More than 338,000 letter carriers from the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 916 were working with an expired contract with the United States Postal Service, meaning that the quality of their hours, pay and working conditions have come to decline and stand still, said union steward Terrence Graves.

 So union members held a rally at 7th Avenue and Pearl Street in downtown Eugene on Monday, Oct. 14, to express their displeasure with what they said were the Postal Service’s mandatory overtime, lack of communication, safety and poor organization. On Oct. 19, NALC and the USPS reached a tentative agreement, which has not yet been ratified and some union members have expressed their displeasure. 

NALC 916 represents 600 city carriers across Eugene, Springfield, Cottage Grove, Redmond, Prineville, Madras, Junction City, Sweet Home and Florence. 

According to union steward Isabel Caldwell, about one-third of letter carriers have medical restrictions preventing them from working more than 12 hours a day, but the USPS has tried convincing them to work past what they can handle. “They don’t care about us, they want to make sure the mail gets delivered by any means possible,” Caldwell said. 

The USPS had been negotiating a contract with NALC 916 since May 20, 2023, with those rallying downtown asking for an improvement in pay structures, the end of mandatory overtime hours and poor working conditions. 

According to a report from the Office of the Inspector General, non-career USPS employees have a 59 percent turnover rate, with 20 percent quitting due to a lack of schedule flexibility. Caldwell said new employees feel overworked and burnt out without competitive pay structures and flexible scheduling, continuing the vicious cycle of spreading the existing mail carriers thin. 

A 60- to 100-hour work week is not uncommon, Caldwell said, adding that the work environment is best described through the phrase, “Obey now, grieve later.” 

“You are working an obscene amount of hours, you don’t have a life, you don’t have a family,” said union steward Frost, who goes by only one name. “We all become numbers… are we making our goal of getting the mail out?”

Frost said he believes that the American public will come around and realize just how valuable the job of a letter carrier is. “At the DMV you see one person once every several months or every couple of years. I see the same customer every day, and that builds a bond between us,” he said. 

Frost said at the rally that if a competitive wage is established, being a letter carrier would become a more appealing and sustainable career. “We’re not staffed correctly, partially because we don’t make a good wage for what we do. Well, we can fix that. Give us a good wage, and let’s go out and hire people,” Frost said. 

As of Oct.19, the NALC and USPS have reached a tentative agreement that increases pay, overtime hours and retroactive cost-of-living adjustment payments (COLAs) while the NALC worked without a contract. The agreement says all city letter carriers will receive a 1.3 percent wage increase as of Nov. 22, 2025, and a retroactive increase from Nov. 18, 2023, and Nov. 23, 2024, respectively. 

The tentative agreement also guarantees four COLAs to be paid over the next two years for full-time carriers, with three retroactive payments being issued dating back to August 26, 2023. 

The agreement guarantees 2.5 times the base pay for overtime exceeding 12 hours and carriers can no longer be forced to work beyond their applicable work limits. Management can still seek letter carriers to work beyond their limits from a list of volunteers who want overtime. 

The National Association of Letter Carriers’s official announcement on X (formerly Twitter) has been met with backlash, with comments saying, “Our union has totally failed us,” and, “Gonna be a big NO vote from me.” According to the NALC’s website, the terms of the agreement are not in effect until ratified, which will take place over the coming weeks. 

USPS Deputy Postmaster General and Chief Human Resources Officer Doug Tulino stated on the USPS news website on Oct. 18, “This is a fair and responsible agreement that serves the best interest of our employees, our customers and the future of the Postal Service.”

NALC 916 President Terrence Graves did not respond to Eugene Weekly’s request for a follow up interview regarding the tentative agreement.