In a historic moment, the Senate passed the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 on March 8 with a vote of 79-19. The House passed the bill last month with a vote of 342-92. The legislation will now go to President Biden’s desk, where he will sign it into law. The enactment of Postal Reform marks a turning point in the fight to protect and strengthen the people’s public Postal Service.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that this bill is one of the most critical pieces of postal legislation in modern history — the struggle to win Postal Reform has been 15 years in the making,” said Legislative and Political Director Judy Beard.

“The passage of this legislation, on a strong bipartisan basis, is a monumental victory for postal workers, the wider postal community, and the communities we are proud to serve,” said APWU President Mark Dimondstein. “This legislation strengthens the public Postal Service, a national treasure that has connected us for over 250 years.”

The Postal Reform bill will place the United States Postal Service on the path toward financial stability by repealing the onerous and financially debilitating pre-funding mandate, ensuring six-day delivery, adding much-needed transparency to postal operations, and maximizing participation in Medicare — a program which the Postal Service and its employees have contributed over $34 billion toward — by enacting prospective Medicare integration. Postal Reform is fair to active and retired postal workers and is a crucial development in the fight to preserve and strengthen the peoples’ Postal Service.

“Thanks to the efforts carried out by postal workers, our sister unions, allied organizations, and the American public, comprehensive postal reform is now a reality,” said Legislative and Political Director Judy Beard. “The APWU applauds every member of Congress who played a role in crafting and passing this monumental legislation.”

Please read our Postal Reform Q&A for more information about the legislation.

The main Collective Bargaining Agreement (union contract) between the APWU and the USPS has been overwhelmingly ratified by the members. The contract was signed by APWU President Mark Dimondstein and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on February 28, 2022.  

Ninety-Four percent (94%) of the members who voted, voted “Yes!” in favor of ratification. The vote tally was 36,632 votes for ratification and 2,290 against. 

“I am ecstatic that the membership recognized the solid gains that this Agreement provides to the 165,000 APWU members from all crafts,” President and lead negotiator Mark Dimondstein stated. “Every member should be very proud of this huge accomplishment. Our power at the bargaining table begins with each of you, the foundation of our union.”   

Director of Industrial Relations and chief spokesperson, Vance Zimmerman said, “I am proud of this Agreement and am happy that the membership recognized the hard work of the National Negotiating Committee, the other officers who helped with the negotiations, and the diligent work of our support staff to make this contract a reality.” He continued, “Now the work of implementation begins in earnest.” 

In addition to the lead negotiator and chief spokesperson, the NCC consisted of Clerk Craft Director Lamont Brooks, Motor Vehicle Director Mike Foster, Maintenance Director Idowu Balogun, Support Services Director Steve Brooks, Executive Vice President Debby Szeredy and Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth “Liz” Powell. 

The tentative contract agreement was reached on December 9, 2021 with unanimous approval of the National Negotiating Committee. It was then unanimously approved by the Rank & File Bargaining Advisory Committee to be sent to the members for a ratification vote. The vote ratification process was  coordinated by APWU Secretary-Treasurer Powell and administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA.)  A sub-committee of the Rank & File Bargaining Advisory Committee consisting of Peggy Whitney, Sandra Munoz, Scott Hoffman, Nicole Burnett and Stacy Brown was on site monitoring the entire vote count, which took place from February 23 – February 28.  

Now that we have a new contract, one of the first items to be dealt with are the pay raises due to employees. These include the first general wage increase of 1.3% for career employees (2.3% for PSEs), effective November 21, 2021; the $1,310 per year COLA increase due to career employees, effective February 26, 2022; and the additional 50 cents per hour increase for PSEs effective on April 9, 2022.  

APWU-represented bargaining unit employees in the IT/AS sector will soon begin programming the payroll system that is required to make these pay changes. Once programming is completed, retroactive payments will be made to the affected employees, with the dates of these payments to be announced. Please check apwu.org for updated information on retroactive payments 

Additionally, the parties are in the process of finalizing a print version of the Collective Bargaining Agreement as well as updating the Joint Contract Interpretation Manual.   

“I congratulate the members on this agreement which will provide wage increases, COLAs, job security, improved PTF rights and even more career opportunities for the non-career workforce,” Director Zimmerman said.  

President Dimondstein concluded by saying, “We should never forget that our Collective Bargaining rights were won through the courage of our forefathers and foremothers in the historic 1970 wildcat strike. The lives of literally millions of postal workers and our families have been changed for the better over the last fifty years.”  

On January 31, 2021, Arbitrator Sharnoff issued a lengthy award on the APWU-NPMHU jurisdictional disputes over the AFCS and AFCS 200. The APWU successfully prevailed in protecting Clerk Work when Arbitrator Sharnoff affirmed that Clerks should be assigned to work the Operator position on the AFCS 200.   
 
As part of the historic 2018 APWU-USPS-NPMHU RI-399 update agreement, the unions and the Postal Service agreed to arbitrate the unions’ cross-disputes on the AFCS and the AFCS 200.  The APWU defended the Postal Service’s assignment of the AFCS 200 Operator position to clerks, an assignment the APWU felt was properly assigned to the APWU.  The Arbitrator agreed with the APWU keeping the Operator position on the AFCS 200 assigned to Clerks. 
 
Arbitrator Sharnoff confirmed that there is a high bar for overturning the Postal Service’s jurisdictional determinations – based on the information available to the Postal Service at the time it makes its decision, the Postal Service’s decision cannot be arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, based on improper considerations, or otherwise constitute “an abuse of the USPS’s discretion to make such determinations under the RI-399 Guidelines.”  The NPMHU failed to get over this bar with its claims that the Operator position on the significantly redesigned AFCS 200 should be assigned to Mail Handlers.  Given the changes to the Operator position and the distribution functions of the AFCS 200, Arbitrator Sharnoff confirmed that the Postal Service’s jurisdictional grant to Clerks was proper.   
 
Arbitrator Sharnoff’s Award means that Clerks must be assigned to the Operator position on the AFCS 200.  Any pending RI-399 disputes at the local level should be settled in accordance with this Award. Contact Lynn Pallas-Barber with any questions that may arise in implementing Arbitrator Sharnoff’s Award at the local level.  
 
This was the second of four jurisdictional arbitrations presented to Arbitrator Sharnoff under the updated RI-399 process for protecting Clerk Craft work.  In the first two cases, the APWU has successfully in defended Clerks continuing to work on the SPSS and the AFCS 200. Many thanks to the efforts of the APWU’s RI-399 national representatives Lynn Pallas-Barber, Assistant Clerk Craft Director, and National RI-399 Representative Ron Suslak, (President Queens Area Local); their guidance along with the expertise and involvement of APWU locals and employees, supported the APWU in once again keeping mail distribution work with Clerks.  

Clerk Division Director Lamont Brooks said, “This is another victory in fight to ensure that Clerk Craft employees are performing all the work that rightfully belongs to them. The battle is not over as we still await two other awards, but rest assured the Clerk Division officers will continue doing all we can to keep our work and add new or additional work to the Clerk Craft—the struggle continues.”
 

All ballot(s) received during this time period will be counted. 

Hopefully this gives everyone the opportunity to receive, complete and return their ballot(s).