August 5-9, 2024 Boston Convention and Exhibition Center
50 The Postal Record August 2024 Finally, the department moni- tors the sentiment of the broader industry about USPS, as their sat- isfaction with the agency has a direct impact on mail volume and revenue. As mentioned above, mail- ers have voiced significant concern about the frequency and magnitude of Market Dominant price increases in the last two years. One coalition Research Department city and rural carrier crafts at the Postal Service combined. In many areas, Amazon carefully sets wages to ensure that they are competitive to attract workers, sometimes pay- ing above $25 per hour, though the jobs do not include the benefits found at the Postal Service. Despite the competitive pay, the jobs are incredibly dangerous and demand- ing, and turnover is extremely high. The company also uses an employ- ment model that makes it very dif- ficult for workers to organize. With- out the ability to organize, Amazon drivers have little power, and the company has an outsized impact on the quality of delivery jobs across the market. Second, research staff follows the negotiations of unions at other major companies to look for trends and gather ideas for our negotia- tions. We follow the Teamsters’ re- lationship with UPS most closely, as UPS is a direct competitor of the Postal Service. In July 2023, after months of preparation and estab- lishing a credible strike threat, the Teamsters and UPS reached an agreement on a historic contract. The agreement included sizeable wage increases and, particularly interesting for NALC, the elimina- tion of a lower-tier job classification similar to the city carrier assistant position. Another labor gain of in- terest was the UAW’s win against the Big Three automakers in No- vember 2023. Like the Teamsters- UPS contract, the UAW contracts included sizable wage increases and the elimination of lower-wage tiers, along with the restoration of COLAs. These were both helpful in the development of our case for po- tential interest arbitration.
commissioned a paper to look at the impacts of price increases on mail volume, warning that USPS is underestimating how much these increases are driving away some of its biggest customers. As also noted above, the PRC has opened a docket to investigate these concerns, and the Research Department will work with NALC leadership to decide if engaging in this docket would have a positive impact on city carriers. Labor and the economy The Research Department also an- alyzes broader economic indicators, evaluates how these indicators may affect letter carriers and the labor movement, and alerts union leader- ship about these findings. The department explores the forces that affect working people, such as the declining real value of the minimum wage; income and wealth inequality; the gap between productivity and wages; employee compensation trends; and the lat- est trends in the labor market. We also analyze data related to union membership so that NALC may gain a better understanding of the state of unionized America and how NALC membership compares to that of the overall workforce. The department also tracks the state of the economy as a whole, looking at various economic data, in- cluding the core CPI, CPI for delivery services and postage, gross domes- tic product, delivery worker employ- ment data, e-commerce sales, labor costs and compensation, and any other data involving the general la- bor market and the market for those employed in delivery capacities. This data is released on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis and pro- vides NALC with snapshots of how these indicators are performing at a given moment and over the year. While these indicators are often in- complete ways to gauge the health of the economy for letter carriers, they provide NALC with a sense of how the economy might affect letter carriers and USPS.
The unionized labor force saw in- credible gains in 2022 and 2023. 2023 was a historically tumultuous year for labor unrest. The number of union elections climbed to their high- est in nearly two decades, with 1,572 elections in 2022 and 1,666 in 2023. Unions won more than three quar- ters of these elections. More strikes were called in 2023 than in any single year since 2002, covering more than half a million workers—more than in the previous three years combined. And, union contracts negotiated in 2023 gave workers an average first- year wage increase of 6.6 percent, the highest average pay raise for any year since 1988. In 2022, that num- ber was 5.7 percent. Representing NALC at conferences and panels The Research Department repre- sents NALC at various conferences, postal industry meetings, and on panels throughout the year. In ad- dition, the department represents NALC on several AFL-CIO staff com- mittees, including the Affiliates Table on Digital Technology & Artifi- cial Intelligence, the Affiliates Table on Clean Energy Jobs, and the Con- tract Campaign & Strike Hub. In March 2023, the department attended the Labor and Employ- ment Relations Association (LERA) annual meetings in Detroit, MI. LERA brings together the views of representatives of labor, manage- ment, government, academics, advocates and neutrals to share re- search about labor relations. NALC has attended other LERA events in the past, but this is the first time we attended this conference. It proved to be an informative program, es- pecially one session about employ- ment in the delivery industry. NALC eventually hired a researcher from that panel to act as an expert wit- ness for potential interest arbitra- tion proceedings. Later that year, NALC research staff participated in several inter- national solidarity and information-
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