WASHINGTON – The U.S. Postal Service is about to begin contract negotiations with its four largest unions. Current contracts with the National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO (NALC), American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO (APWU), National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association (NRLCA), and National Postal Mail Handlers Union (NPMHU) all expire at Midnight Nov. 20, 2006. This is the first time the Postal Service has separately negotiated new contracts with all these unions at the same time.

The following schedule has been set for negotiation opening sessions:

• Aug. 21 – NPMHU
• Aug. 25 – NRLCA
• Aug. 28 – NALC
• Aug. 29 – APWU

“We have worked successfully with our unions in the past to help transform the Postal Service and we hope to maintain this momentum in the current round of negotiations,” said Doug Tulino, Vice President, Labor Relations, for the Postal Service. “Our ultimate goal is to continue to make the Postal Service a great place to work and to reach an agreement that is fair to our customers as well as our employees.”

The Postal Service employs more than 676,000 bargaining unit employees, with APWU, NALC, NRLCA and NPMHU accounting for more than 99.5% of these employees.


Since 1775, the United States Postal Service and its predecessor, the Post Office Department, have connected friends, families, neighbors and businesses by mail. An independent federal agency that visits more than 144 million homes and businesses every day, the Postal Service is the only service provider delivering to every address in the nation. It receives no taxpayer dollars for routine operations, but derives its operating revenues solely from the sale of postage, products and services. With annual revenues of $70 billion, it is the world’s leading provider of mailing and delivery services, offering some of the most affordable postage rates in the world. The U.S. Postal Service delivers more than 46 percent of the world’s mail volume—some 212 billion letters, advertisements, periodicals and packages a year—and serves ten million customers each day at its 37,000 retail locations nationwide.