Postal Service, Urban Letter Carriers Reach 5-Year Deal

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The U.S. Postal Service and its city letter carriers reached a tentative five-year contract agreement Thursday. <br/><br/>The National Association of Letter Carriers said the agreement,

Thursday, July 12th 2007, 1:31 pm

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The U.S. Postal Service and its city letter carriers reached a tentative five-year contract agreement Thursday.

The National Association of Letter Carriers said the agreement, covering 222,000 mail carriers, will be submitted to its members for approval.

Postal officials confirmed that an agreement had been reached extending through 2011. The contract is retroactive to last November.

The union said the pact covers increases in wages, cost of living adjustments and includes new limits on contracting out work done by city letter carrier.

Contracting out delivery routes in rapidly growing areas has been a source of contention between the agency and the union.

Union officials said the contract calls for a six-month moratorium on contracting out new routes while a union-management task force seeks to develop an ``evolutionary approach'' to the issue.

The proposed deal also would increase the share of health care premiums paid by the mail carriers, a change the union said is increasingly common in private business.

The agreement provides a 1.4% wage increase retroactive to November 25, 2006; and wage increases of 1.8% on November 24, 2007; 1.9% on November 22, 2008; 1.9% on November 21, 2009; and 1.85% on November 20, 2010.

Rural letter carriers are represented by a different union and have a separate contract.