week is a victory for members of the national letter carriers union, which has opposed the Postal Service’s increased use of part-time, non-union employees to deliver mail.

The contract reached between the Postal Service and the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers not only imposes a six-month moratorium, but also establishes a committee to examine future use of private contractors. The committee is expected to be made up of representatives from both the union and the Postal Service, said George Flood, a Postal Service spokesman.

The Postal Service has long employed private contractors throughout the country to serve rural routes where houses are too spread out to make the employment of a full-time letter carrier cost-effective. But this year, private contracting began to surface in more cities, including in a new building in the Bronx.

Letter carriers opposed the move and argued that putting more deliveries in private hands will lead to security concerns and a less reliable postal system. Private carriers are paid less money than unionized employees, receive no benefits, wear no uniforms and use their own vehicles.

Private contracting had become a major sticking point in the union’s contract negotiations. Letter carriers had been working under a contract that expired in November, and national representatives had said they wanted some guarantee from the Postal Service that jobs would not eventually be contracted out to private companies.