This time of year, Chris Tharp works 11 to 12 hours a day, six days a week.
On his one day off, he’ll often wake up at 5:30 a.m. to check his phone and see if his supervisor wants him to pick up a shift.
He makes $19.83 per hour.
Tharp is a city carrier assistant based in the Mount Vernon post office. His position at the Postal Service has lower pay, longer hours and fewer benefits than a typical letter carrier job, though the work itself is essentially the same. Letter carriers work as assistants for up to two years before moving up the ranks.
Working conditions for city carrier assistants are one issue at stake as letter carriers across the country prepare to vote on a proposed union contract. The National Association of Letter Carriers came to a tentative agreement with the postal service in October after more than a year and a half of negotiations. The last contract expired in May 2023.
Some letter carriers say the terms of the tentative agreement, including wages, do not go far enough to change the status quo. That includes workers in the union’s Branch 450, encompassing Bellingham, Mount Vernon, Burlington and Sedro-Woolley.
“My gut reaction was very disappointed,” said Kevin Ernest, president of the branch. “We had been told that we would get a historic agreement.”
If members approve the contract, most letter carriers will get a 1.3% raise paid retroactively for 2023 and two more 1.3% raises this year and next, along with cost-of-living adjustments. The agreement does not eliminate the city carrier assistant position, as some had hoped.
Most letter carriers would be making between about $23 and $38 an hour by the end of the year if the contract is ratified in November. City carrier assistants could make up to about $21 an hour by year’s end under the contract.
The new contract would guarantee assistants one day off a week except in December, when they could still be subject to mandatory overtime seven days a week. It would also give most carriers, but not assistants, the right to clock out of work when they reach 60 hours in a week.
So far, the union has only released a summary of the proposed new contract. The union and postal service will head to arbitration if the contract is rejected.
A spokesperson for the postal service referred Cascadia Daily News to the union. The NALC sent an emailed statement in response to a request for comment.
“Prior to the nationwide ratification vote on the contract, NALC leaders are holding informational briefings with letter carriers around the country, who will then make their own decisions,” the statement reads. “We do not engage in debates through the media.”
Long days, low pay
Tharp, who is a union shop steward, had thought the new contract might offer a living wage and bring city carrier assistants up to the level of other letter carriers. Both would have made a huge difference for his quality of life.
He applied to the postal service because he wanted a federal job, drawn by the promise of generous benefits. But working there hasn’t delivered all he’d been looking for.
For one, city carrier assistant is a “non-career” position, meaning it is considered a temporary job and does not come with full-time benefits.
Assistants do not earn anything toward their retirement and work many hours of mandatory overtime each week, Tharp said. He feels constant pressure to work faster and harder, even to skip lunch and bathroom breaks.
The tentative agreement between the union and postal service released in October dashed Tharp’s hopes that the negotiations would meaningfully improve working conditions.
It’s affecting morale in his office, too, he said, with carriers “dragging their heels a little more” at work.
Tharp’s office struggles to retain workers because of the wages and working conditions, he said. A city carrier assistant position has been chronically vacant as new hires haven’t lasted longer than a few weeks, though it was recently filled.
“If it were more dignified, it would surely be a more respected position,” he said, “and I think people would actually want to work here, like they used to.”
When emailed specific questions, an NALC spokesperson declined to respond and declined an interview request.
A disappointing update
City carrier assistants aren’t alone in their dissatisfaction with the proposal.
Ryan Stoppleworth, a 26-year veteran letter carrier based in Burlington, sees the wages in the new contract as “a slap in the face” after letter carriers “basically helped prop the entire United States economy” at the height of COVID-19.
During the pandemic, Stoppleworth worked 10 to 12 hours six days a week, despite his seniority. It was an “abusive” schedule, he said.
“We lost time with our families, time for ourselves, people lost relationships during COVID,” Stoppleworth said. “It was two-plus years of just probably the worst time of my life.”
Several years later, and the tentative agreement “put me into a slight depression for a couple of days,” Stoppleworth said. “We all just felt like we had just got a big punch to the gut.”
Online, he’s seen carriers with less seniority speculate those with more years with the postal service will vote to approve. For him, that’s not the case. Assistants must be treated fairly in the contract too, he stressed.
That’s also important to Ernest, the local branch president. Ernest has worked out of Bellingham’s post office on Prospect Street for 10 years.
Giving assistants a guaranteed day off, as the tentative agreement does, “is just the lowest hanging fruit in the world,” he said. “People fought and died for the two-day weekend and here we are negotiating that they only get one day maximum.”
Stoppleworth believes his coworkers, too, will vote to reject the contract. Arbitration is “worth the gamble,” he said.
“I love my job,” Stoppleworth said. “This is not me complaining about my job whatsoever. It’s just, I want it to be a fair job.”
Tharp echoed the sentiment. It might sound hard to believe, but the job “really is a lot of fun,” he said. He enjoys working outdoors and chatting with fellow Mount Vernon residents. He loves the friends and “union family” he has at work.
“It’s a dream come true,” Tharp said. “But the working conditions and the wages are what make it so difficult to tolerate.”
Sophia Gates covers rural Whatcom and Skagit counties. She is a Washington State Murrow Fellow whose work is underwritten by taxpayers and available outside CDN's paywall. Reach her at sophiagates@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 131.
