2025 No. 14 – March 27, 2026 (pdf)

You are reading the fourteenth Contract Update produced and distributed by the NPMHU during the course of 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 been reporting since the conclusion of the Hotel week negotiations in September, our negotiations with the Postal Service continue to focus on economic issues — namely, negotiations around issues such as general wage increases, COLA, night shift differential, and MHA wage rates.

While those negotiations continue, the pace of those discussions and the progress has slowed substantially. As a result, the chances of reaching a negotiated agreement are becoming more remote.

As we wrote in the last Contract Update, in the event that we reach impasse in these negotiations, the Postal Reorganization Act sets out a detailed process for the terms of the National Agreement to be decided. That process would likely culminate in final and binding interest arbitration. The NPMHU has been preparing for that possibility since negotiations began, and our preparations have been intensifying given the possibility that the negotiations could soon reach impasse.

As we have said through the process, while our preference has and remains a negotiated agreement, we will not compromise on our core principles of ensuring that we receive fair wages and working conditions. We will accept nothing less!

We will provide further updates as this process continues.