Are you curious if your wages are keeping up with the average hourly wages in America? Well, the Postal Service does not seem to be keeping up with the wage growth that the average worker is experiencing and contract negotiations with postal unions do not bode well for repairing the stagnant wages of postal workers.
Average hourly earnings increased by 0.5% to $25.39, the Labor Department said Friday. From a year earlier, hourly wages are up 2.5%, a slight slowdown from the prior month’s 2.7% annual advance, but again one of the best performances since the recession ended.
As you can see, the Postal Service wage is not keeping up by far, for example, a starting Level 4 Career Mail Handler is only $17.07/hour. Even sadder, a Mail Handler that is topped out at the level 4 rate earns only $27.03/hour ...not so much for a laborious job with odd hours and off days. All of this while the Postal Service continues to profit, yet argues against unions for even average pay raises. All of this while doing more with less. Can you expect the 2.5% average U.S. worker annual advance being garnered by others? If contract negotiations with other unions are any indication, you can rest assured you will not see it from the USPS. That is not to say the USPS will not do the right thing and provide a 2.5% increase, but it does not look likely. An arbitration agreement may provide some relief should negotiations fail to provide adequate wage increases and it comes to that.
However, in spite of being well below average in wages, the average Mail Handler continues to provide excellent service to the employer and this great country. Sometimes the only reward we get as a postal worker is the pride we feel in providing the best service available in the mailing industry for the best price and with the best attitude toward our loyal customers. All of this from a group of workers that have largely already served our country as military service men and women. We all know that serving our country is in our blood and we continue to do so with pride and quality.
