National Rural Letter Carriers' Association

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

National Rural Letter Carriers' Association

 Founded 1903

Headquarters Alexandria, Virginia

 United States
Location

Members 115,104 (2019)

Key people Donald L. Maston, President

Patrick A. Pitts, Vice President

Thomas K. Turner, Secretary-Treasurer

Bridget Boseak, Director of Labor Relations

Shirley Baffa, Director of Steward Operations

Nicky Phillips, Executive Committee Chair

Executive Committee: John C. Adams, Jeanette P.

Dwyer & Kirby Ricketts

Website www.nrlca.org

Don Cantriel & his

successor, Jeanette Dwyer

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[edit]
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 Carriers (ARC) or Regular Carrier (Designation
Code 71).[1] 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[edit]

Gus & Shirley Baffa. Gus was President of the NRLCA from
2001 to 2003, and served as National PAC Chairman until his death in 2022. Shirley is the
[2]

Director of Steward Operations.

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.[3] It began in 1896 with five routes, and
the first rural carriers were paid $300 per year for their services. [4] Seven years later, it
had expanded to 15,119 routes covering 322,618 miles, however, inadequate pay was
still an issue.[5] 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. [6] Rural carriers
selected the NRLCA as their agent,[7] 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.[8] 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.[9]
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.[10] 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.
RRECS & calls for decertification[edit]

Brian McKee is the President of Arkansas, Vickie Lovings is

President of Texas & Delonna Callaway is President of Oklahoma

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 & Louis Martin-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). [11] 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. [12]
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. [13] 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.[14]
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.[15]
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.[16] Shortly after the 117th national convention in Grand
Rapids, Michigan, new President Don Maston & the NRLCA released the following
statement on the topic:[17]