WASHINGTON D.C. — The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) announced today the ratification of a new five-year collective bargaining agreement with the U. S. Postal Service. The new agreement will run through Nov. 20, 2011, and affect approximately 222,000 career employees who deliver mail to residences and businesses on city delivery routes.

The agreement is the third contract between the Postal Service and its four major unions from the 2006 negotiations. Contracts were ratified with the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union (NPMHU) in January 2007. Members of the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association (NRLCA) failed to ratify a tentative agreement. The terms of that contract are currently scheduled to be resolved in interest arbitration proceedings this fall.

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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

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