The National Rural Letter Carriers' Association (NRLCA) is an American labor union that represents the rural letter carriers of the United States Postal Service (USPS). The NRLCA negotiates all labor agreements for the rural carrier craft with the USPS, including salaries, and represents members of the rural carrier craft in the grievance procedure. The NRLCA's stated goal is to "improve the methods used by rural letter carriers, to benefit their conditions of labor with the United States Postal Service, and to promote a fraternal spirit among its members".
Membership To join the NRLCA, one must be employed by the USPS in the rural carrier craft as a rural carrier associate (RCA), substitute rural carrier, rural carrier relief (RCR), part-time flexible (PTF), assistant rural carrier (ARC) or regular carrier (designation code 71). The NRLCA provides information and fellowship for its members at county, district, state and national meetings where all members may participate in a democratic process of developing Association policy. The NRLCA provides a monthly publication, The National Rural Letter Carrier, to keep its members informed on postal and legislative matters of interest.
History
Free mail delivery began in American cities in 1863 with a limited scope. Shortly afterwards, rural citizens began petitioning for equal consideration. Postmaster General John Wanamaker first suggested rural free delivery (RFD) of mail in the United States in his annual report for fiscal year 1891. It began in 1896 with five routes, and the first rural carriers were paid $300 per year for their services. Seven years later, it had expanded to 15,119 routes covering 322,618 miles, however, inadequate pay was still an issue. The NRLCA was formed in 1903 at a cost of fifty cents per year in dues to its members.
In 1906, rural carriers were granted six national holidays. Christmas was not one of them, and did not become a holiday for rural carriers until 1923. In 1924, a special association committee traveled to Washington, D.C. to lobby for an equipment maintenance allowance (EMA). The following year, it became law. In 1928, the NRLCA implemented term limits for its officers, however, term limits were repealed in 1932. In 1941, tire and gasoline rationing from World War II affected rural carriers. NRLCA President Walker gained some exemptions from rationing for rural carriers. In 1946, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) expressed interest in incorporating RFD into their union. In 1947, the NRLCA declined.
On January 17, 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed executive order 10988 establishing employee-management cooperation in the federal service. Rural carriers selected the NRLCA as their agent, and on July 12, the NRLCA became the first postal union to sign a national exclusive contract with the USPS. To qualify, unions needed to demonstrate that they did not discriminate based upon race. Thus, the stipulation that only white delegates shall be eligible to seats in the national convention was quietly lifted from article 3 of the NRLCA's constitution without the passing of a resolution or bylaw. Separate gender pay was also abolished in a ruling by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
On September 8, 1978, the NRLCA was the first postal union to come to an agreement on a new contract when contract negotiations between the USPS and its unions nearly resulted in an illegal mail strike.
After the NALC severed bargaining ties with the American Postal Workers Union in 1994, NALC President Vince Sombrotto tried to get the NRLCA to join the NALC. His effort was unsuccessful.
On November 14, 2008, the NRLCA withdrew support from the Quality of Work Life/Employee Involvement (QWL/EI) program. As the USPS funded all QWL-EI activities, it became more focused on issues supporting corporate goals. The NRLCA saw QWL/EI headed in a different direction than improving the "quality of work life" for rural carriers and managers alike. On December 12, 2008, the USPS confirmed that QWL/EI will be closed entirely. As NRLCA President Don Cantriel put it, "They were looking for an excuse to get rid of it; we gave it to them."
On August 19, 2011, the NRLCA became the first labor union in the history of the United States Postal Service to elect a female president, Jeanette Dwyer, at its 107th National Convention in Savannah, Georgia. She served until 2018, when she chose not to run for re-election, and was succeeded by her Vice President, Ronnie Stutts. Dwyer rejoined the board to fill the remainder of Johnny Miller's unexpired term on November 21, 2020, and stayed on the board until 2025.
RRECS & calls for decertification
On July 3, 2012, the postal service & NRLCA agreed to create the Rural Route Evaluated Compensation System (RRECS). From January 2013 to June 2018, a panel of engineers, consisting of Ken Mericle, Don Ratliff & Luis Martín-Vega, began developing an automated system that captured daily counts of work activities (whereas the evaluated pay system was originally based upon a 2 week count). Count data is also captured from mapping software developed by the project. Mapping captures the line of travel for each route, plus the distances of mailstops, mailboxes and direct door delivery stops associated with each customer address. These mapped locations are used to calculate walking and driving distances.
RRECS had a devastating effect on rural carrier pay. Two-thirds of all rural letter carriers lost at least one hour per week, and 44% lost four hours or more. Only 14% of rural carriers actually gained hours. The changes also added days worked while reducing hours on those days, reducing opportunities for overtime. The number of K routes (routes evaluated at 5 days a week) dropped from 65,910 to 49,747, a difference of 16,163. J routes (5.5 days a week) increased from 5,012 to 11,429, and H routes (routes carried 6 days a week without a relief day) increased from 3,427 to 13,142, an increase of 9,715. Overall, rural carriers on average lost about 2.8 hours from their routes after RRECS went into effect.
On March 20, 2023, the NRLCA was notified that because of system issues, the PS Forms 4241-A could not be generated, causing a delay in RRECS implementation until at least April 8. On April 7, the NRLCA & USPS reached an agreement to delay the implementation of the initial rural route evaluations under RRECS until April 22, despite the NRLCA seeking a 60 day delay. On April 21, the NRLCA & USPS reached a second agreement to delay its implementation until May 6.
On May 5, a group of U.S. Senators, consisting of Democrats Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Ed Markey & John Fetterman and Independent Bernie Sanders, sent a letter to United States postmaster general Louis DeJoy saying RRECS should not be used until the system’s serious flaws are rectified. Regardless, the system went into effect the following day.
Many carriers across the nation felt the NRLCA did little to prevent RRECS from going into effect or communicating its rollout to members. Soon, calls for decertification of the NRLCA grew within the craft. Shortly after the 117th national convention in Grand Rapids, Michigan, new president Don Maston and the NRLCA released the following statement on the topic:
In order for calls to decertify the NRLCA to be successful, at least 30% of rural carriers must sign cards or a petition asking the National Labor Relations Board to conduct an election. Unless a majority of the votes cast in the election are in favor of union representation, the union will be decertified. Roughly 34,000 signatures would have needed to be collected by December 28, 2023 in order to give the NLRB enough time to verify the signatures and mail ballots.
NRLCA Constitution
The NRLCA ratified its first constitution on day two of its first national convention in Chicago, Illinois, September 12, 1903. Henry Haven Windsor, editor of Popular Mechanics magazine as well as the RFD News (now The National Rural Letter Carrier) and chair of the Constitution & Bylaws Committee, presented his committee's report, followed by discussion on each article. One of the many topics discussed was union dues. Originally, the NRLCA sought one dollar a year from its members, however, this was negotiated down to fifty cents a year by the time this constitution was ratified (In 1910, dues were raised to 75 cents per year. The following year, it was reduced back down to 50 cents a year. It took until 1919, for dues to reach the dollar originally sought). The articles were amended and approved in order, and after adoption of each separate article, the entire constitution was voted upon and adopted in its entirety.
In 2007, bylaws were eliminated from the NRLCA Constitution, and each state was directed by the National office to do the same with their state constitutions. Existing bylaws were incorporated within the constitution in their appropriate places. As a result, the NRLCA Constitution underwent some renumbering. In 2011, the NRLCA ratified a national steward system.
National convention
The NRLCA held its first annual national convention in Chicago, Illinois, September 11–12, 1903. The first officers elected to serve the NRLCA on day two of the NRLCA's first national convention (September 12, 1903) were: President: Frank H. Cunningham (Omaha, Nebraska) Vice President: B. Pitts Woods (Cherokee, Iowa) Secretary: W. F. Tumber (Lockport, New York) Treasurer: W. L. Fetters (Bluffton, Indiana) Executive Committee: H. E. Niven (Berthoud, Colorado), F. A. Putnam (Dudley, Massachusetts) and E. Dwyer (Aurora, Illinois)
In 1908, women attended the NRLCA national convention for the first time. During World War II, the convention was limited to a small conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1942, and Cincinnati, Ohio, the following two years. In 1945, a National Board Session was held in lieu of a delegate gathering. In attendance were 52 delegates from fifteen states. The host state was represented by the most delegates with thirteen, followed by Michigan with twelve. Indiana and Nebraska both had five, Missouri had four, Iowa had three, Minnesota, New York and Ohio each had two and Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts and Wisconsin all had one. While represented by the NRLCA, neither Kansas nor Oklahoma had a representative in attendance.
The 2020 convention, which was set to take place in Spokane, Washington, August 18–21 was canceled due to COVID-19, as was the 2021 convention. The only other year a national convention was not held was 1918, when it was canceled due to World War I.
Contract with the USPS
The NRLCA negotiates all labor agreements for the rural carrier craft with the Postal Service, including salaries. Rural carriers are considered bargaining unit employees in the USPS. This means that there is a contract between the Postal Service and the NRLCA. Only the NRLCA can represent members of the rural carrier craft in the grievance procedure, including providing protection in disciplinary actions.
Following the establishment of executive order 10988 in 1962, the NRLCA and USPS established their first national agreement on a contract for rural carriers. As a result of this contract, the Heavy Duty Agreement, or Evaluated Pay System was established (Rural Carriers are paid a salary based upon an evaluation of their particular route. Credit is given to all carriers' duties and compensated accordingly). On August 12, 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the Postal Reorganization Act (PRA). The Post Office Department became the United States Postal Service, and the NRLCA became a union, with collective bargaining rights for wages and fringe benefits.