Milwaukee Letter Carriers rally for better working conditions
Milwaukee, WI – On Sunday, November 5, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 2 hosted an energetic rally outside the United States Postal Service city headquarters in downtown Milwaukee. 150 NALC members and supporters joined the rally to raise public awareness about the poor working conditions at USPS.
NALC Branch 2 is demanding an end to wage theft, harassment and retaliation. NALC local leaders highlighted how little the USPS has done in the face of routine armed robberies of their employees, even after city carrier Aundre Cross was tragically murdered during a robbery while working his route last year.
Some of the highlights of the rally were speeches from various NALC 2 stewards about the need for carriers to unite and to no longer tolerate be intimidated into working at unsafe speeds.
“This union isn’t the president, it’s not the stewards, it's all of us! Management is organized against us and we need to be organized to protect ourselves!,” said NALC 2 Steward William Schroeder.
NALC 2 stewards exposed how the USPS has weaponized new technology and “performance statistics” against carriers to try to force a speed-up. NALC 2 stewards say the USPS has used scanner data to accuse employees of being “stationary” for more than 30 minutes during the course of a shift, which can be up to 12 hours, in order to unjustly withhold pay from those workers.
The union said the USPS has paid out over a million dollars in non-compliance grievance settlements in 2023 alone, and management is acting in bad faith by refusing to correct the root causes of the grievances. At the rally, NALC 2 stewards said management’s behavior is the reason why the union decided to take action and call for a protest to rally their members, supporters and the media.
Postal Workers in Milwaukee were eager to rally behind the union’s demands and were joined by many supporters, including Milwaukee Area Labor Council President Pam Fendt, Wisconsin State Representative Ryan Clancy, ATU Local 998 President Donnell Shorter, and the Young Workers Committee of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council.