Some 200,000 mail carriers have reached a tentative contract deal with the U.S. Postal Service that includes backdated pay raises and a promise to provide workers with air-conditioned trucks, according to the Associated Press.
The new agreement, which still needs to be ratified by union members, runs through November 2026. Letter carriers have been working without a new contract since their old one expired in May 2023. Since then they have continued working under the terms of the old contract.
As part of the agreement, all city carriers will get three annual pay increases of 1.3% each by 2025, some of which will be paid retroactively from Nov. 2023. Workers will also receive retroactive and future cost-of-living adjustments.
There is also a commitment from the Postal Service to “make every effort” to provide mail trucks with air-conditioning. In the summer, the Postal Service began rolling out its new electric delivery vehicles, which come equipped with air-conditioning.
Within a few years, the new fleet will have expanded to 60,000, most of them electric models, serving as the Postal Service’s primary delivery truck from Maine to Hawaii.
