Find Your Branch

You'll Never Walk Alone

Hello, NAPS brothers and sisters. As I write this column, we just received word that the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association (NRLCA) has reached a tentative collective bargaining agreement with the Postal Service. We still await completion of USPS negotiations with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC).

The NALC currently is the largest craft employee union and, due to this fact, serves as the initiator of the final countdown for a pay proposal for Executive and Administrative Schedule (EAS) employees. As stated in 39 U.S. Code § 1004(e)(1):

“(e)(1) The Postal Service shall, within 45 days of each date on which an agreement is reached on a collective bargaining agreement between the Postal Service and the bargaining representative recognized under section 1203 of this title which represents the largest number of employees, make a proposal for any changes in pay policies and schedules and fringe benefit programs for members of the supervisors’ organization which are to be in effect during the same period as covered by such agreement.”

I want to point out that nothing in the law states when the USPS should begin to offer NAPS pay proposals for EAS employees. The law only defines the legal requirement for the agency’s latest time for submitting a pay proposal to NAPS. I believe all EAS employees would welcome engagement with the USPS on EAS pay months before the end of our existing pay agreement.

I hope you have had the opportunity to stay informed on some of the issues we have been bringing to the table in our monthly consultative meetings with the Postal Service. These will serve as the blueprint for some of the issues we will advance when the next round of pay talks with USPS leadership commences.

As I continue to humbly serve as your national president, I would like to restate my unwavering commitment to work with your Executive Board as we continue to focus on moving forward for EAS employees. We will continue to pursue fairness and equity for the over 40-year-old supervisory differential adjustment (SDA) that needs to be advanced beyond its current 5%.

We need to have a fair SDA for Vehicle Maintenance Facility (VMF) supervisors. Through the pay/consultative process, NAPS continually has tried at the national level to change and promote a fair and equitable SDA for VMF EAS employees. Based on data from the 2021 Federal Salary Database, 93.43% of PS-10 craft employees earn more in base salary than the EAS managers who supervise them.

We also will work to establish an SDA for the supervisors in HR Shared Services. Effective Oct. 23, 2021, the USPS established the salary and wages for craft employees working as PER PROC SPC (HRSS). Creating this salary and wages schedule facilitates the need for an SDA between these craft employees and the EAS managers who supervise them.

Your resident officers are developing these and other issues with your help as we visit with you at various local events or hear from you via phone calls and emails. We hear you and are committed to walking with you as we address these and all other issues. Richard Rogers wrote a song, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” for the 1945 musical “Carousel:”

When you walk through the storm
Hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark.

At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown.

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone,

You’ll never walk alone.

As I continue to serve you, I am 100% committed to not ever letting you walk alone.

In solidarity…