2025 Contract Update #15 | Contract Talks Reach Impasse
You are reading the fifteenth Contract Update produced and distributed by the NPMHU during the course of the 2025 negotiations. These updates, along with the Union’s magazine and monthly bulletins, will keep mail handlers throughout the country informed and involved in the issues raised during this round of bargaining.
As we have previously reported, while the 2022-2025 National Agreement ended without an agreement, the parties agreed to extend negotiations with the hope that the parties would be able to find a path forward. Notwithstanding extensive negotiations, the parties remain divided on significant issues. As our prior updates have made clear, a core principle of these negotiations is achieving a wage package that fairly and properly compensates mail handlers for the important work that we do every day. Because the terms offered by the Postal Service have fallen short of those goals, the NPMHU informed the Postal Service today that the parties had reached the point of impasse in those negotiations and that the Mail Handlers were invoking the dispute resolution procedures set forth in the Postal Reorganization Act (PRA).
The PRA provides the parties with multiple avenues to turn to the assistance of third parties to conclude the negotiations for a successor contract.
One possibility provided by the PRA is mediation, which is conducted under the supervision of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. The statute instructs the parties that they “shall cooperate with the mediator in an effort to reach an agreement
and shall meet and negotiate in good faith at such times and places that the mediator, in consultation with the parties, shall direct.” Under the PRA, mediation is to continue for at least sixty days, unless the parties agree otherwise, either because they have reached a tentative agreement or because they and the mediator believe that an extension of the mediation process would be appropriate. The mediator does not have the power to issue binding settlements or resolutions, and therefore cannot compel the parties to reach agreement.
In addition to mediation, the PRA also permits the parties to adopt further dispute resolution procedures, which will include binding interest arbitration before an arbitrator or independent decision-maker who will be selected or appointed to that position. That arbitration is likely to take several months to schedule and to implement, so the terms of the 2025 National Agreement may not be known for some time.
To the extent possible during these periods of confidential communications, the National Office will keep all mail handlers informed of developments through the various modes of NPMHU communications, including monthly bulletins and Contract Updates. All members are urged to read these sources of information and the NPMHU website to stay up to date on the latest bargaining and alternative dispute resolution developments, as they occur.
Reference: www.npmhu.org
