"We are aware of a document circulating on the internet that purports to be communication from USPS Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino dated March 17, 2025, regarding our upcoming interest arbitration process. That document is completely fabricated. It is fake. Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino did not author or distribute the document."

We are fully prepared and looking forward to beginning the interest arbitration process on Monday, March 17."

NALC is aware of the agreement between the Postal Service, GSA and DOGE to assist with “identifying and achieving certain efficiencies.” We remain in contact with the Postal Service regarding DOGE’s efforts at USPS and any potential impact on NALC members.

The safety of our members always comes first. That includes their information and data. Prior to DOGE’s engagement with the Postal Service, we prepared for potential legal action if DOGE was to gain access to our members’ information in USPS records in violation of any applicable laws and regulations. We also expressed our concern over the privacy of our members’ information to Postal Service leadership. Our understanding of the agreement between USPS and DOGE is that it does not grant such access. We commend the Postal Service leadership for protecting employee information. Still, we will continue closely monitoring the situation and will fight like hell against any attack on the rights and privacy of NALC members.  

In a letter to Congressional leaders today, Postmaster General DeJoy laid out some of the “big problems” DOGE could assist with. Some of these are issues we have been actively engaged in and advocating for years. These include USPS’s misallocated pension liabilities, which have cost the agency tens of billions of dollars, and a new investment strategy for USPS’s three retirement funds, which are currently held in Treasury bonds, missing out on hundreds of millions in annual returns.

These policy changes are needed to improve the Postal Service’s financial viability, and we welcome anyone’s help who can influence Congress and the Administration to finally enact them.

As DOGE attempts to tackle these or any other issues at the Postal Service, it is important that they know what our members do and who they are. Letter carriers are lifelines to American communities who uphold our Constitutionally mandated service obligation by delivering to 169 million delivery points, including 51.5 million rural households and businesses, six and sometimes seven days a week.

Five years ago, during a global pandemic when most businesses shut down, letter carriers did not take one day off. We did not work from home. Instead, we delivered every single day, just as we have for 250 years.

If DOGE wants to improve the Postal Service’s finances, the above actions will do just that. Misguided ideas like privatization will not. Common sense solutions are what the Postal Service needs, not privatization efforts that will threaten 640,000 postal employees’ jobs, 7.9 million jobs tied to our work, and the universal service every American relies on daily.

On Sunday, March 23, NALC branches are encouraged to host local rallies to say “Hell no!” to dismantling the Postal Service.

With branches holding events nationwide on the same day, we will send a clear, unified message: Hands off USPS!

If your branch is interested in hosting an event on March 23, please contact your national business agent’s (NBA) office.

NALC Headquarters will work with NBA offices to ensure that each event has materials and resources to be successful. To guarantee the delivery of supplies, all event requests must be submitted to NBA offices by Thursday, March 6.

“These local rallies nationwide will bring together NALC members and the public to show their support for letter carriers, all postal employees, and the Postal Service,” NALC President Brian L. Renfroe said. “At a crucial time, this is an opportunity to educate our customers about everything at stake if the Postal Service is privatized or restructured.

“Our jobs, our service, and the entire Postal Service are on the line. We need everyone’s help in our fight like hell against these attacks. I encourage every NALC branch to mobilize and host a local rally on March 23.”

Beneficiaries who are owed retroactive benefits will receive a one-time retroactive payment. This payment will date back to January 2024, the month when WEP and GPO no longer applied.

Social Security benefits are paid one month behind, so most affected beneficiaries will begin receiving their new monthly benefit amount in April 2025 (for their March 2025 benefit).

The agency has expedited payments through automation but cautioned that complex cases cannot be processed automatically and will require additional time.

Affected beneficiaries are urged to wait until April to inquire about the status of their retroactive payment since these payments will be processed incrementally throughout March.

For more information, please visit SSA’s Social Security Fairness Act web page.

While the White House has yet to release an executive order regarding the Postal Service, the threat is looming.

On Monday, hundreds of NALC members, union leaders, and other union members rallied in Washington, DC, against these potential efforts. Together, we must continue sending a loud and clear message: Hands off the Postal Service!

Join us for NALC’s Wednesday, Feb. 26 Day of Action as we tell the White House “hell no!” to dismantling the Postal Service.

Click here to contact the White House.

Questions? Follow these steps.

1. Click here.
2. Complete the form.
3. Add a brief message or copy and paste the sample language below into the comment box (4,000 characters max).
4. Click “Submit.”

Sample language

I am a proud letter carrier employed by the United States Postal Service. Any effort to dismantle or privatize USPS is a threat to my job, the jobs of all 640,000 postal employees (73,000 of whom are veterans), the 51.5 million rural addresses who rely on our service, and our nation’s Constitution. USPS isn’t funded by taxpayer dollars, and for the sake of every American who depends on the Postal Service, it should remain a self-sufficient independent agency. Hands off USPS!

Over 65 percent of current letter carriers began their USPS careers as casuals, transitional employees (TEs) or city carrier assistants (CCAs), all of which are non-career positions. More than 132,000 letter carriers who started in non-career positions, in most cases doing the exact same work as career employees, have time currently not credible towards their retirement.  H.R. 1522 would allow these affected letter carriers the opportunity to purchase retirement credit for the time they spent in these non-career positions, providing greater retirement security.

The bill was introduced with 24 bipartisan co-sponsors and is identical to the version introduced last Congress, which had 131 bipartisan co-sponsors.

“NALC appreciates Chairman Connolly, Rep. Budzinski, Rep. Valadao, and Rep Bacon’s leadership on this bill that would benefit so many of our members,” NALC President Brian L. Renfroe said. “This bill is about fairness for public servants. Letter carriers put in the hours and the hard work, and it’s only fair that their time spent in non-career positions count towards their well-deserved retirements. NALC urges the House to pass this bill.”

Take action

Click here to ask your members of Congress to co-sponsor H.R. 1522.

Click here for our fact sheet.

Today, NALC held an event on Capitol grounds to send a clear message to the White House: Hell no to dismantling the Postal Service!

Hundreds of NALC members from across the country, labor leaders, and union members attended.

"I want to be very clear. This is a direct attack on 640,000 Postal Service employees, the universal service we provide, and every citizen who relies on the Postal Service," NALC President Brian L. Renfroe told the crowd.

"This isn't about politics. Regardless of how they voted last year, I can guarantee they did not vote for destroying one of our nation's oldest and most beloved institutions – the United States Postal Service.

“Here today, with all our supporters and friends, when they try to dismantle the Postal Service, what do we say?” The crowd responded with a resounding, “Hell no!”

Speakers included: Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (D-VA), AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond, APWU President Mark Dimondstein, TTD President Greg Regan, CWA President Claude Cummings, Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-IL), Union Veterans Council Executive Director Will Attig, Letters to a Pre-Scientist CEO Lucy Madden, AGMA Soloist Vice President Andrew Stenson, AFA President Sara Nelson, AFGE Vice President Ottis Johnson, ATU President John Costa, Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-IL), and Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-HI).

NALC organized this event after reports last week that President Trump was planning to issue an executive order that would fire the Postal Board of Governors and place the agency under the control of the Commerce Department, changing USPS from the independent self-sufficient agency it has been for 55 years.

NALC completely opposes any efforts to privatize the Postal Service, cut service, or fundamentally restructure the agency.

Earlier this month, NALC launched its “Fight Like Hell” campaign with an event at NALC Headquarters. Today was the next event in this series to bring public awareness to the threats to our jobs and the entire Postal Service.

Stay tuned for more information about upcoming events and actions near you.

NALC President Brian L. Renfroe released the following statement regarding reports from The Washington Post that President Donald Trump plans to issue an executive order firing the members of the Postal Board of Governors and placing the agency under the control of the Commerce Department:

The 295,000 active and retired members of the National Association of Letter Carriers have a message to deliver to the White House: Hands off the Postal Service.

Every day, 200,000 active city letter carriers uphold the Postal Service’s constitutionally mandated universal service obligation, delivering 376 million pieces of mail and packages to nearly 169 million delivery points nationwide. USPS is central to a $1.92 trillion mailing industry. U.S. letter carriers deliver 44 percent of the world’s mail. 

No private shipper guarantees or offers this unmatched universal service. Without our work, 51.5 million households and businesses in rural communities would have no guaranteed deliveries of medications, checks, ballots, and other essential mail and packages. 

The reported executive order jeopardizes the jobs of 640,000 postal employees, more than 73,000 of whom are veterans, and would affect the 7.9 million people employed in the mailing industry. While the potential consequences are deeply alarming, these proposals are also unconstitutional and illegal. 

The Postal Service is older than our country and is enshrined in the Constitution. It is a service for the public good funded by postage and stamp sales, not taxpayer dollars. 

The Constitution, carefully crafted by our nation’s founders, gives Congress, not the president, a key role in setting postal policy. In fact, the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 removed the Post Office Department from the president’s Cabinet and created USPS as the independent agency that exists today. 

Americans should see this reported executive order for what it is: a direct attack on USPS employees, our universal service, and every citizen who relies on the Postal Service. 

The public consistently ranks the Postal Service as one of the most trusted government agencies. That’s because Americans can count on their letter carrier in every community nationwide. 

We are fighting like hell against any privatization efforts or reorganizational mandates. We will do everything in our power to ensure we continue upholding our universal service obligation that Americans depend on through a strong and public Postal Service. 

Branch presidents may begin registering branch officers for the training through the branch president’s Members Only portal. The registration directions are below.

This session covers completing the annual LM-2, a lengthy report that is required to be filed by branches with total annual receipts of more than $250,000.

The class will begin at noon Eastern time and will be four and a half hours long.

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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 at nalc.org and log in 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 PDFs. These documents will be available to registrants in their Members Only portal. 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 at nalc.org and log on to the Members Only portal. Once logged in to 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 pop-up 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.  

The parties’ ongoing dispute over terms of a new agreement will now be decided in the interest arbitration process. The parties have selected Arbitrator Dennis R. Nolan to serve as the chair of the three-person arbitration panel. Information on hearing dates for interest arbitration will be shared as soon as the schedule is confirmed.

“While there was some movement on the issues that matter to letter carriers during this 15-day period of good faith bargaining, it was not enough to produce a fair contract for the active members of NALC. We have been preparing our case for interest arbitration since before we officially opened this round of contract negotiations,” NALC President Brian L. Renfroe said. “We have built a strong case, and we will fight like hell in interest arbitration to achieve the best collective bargaining agreement for letter carriers that the process can produce.”

During his tenure, NALC has worked in good faith with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on behalf of the nation’s 200,000 active letter carriers. We remain committed to these efforts in his remaining time as head of the agency.

Notably, we are still fighting for a better contract. Whether our next collective-bargaining agreement is reached through a negotiated agreement and ratification process or in interest arbitration, we are committed to achieving the best results for our members under Postmaster General DeJoy or his successor.

In his statement, DeJoy praised USPS’s 640,000 employees and acknowledged our perseverance and adaptability. In his remaining time as postmaster general, we call on DeJoy to bring this to the negotiation table and come to terms on an agreement that gives the nation’s letter carriers what we have earned and deserve.

In its search for the next USPS leader, NALC urges the Board of Governors to seek out an individual with the necessary experience and expertise to lead the agency at this critical time. We need someone who values the workforce and is committed to preserving and improving universal service.

The Postal Service is older than our country and is mandated in the Constitution. The next postmaster general must guarantee that letter carriers can continue safely performing their constitutionally mandated service in every community nationwide.

As we always have, NALC will ensure that letter carriers’ priorities are known regardless of who leads the Postal Service.