The National Postal Mail Handlers Union bargaining team met with representatives of the U.S. Postal Service on June 27, 2019 to mark the official start of the collective bargaining process for a successor agreement to replace the 2019 National Agreement which is scheduled to expire on September 20, 2019. The NPMHU is committed to making every reasonable effort to reach an agreement that is good for our members, good for the Postal Service, and good for the American mailing public.
The return of normal growth in the American economy should mean a return to more normalized collective bargaining. At the same time, a long period of downsizing, which absent legislative reform may have to continue in the coming years, also should be a time for the parties to agree on a period of relatively stable labor relations, without the massive disruptions and dislocations caused by the unwarranted closing of mail processing facilities, by unnecessary subcontracting or privatization, and by unjustified projects that are created and sponsored by a postal bureaucracy that seeks to explain its own existence,” said National President Paul Hogrogian.
The Mail Handlers Union remains deeply committed to the negotiating process. Certainly, the NPMHU will continue to work with the Postal Service so that Congress enacts postal reform legislation: to obtain relief from mandatory payments into the Retirees Health Benefit Fund; to allow for more rational investments of the monies already in that Fund; to integrate the postal health care system into Medicare; to expand the mailing and other services that the Postal Service offers to the American public; and to stop the unwise closings and consolidations of mail processing facilities. But it is at the bargaining table where most other issues belong. We expect, and will demand, that the Postal Service engage in good-faith bargaining on all of the issues that are properly the subject of mutual bargaining.
The NPMHU will put out periodic updates, in the form of bulletin board postings, as bargaining progresses.