Under the terms of the Nolan Award, the top pay of letter carriers, Step P, increased by $4,758 annually, or 6.3 percent, on April 19—a percentage increase that every carrier in other steps of Table 2 also received. City carrier assistants (CCAs), who do not receive COLAs under the contract, received pay increases of 4.7 percent, which reflects the two general wage increases plus an additional 1 percent for each one. On June 14, a $1,000 annual increase in the salary of Step P (in both Tables 1 and 2), to a level of $81,057 annually, was implemented. Additionally, on July 12, Steps AA and A in the Table 2 wage schedule were eliminated, boosting starting career pay by about 4.5% to $51,133 annually.

But that demonstration of collective bargaining was only part of the story. Later this month, career letter carriers will receive full back pay resulting from the six wage increases between Aug. 26, 2023—the effective date of the contract’s first COLA—and April 18, 2025. CCAs will also receive full back pay for their two increases, 2.3 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.

Retroactive pay to be included in Aug. 29 paychecks

The Nolan Award provides for full retroactivity for the first two general wage increases (for Tables 1, 2 and 3 and the first four COLAs for Tables 1 and 2). This required the Postal Service to recalculate the pay for every paid hour—including all work hours (straight time, overtime, penalty overtime and other premium pay) and all paid leave hours—between Aug. 26, 2023, (the effective date of the first COLA) and April 19, 2025, when the new contract’s wage rates were implemented. 

For career city carriers in Tables 1 and 2, the backpay periods covered are:

For CCAs in Table 3, the back pay periods are as follows:

As with all interest arbitrations, back pay is not guaranteed, and NALC had to fight to get full retroactivity in the Nolan Award. USPS has typically asked arbitrators to reject retroactivity—a policy it follows with its managers and supervisors covered by the so-called EAS schedule. NALC always argues for full retroactivity, which we have usually achieved—but not always. In a couple of previous awards, COLAs were either deferred or “cashed out” (i.e., converted to one-time lump sum payments that do not permanently raise wages). In others, USPS was allowed to use back pay “estimations” to save on administrative expenses. Like every provision and article in the National Agreement, retroactivity must be fought for and won.

Two other notes on back pay:

• The changes in the city carrier pay tables (the $1,000 increase to Step P in June and the elimination of Steps AA and A in Table 2 in July) were prospective wage improvements; therefore, they were not subject to the retroactivity provisions.
• Letter carriers who have retired after working under the terms of the 2023-2026 National Agreement will receive retroactive back pay and will have their retirement annuities recalculated after USPS recertifies/adjusts their high-3 averages with the Office of Personnel Management.

And the back pay will arrive just before the fifth COLA of $790 (at Step P) is scheduled to take effect on Sept. 6. (The COLA will be applied proportionally to other Steps in Table 2, an increase of about 1 percent.)

This flurry of pay raises and salary changes won through collective bargaining reveals the structure of the NALC contract developed over NALC’s 54 years of collective-bargaining history with the Postal Service. As the union begins its preparations for a new round of contract talks early next year, now is a good time to consider the unique and complex structure of our National Agreement.

NALC’s collective-bargaining agreement

The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 (PRA) transformed a 200-year-old government department into an independent government agency structured like a corporation. The PRA extended private-sector labor law to postal employees with a number of unique features, such as the continued coverage by federal employee health and retirement plans, a ban on strikes, and the use of binding interest arbitration to resolve contract disputes. This background and 54 years of collective-bargaining history have combined to shape the NALC’s unique labor contract—most notably, the structure of the city carrier pay schedules, the stable pattern of contract settlements, and the importance of the contract’s COLA clause.

Pay schedule structure
The basic structure of letter carrier pay schedules reflects the pre-1970 status of the Postal Service as a Cabinet-level department of the federal government. Postal employees were covered by the General Schedule (GS) for federal civil servants—mostly as GS Grade 5 employees—before 1970. At the time, there were 10 steps in Grade 5 and it took 21 years to get to top step pay. The PRA mandated a “pay compression,” reducing the time to reach top step from 21 years to eight years, a demand made by the NALC and other unions during the Great Postal Strike.

Of course, once the era of direct postal bargaining began, every detail in the letter carrier pay schedule—the step levels, the waiting periods, the promotion pay slotting rules—became subject to bargaining and/or interest arbitration. Over time, mostly through arbitration awards, the number of steps increased (usually with new lower steps) and the time to reach the top step of the letter carrier pay schedule increased—reaching a high of 13.3 years with the 2019-2023 National Agreement.

The most consequential and painful changes in the structure of letter carrier pay came from the Das Award in 2013, when we bargained during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The collapse of the global financial system devastated the mailing industry and threatened the solvency of the Postal Service. The Das Award created two new tables: Table 2 for career carriers hired after Jan. 12, 2013, with lower starting pay, but the same top pay as carriers hired before then (covered by a new Table 1 schedule); and Table 3 for CCAs, a new, larger class of non-career carriers with much lower pay and benefits).  

On the other hand, NALC also won pay schedule upgrades in the Fleischli Award in 1999 (moving regular carriers from Grade 5 to Grade 6 and carrier technicians from Grade 6 to Grade 7) and in the voluntary agreement that set the terms of the 2016-2019 National Agreement. That agreement “consolidated” the two city carrier grades into the higher grade and created a new carrier technician premium (of 2.1 percent instead of maintaining a separate grade for such carriers.

Our current contract, the Nolan Award, reversed the trend of adding steps and increasing the waiting time to reach top step. We fought hard and won the elimination of Steps AA and A and achieved a time reduction from 13.3 to 12.4 years to reach top step. Step increases below Step O now raise pay by at least 2.7 percent every 46 weeks.

One other note: In the rest of the federal government, where federal unions have no right to negotiate wages, the General Schedule system remains in place. It now takes federal employees in other agencies 18 years to reach top step. If you want to know the real value of collective bargaining for letter carriers, look up the pay rates of GS 5 federal employees today.

Stability of NALC settlements
One of the more remarkable qualities of NALC contracts over the 16 rounds of bargaining is the relative stability of the agreements reached. This is particularly true when compared to private-sector labor contracts, which have a boom-and-bust quality. In most years since 1972, the NALC’s contract featured two COLAs and one general increase each year. In a handful of years, we had two COLAs and two general wage increases, but the pattern remains consistent. The most notable exception was the Das Award, which set the terms of the 2011-2016 National Agreement, when two years went by with no general wage increases. Otherwise, the two COLAs and one G.I. pattern has been remarkably strong.

Over the past half century, the NALC’s record in negotiations, often in the face of economic turmoil, has been impressive. We’ve won or negotiated 149 wage increases since 1971, which comprises 88 COLAs, 59 general wage increases, two pay upgrades, the elimination of two steps at the beginning of Table 2, the addition of one step (Step P) at the end of Tables 1 and 2, and an increase to the annual salary of Step P.

There was only one year, 2012, in which we did not have at least one wage increase of any kind, not counting step increases. At the same time, we fended off outsourcing threats and resisted most givebacks. We have taken our share of lumps during economic recessions—most notably on health benefit contributions and on non-career workers—but we continue to battle on all fronts to defend the interests of letter carriers.

The importance of COLAs
Over the years, NALC has made protecting our COLA clause the highest priority in collective bargaining. We did so, even as other unions in the private sector negotiated away their COLA clauses or weakened them in return for higher general increases or other gains. This protected us from inflation surges in both the 1970s and 1980s and then again in the first decade of the new century and in 2022-2023. In the 2019-2023 contract, for example, our COLA clause generated $6,698 in annual wage hikes and accounted for over 10% of the wage increases we received during that contract. Nobody in 2019 could have predicted the pandemic or the post-pandemic surge in inflation. Our COLA clause protected us against that risk.

Over the years, we rejected USPS proposals to eliminate our COLA clause. We also opposed proposals for a COLA “trigger”—applying the COLA clause only if inflation exceeded a certain level. The Teamsters’ contract with United Parcel Service (UPS), for example, was downgraded with a less generous COLA formula than ours, which kicks in only if inflation exceeds 3.0 percent. As a result, our COLA clause raised top-step salaries by $14,299 annually between 2012 and 2025 while UPS’s COLA generated $2,558 in annual increases over the same period. Our general wage increases have been somewhat lower, but we preferred the reduced risk of having greater protection against inflation.

In 2013, the Das Award did provide the Postal Service with savings on COLA costs by implementing the proportional application of COLAs in Table 2. This ended the practice of giving greater inflation protection to workers in lower steps than those in higher steps—by raising all wages by the same amount of dollars. Now, every letter carrier in Table 2 gets the same percentage increase in pay from COLAs as those in the top step. As discussed below, this change was not welcomed; however, it was made in the context of fighting to preserve other important aspects of the city carrier pay schedule structure.

The bottom line is this: Our COLA clause accounts for more than half of the wage increases negotiated for letter carriers since we won collective-bargaining rights in 1970. That is why we fight so hard to protect it.

Increases in top step city carrier annual salary (Step O/P) by national agreement

The agenda for 2026 bargaining

In less than a year, we will once again return to the collective-bargaining table to hash out the terms of our 17th National Agreement with the Postal Service. Like the negotiations for our last four contracts, they will take place in a period of great uncertainty about the future of the USPS. The past 15 years have been among the most difficult in the 250-year history of the Post Office. Bracketed by the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic and its inflationary aftermath, and shaped by a technological revolution that has dramatically changed the volume and mix of the mail, this period has been especially challenging for our union. It was made dramatically worse by the crushing retiree health prefunding mandate imposed by Congress between 2007 and 2022.

The painful changes in our contract mandated by the Das Award in 2013 have largely set the agenda for our recent rounds of negotiations. That award, implemented amid a global financial crisis, froze wages for a period, created the CCA position, altered the city carrier pay schedule with lower starting pay, and implemented proportional COLAs. But having the right to collective bargaining and access to binding interest arbitration allowed the NALC to avoid much worse outcomes that tens of millions of workers suffered at that time. We fought off a proposal to permanently lower top step pay (and future pension benefits) with a pure two-tier wage structure, and we convinced Arbitrator Das to create a path to career jobs for CCAs that did not exist for casuals and transitional employees (TEs) in prior years. The changes to lower starting pay and the implementing of proportional COLAs were painful, but securing top pay to maximize career earnings and long-term retirement benefits was crucial.

Over the past three rounds of negotiations, we focused on addressing the problems created by the Das Award: improving CCA pay and health benefits, implementing the automatic conversion to career after two years, and reducing (by nearly half) the size of the CCA workforce with our MOU for direct career hiring. We have also raised both top pay (with Step P) and starting career pay with the elimination of Steps AA and A in Table 2—reducing the time to reach top step for the first time since 1971.

In our negotiations next year, we will fight to make more progress to minimize or eliminate the CCA category altogether, to raise Step P to match the step increases of lower steps and to further improve pay for all letter carriers. At the same time, we will aggressively defend our most important contract protections: the COLA clause, the ban on subcontracting and our protections against layoffs. As always, our unity and solidarity will be essential to our success.

Branch presidents may begin registering their MBA Representative for the training through the branch president’s Members Only page. The registration directions are below.

The class will begin at 2 p.m. Eastern time and will be an hour-and-a-half long.

NALC has developed the ability to create a registration and training gateway through the “MEMBERS ONLY” portal on the NALC website.

Registration

Once a meeting has been scheduled through the “MEMBERS ONLY” portal, branch presidents will need to register their members in order for them to attend. To access the registration option, branch presidents can go to the NALC website and log on to the “MEMBERS ONLY” portal.  Once logged in to the “MEMBERS ONLY” portal, click the “Meetings Registration” button, which will display a list of upcoming meetings.  From there, presidents can register a member(s) by entering their last name in the “Search” box and selecting the correct member from the drop-down list. A member can also be removed from the “Registry” list by checking the box under the delete column next to the corresponding member. Branch presidents will not be able to register more than the maximum number of attendees per branch or exceed the maximum number of attendees for that session. The maximum number of registrants per branch and for the session, as well as the registered-to-date counts, are displayed on the registration screen.

Training Materials

Training materials and other pertinent information may be supplied for each session in the form of PDF documents. These documents will be available to registrants on their “MEMBERS ONLY” page. The documents can be printed, copied, and/or saved.

Accessing Meeting Information and/or Joining the Meeting

When a registered member wants to access training materials, view topics, or join a meeting, they can go to the NALC website and log on to the “MEMBERS ONLY” portal.  Once logged into the portal, the member will press the “Meetings” button, which will display a list of those meetings the member is registered to attend. For each meeting, there will be three buttons: the “Documents” button will give the member access to the training materials; the “Topics” button will give the member access to a list of topics (if any); and the “Join” button.  The “Join” button will appear 10 minutes prior to the start time on the day of the meeting.  If you log into the “MEMBERS ONLY” portal sooner than 10 minutes prior to the start of the meeting, you will need to exit to the home page and re-enter to access the “Join” button. Once you select the join button, you will be taken to a WebEx website titled “Starting your meeting…”.  Scroll down to select “Join from your browser.”  When joining, the member will be prompted to enter their name and email address in order to attend the meeting. Proceed by selecting the “next” button followed by the “Join Meeting” button.

Today, NALC President Brian L. Renfroe testified before the House Subcommittee on Government Operations at a hearing on mail theft and crime.

In his opening remarks, President Renfroe set the tone with a clear message. “To protect America’s mail, we must start with protecting the people who deliver it,” he said.

While once rare, Renfroe explained that these crimes and assaults have been on the rise in recent years. He urged Congress to pass the bipartisan Protect Our Letter Carriers Act (H.R. 1065/S. 463), referencing the five letter carriers who have been tragically murdered on the job in the last few years, the thousands of other letter carriers who have been victims of crime, and the alarmingly low conviction rates for these cases. 

Regarding the Postal Service’s Project Safe Delivery plan, Renfroe said NALC supported the initiative and the work of the Postal Inspection Service, but that “the scope of the problem has severely outgrown their capacity to protect us.”

“We can’t wait for another letter carrier to be murdered or more violent federal crimes against civil servants who serve the American people every day to decide it’s finally time for legislative action. The time is now,” he said.

Renfroe reminded the subcommittee that this is “not a partisan or political issue” or “a finger pointing exercise or blame game.” 

“It is a problem that everyone should recognize and be 100 percent behind addressing. No one wants violent crime in their neighborhood,” he added.

Renfroe emphasized that protecting letter carriers must be a top priority. “Letter carriers want nothing more than to serve our people, but we must be protected. And the people that commit these crimes must be arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced.”

The subcommittee also included witnesses Brendan Donahue, Inspector in Charge at the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; Julius Rothstein, Deputy Inspector General at the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General; Frank Albergo, President of the Postal Police Officers Association; and Anthony Holloway, Chief of Police at the St. Petersburg, Florida Police Department.

Overall, questions focused on types of mail theft, what is driving an increase in these crimes, the role of postal police officers, Project Safe Delivery, and what more can be done to protect mail and postal employees.

In his opening remarks, Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX) recognized that criminals have increasingly targeted letter carriers, referencing an 845 percent increase in letter carrier robberies from 2019 to 2023.

In his questioning, Ranking Member Kweisi Mfume (D-MD) emphasized that mail theft is about more than data. “It’s also about human beings who are on the other side of the equation. We refer to them as letter carriers. They work day in and day out to make sure that the service that we’ve come to take for granted is still there,” he said.

Ranking Member Mfume then asked Renfroe how the current postal lock and key system works. Renfroe explained the issues with the current method, referenced the Postal Service’s modernization efforts, and explained that passing the bipartisan Protect Our Letter Carriers Act is the most efficient way to modernize all postal locks and keys.

President Renfroe’s full testimony is available here.

“Reaching a House majority sends a clear message that any privatization proposal would be dead on arrival in Congress,” NALC President Brian L. Renfroe said. “This milestone comes at a critical time, only a few days after the new postmaster general started his tenure.

“This majority threshold should remind the administration, private shippers, and members of Congress who have not yet signed on that Americans have no appetite for privatization. They trust the Postal Service and their letter carriers. They want the agency to succeed. That starts with ensuring USPS remains an independent, non-taxpayer-funded, nonpartisan agency.”

While we celebrate this achievement, there is still work to do to increase House co-sponsors and reach majority support for the Senate companion resolution, S. Res. 147. Click here to take action.

“Letter carriers should be proud of their hard work to reach majority support in the House,” President Renfroe said. “Let’s work together to continue that effort in the Senate and keep fighting like hell to reach a majority in both chambers.”

On Dec. 12, 2024, NALC joined the APWU, NPMHU, and NRLCA in a national-level arbitration concerning employees who had been separated after completing probation due to an unfavorable NACI (National Agency Check with Inquiries) background check.  The background checks are conducted by the Postal Inspection Service (PIS) and are standard for all newly hired postal employees.

The dispute escalated to the interpretive step after management argued that the separations were "administrative" and not subject to arbitration, claiming they were based on failure to meet a condition of employment rather than disciplinary action. However, the unions contended that once an employee completes probation, they are entitled to the full protection of the collective bargaining agreement, including the right to challenge terminations.

Arbitrator Newman rejected the Postal Service’s claim that the separations were outside the scope of the contract, noting that the National Agreement does not exclude such disputes from arbitration. She emphasized that the only explicit exclusion from grievance applies to probationary employees. In addition, Arbitrator Newman maintained that the Postal Service must prove it had just cause for the separation, as required by Article 16 of the National Agreement. Read the award here: C-37276.

Branch Officers Training sessions consist of three and a half days of educational seminars tailored to assist branch presidents, vice presidents, treasurers, recording secretaries, financial secretaries, and trustees in the performance of their duties.

Branch Officers Training covers the basics for financial officers: reporting to the Department of Labor; fiduciary duties under the Landrum-Griffin Act; bonding of branch officers and IRS reporting requirements.

Additional training topics include the NALC Constitution and branch bylaws; branch operations and identifying branch policies; maintaining accurate and complete meeting minutes; member notification requirements; record keeping; branch elections and branch dues and how to read a dues roster.

The registration form for the training will be included in the next NALC Bulletin. Branches and State Associations must use the registration form to register for the class.

Note: Do not make airline reservations until you receive an acceptance letter, as the training has limited space. For budgeting purposes, the daily room rate for the training in Boston is $299 single/double plus tax. 

The Postal Service has informed NALC that the eliminations of Table 2 Steps AA and A were completed and put into effect on July 12, 2025 (PP 16-2025). In conjunction with the elimination of Steps AA and A, all city carriers in those steps were advanced to Step B and began a new 46-week waiting period to be completed before advancing to the next step.

Retroactive (back pay) provisions

USPS has also confirmed that back-pay calculations are still ongoing, and payments are expected to be seen in the Aug. 29 paycheck. The retroactive pay will include Nov. 18, 2023, and Nov. 16, 2024, general wage increases (plus the 1 percent additional increases for city carrier assistants on those dates) and the first four cost-of-living adjustments for career carriers.

Click here for more information.

Of particular note to letter carriers, the final package was stripped of any provision that would negatively impact letter carriers, our bargaining rights, and the postal network. 

In the last two months of congressional consideration, many direct threats were proposed. These included increasing Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) contribution rates as high as 15.6 percent, calculating annuities based on the high-5 average salary instead of the current high-3, eliminating the FERS Special Annuity Supplement,  forcing new federal hires to choose between at-will employment or an increased FERS contribution, imposing a fee for Merit Systems Protection Board Claims and Appeals, taking back unspent funds designated for USPS electric vehicles (EVs) and requiring the agency to sell all its EVs and associated infrastructure, and attacks on other federal employees’ collective bargaining rights.  

Ultimately, NALC successfully got all threats directly targeting letter carriers removed.

"Letter carriers' activism and NALC's strong bipartisan relationships helped us defeat devastating provisions for current and future letter carriers,” NALC President Brian L. Renfroe said. “We successfully delivered a powerful message to Capitol Hill. When lawmakers come after our 295,000 members’ jobs, retirements and futures, we say, 'Hell no!'" 

Overall, H.R. 1 claims to cut government spending. However, it allocates billions of dollars for border security, immigration enforcement, and defense measures and makes permanent President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts while extending corporate tax breaks. All the while, the measure limits eligibility and funding for Medicaid, student loan repayments, and clean energy tax credits. The bill is estimated to increase the deficit by $3.3 trillion over 10 years and cost $507.6 billion over the same time.  

“While the White House and some in Congress may claim victory following today’s passage, the real victory is NALC fending off innumerable attacks on our retirement benefits and the postal vehicles we desperately need in a massive bill that guts working families,” Renfroe said. “This legislation prioritizes corporations and the wealthiest Americans, instead of the workers who keep this country running.

"I am proud that NALC members came together and fought like hell to defend what we’ve earned, deserve and were promised. Unfortunately, this process is expected to happen again later this year for the next fiscal year. NALC members are ready to fight like hell, just as we do every day to protect each other."

The budget reconciliation process allows Senate Republicans to bypass Democratic opposition and advance President Trump’s sweeping tax, immigration, energy, and healthcare agenda with a simple majority, rather than the usual 60-vote threshold.

Notably, thanks to NALC’s efforts, two major attacks on letter carriers that were proposed during the Senate process were ultimately removed from the package.

Increasing the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) contribution rate to 15.6 percent for all postal employees hired after Jan. 1, 2026, and taking back any unspent funds designated for USPS electric vehicles (EVs) and requiring the agent to sell all its EVs and associated infrastructure were removed.

“I would like to thank every letter carrier who contacted their members of Congress to help us win this fight,” NALC President Brian L. Renfroe said. “While the process is not over, this is a major step forward to guaranteeing our retirement benefits stay off the table and the new postal vehicles we desperately need are protected. This victory is a powerful reminder of what’s possible when our union comes together and fights for what is best for every letter carrier.”

During the vote-a-rama, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) introduced an amendment of the idea that had already been shut down: rescinding any unspent funds for USPS EVs. The amendment failed.

Overall, H.R. 1 aims to cut government spending while extending corporate tax breaks. It would make permanent President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year. The package allocates billions of dollars for border security, immigration enforcement, and defense measures while limiting eligibility and funding for Medicaid, student loan repayments, and clean energy tax credits. The bill is estimated to increase the deficit by $3.3 trillion over 10 years and cost $507.6 billion over the same time.

H.R. 1 now heads back to the House, where the margins are razor thin. Members of the House Freedom Caucus, as well as moderate Republicans, have already expressed reservations about the Senate-passed bill, which includes notable changes from the House version that passed on May 22. These changes include increasing the debt limit by $5 trillion instead of $4 trillion, increasing the state-and-local tax (SALT) deduction cap to $40,000 for five years, instead of permanently, and making permanent several business tax cuts that were temporary in the House bill.

The House is expected to vote on the bill as early as tomorrow to meet President Trump’s July 4 deadline.

NALC will keep letter carriers informed as the process progresses.