The prompt was specifically to ask about a change from the current five-day, eight-hours-per-day work week to a four-day, ten-hours-per-day model. The texts did not specify who had sent out the mass communication – the United States Postal Service (USPS), the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), or perhaps some combination of the two? Some letter carriers said they were not sure if the communication was legitimate, fearing that it might be a scam message.

Then, at the beginning of June, the NALC held a special collective bargaining conference for Branch presidents in Washington, DC. The conference was meant to be a hush-hush affair, whereby sitting NALC President Brian Renfroe could discuss his approach to this round of negotiations coming off of one of the worst-bargained contracts in recent memory for city letter carriers, in 2025. It was during this year’s conference that Renfroe disclosed that the survey was his creation, and that the proposal had come directly from him.

Now, on the surface, such a change may seem harmless enough. One less day of work per week, while still accumulating the same number of hours, ultimately means more uninterrupted free time. Sounds excellent! But, when considering some of the further ramifications this change would entail, it becomes clear just how disastrous of a proposal this would be for most city carriers, and how it only further serves to highlight the disastrous management-oriented tenure of President Renfroe.

30,000 lost routes, unsustainable workloads and dangerous conditions

Let’s start with perhaps the most glaring issue: the loss of city letter carrier jobs (and, as a consequence, NALC members). Currently, city carrier routes are intended to be completable within a regular eight-hour workday. This means that each route that exists should be designed to incorporate an area of addresses and a volume of mail that approximately adds up to eight hours of work. For anyone who actually carries mail, they'll know this often isn't the case, especially after the most recent round of route adjustments nationally, but that is supposed to be the standard.

What the change from an eight-hour day to a ten-hour one would mean, then, is a total recalibration of all routes in every station across the country to bring them in line with the new standard. But mail and addresses can’t be pulled out of a hat; they instead would likely come from slashing existing routes and redistributing the work. This would mean a loss of assignments and, consequently, a loss of jobs and members. Some estimates from opponents of this concept predict that more than 30,000 routes across the country would be eliminated. As is the case across most jobs and industries, it would be the lowest seniority carriers whose jobs would be cut first, an ironic reality given that the pool of carriers surveyed about the change overwhelmingly fit into this category.

Further, those carriers who work at stations gutted by the national route adjustments in the last year know that management’s system is not based in reality. They often add much more work to the remaining routes than can actually be achieved in eight hours, with some already taking ten or more hours. Any rational person should be able to conclude, then, that a change to a ten-hour standard would mean many routes with actual workloads reaching or exceeding 12 hours.

USPS management repeatedly demonstrates a lack of care for the safety and wellbeing of its letter carriers, and this situation would be further exacerbated by a ten-hour workday.

Letter carriers are constantly harassed by management, both on the workroom floor and out on delivery, about make-believe office leave times and so-called “stationary events” (i.e. when the USPS-provided scanner with GPS tracking capabilities indicates a carrier has been immobile for an extended period of time). When working in extreme weather such as blistering heat or sub-zero temperatures, management’s pestering and threats lead to carriers putting themselves in danger. Several carriers have died recently as a result of heat-related issues, including Dallas-area carrier Jacob Taylor in June 2025. This occurs now, with routes and workdays as they exist. Adding more work and more hours on the street will increase the frequency of these occurrences.

Fewer carriers means further delays in service

The mainstream media loves to report on postal customer complaints regarding delayed mail or other associated issues with the Postal Service. What they almost never include in their coverage is the real reason why those delays and issues exist. The simple answer is mismanagement, which in turn has led to route eliminations, fewer carriers, longer routes, and, finally, undelivered and/or delayed mail.

As mentioned, the predicted elimination of tens of thousands of routes would, out of necessity, result in the laying off or termination of a roughly equivalent number of city carriers. Far from improving service, this move to a new workweek structure would undoubtedly create yet more issues which management would expand through their misleadership, creating yet more frustration from the customers. President Renfroe will do anything to save the Post Office, including selling out his members and the customers that they serve!

Loss of pay and reduction in benefits

Some other impacts of this change would be the ability to earn overtime pay and paid time off (PTO), two things which are currently highlights of working as a letter carrier. The contract for city letter carriers ensures that all work in a day over eight hours, but not exceeding ten ,is to be paid out at 1.5 times the standard rate, and all daily working hours exceeding ten paid out at double time. With the change to a ten-hour workday standard, this could change the overtime payouts, resulting in a circumstance where carriers are effectively taking home less pay for the same amount of work.

Earned PTO – whether annual leave or sick leave – would run out more quickly than it does at the moment with the longer workday. This in practice devalues the accrued leave.

Benefits such as overtime pay and leave accrual are vital to the city letter carrier craft. These changes, however, are clearly a benefit to USPS and a detriment to NALC members, an unfortunate hallmark of Renfroe’s tenure as union president.

Complications for carriers with families or medical restrictions

Many city letter carriers have families – spouses, children, other dependents – that rely on their fixed eight-hour workdays. Daycares often have restrictions on the number of hours children can spend at their facilities, or they charge fees after a certain number of hours in a day are passed. Single parents or households where both parents are working will be unduly impacted by this change. Similarly, there are many city carriers who have medical conditions that necessitate firm eight-hour work restrictions. The change in the workday standard raises questions about how these carriers would be affected.

Some speculation suggests that carriers who need to maintain the eight-hour workday, either due to family needs or medical restrictions, would be forced to utilize their PTO benefits to compensate for the hours they don’t work, or otherwise accumulate what's known as Leave Without Pay (LWOP) for the hours that they now can’t work. The problem with LWOP is two-fold: 1) the loss in pay, and 2) excessive LWOP accrual has ramifications for retirement. Neither of these potential resolutions for the scheduling problems created by the workday change serve any benefit to the city carrier. Instead, they are actively negative outcomes.

New leadership is the path forward

While the above list is an incomplete accounting of the many pitfalls of the proposed change to the workday and week of the city letter carrier, the examples laid out her demonstrate the severe step backward that it would represent. As mentioned already, this is nothing new for the NALC under President Renfroe and his leadership clique. City letter carriers are being devalued with every passing year that Renfroe maintains his hold on power, with paltry wage increases that fall way behind even keeping up with the cost of living, the continued maintenance of a two-tiered pay structure, a workforce which continues to be divided between career and non-career workers, and serious concessions at the bargaining table.

However, all is not lost for the rank-and-file city letter carrier. In August, the NALC is hosting its national convention in Los Angeles. At this convention, nominations for national offices will be made official ahead of the national elections this fall. In preparation for this election cycle, fighters and leaders came together two years ago to create a reform slate known as the Concerned Letter Carriers (CLC). This slate of leaders stands in total opposition to this Renfroe-led initiative to further degrade the city letter carrier.

The CLC slate is headed by the indomitable James Henry, a staunch advocate for the city letter carrier, with an arbitration record without equal, and Corey Walton, a bulldog of a man who has a proven record of a no-nonsense approach to dealing with management on the shop floor. The slate represents the best and only chance for a total overhaul of the NALC national leadership. The CLC calls for an end to the two-tiered pay structure, and major reforms in the functioning of the union at the national level to encourage democracy and transparency, re-instill a membership-first approach (particularly in contract negotiations), and re-establish the fighting spirit of the union through extensive trainings and commitment to fighting management’s abuses in the workplace.

This fall, city carriers have a choice between two futures: one where letter carriers continue to be devalued and defanged by a leadership that is, at best, disinterested and, at worst, in the pocket of management; and another where the rank and file reasserts control of their union and their workplace through a leadership that has their backs. The CLC is the path forward for the city carrier that seeks the latter.

#MilwaukeeWI #WI #Opinion #Commentary #Labor #USPS #NALC

Headlines are flooded with images of property destruction and chaotic crowds, and the moral of most news stories on the topic is “we need more police” and “parents should be held accountable.” We know from experience that these are not real solutions, and when we treat Black teens like people and speak to them about their needs and wants, they can offer solutions to problems the racist ruling class wants us to think are insurmountable.

Black people have faced relentless attacks from white supremacy during our entire history in the U.S. The youth are reacting to generations of exploitation and repression, which is today seen in decades of defunding housing, education, healthcare and other public services while funding for racist policing and mass incarceration always increases.

Alderpersons like Brian Hopkins have used the “takeovers” as an excuse to push legislation effectively denying Black youth the right to gather in public. Calls for “accountability” suggest punishments from fines to jail time for parents of the teens. Some are kind enough to say parents need mentorship in how to raise their kids. Very few talk about the material difficulties of supporting a family while under constant attack by the white supremacist ruling class.

175,000 families in Illinois had their SNAP benefits taken by the Trump administration in May. My school saw a dramatic downward turn in student behavior the following week. One morning, a sixth grader told me he had been outside partying at 2a.m. because his mother works night shifts and, like many children, he will choose the more fun and risky option if adults aren't present to make him choose the safe, boring one.

Long work hours are only one reason parents struggle to spend quality time with their children. Many are incarcerated by the racist legal system. Some are afflicted by unemployment, addiction, mental illness, or other problems made inevitable by capitalism.

So, if it's clear that the “teen takeovers” are rooted in the same systemic cause as poverty and violence in Black communities, why are we talking about parenting?

In the 1960s, the Johnson administration was giving concessions to the Black liberation movement in the form of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. They were also planning ways to keep Black people ignorant of the imperialist system which oppresses them as a nation and exploits the vast majority of them as members of the multinational working class.

In 1965, Lyndon B Johnson's Secretary of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, published a report claiming that the main cause of problems in the Black community was not centuries of brutal exploitation and oppression, but a dysfunctional family structure. The report blamed Black women in particular as the heads of single parent households.

People who ignore the economic and political roots of discontent in Black communities and blame children or their parents are playing into the strategy of the ruling class. Instead, we should use the strategy outlined in the words and work of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, Fred Hampton and Malcolm X who fought for working and oppressed people.

These strategists condemned the system, not the people struggling to survive within it. If we are concerned about violence at “teen takeovers” or any other time and place in Black communities, we need to support the movements fighting to improve conditions for Black people.

We should join the movement for community control of the police and an end to mass incarceration. We should fight for quality, fully funded public goods like housing, healthcare and education. We should fight for worker’s rights and empowerment in unions. We should resist the imperialist wars and interventions of the U.S. government, so tax dollars are used to help children here instead of murdering families overseas. We should defend the historical gains of the Black liberation movement such as voting and civil rights.

Black people did not choose to be exploited and oppressed for 400 years on this land, but we have advanced historically when we chose to fight back. The choice today is to dwell on the individual decisions of children and parents impacted by the racist and greedy ruling class, or to join the movements uniting with families to oppose the ruling class.

#Opinion #Commentary #AfricanAmerican #OppressedNationalities #Youth

If asked what I consider to be a defining moment of the 20th century, I would have to say that it was the moment on the Edmund Pettus bridge in 1965 that led to the historic passing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Let me talk about the things that I most distinctly remember. Jimmie Lee Jackson, a young Black man, was 26 years old when he was shot by the police while trying to protect his mother from being brutalized in Marion, Alabama. This was a peaceful demonstration for voting rights. Jackson was a Black worker who made $6 a day as a woodcutter before he was murdered on that fateful night. And here we are, over 60 years later, still following up on what Dr. King told us when he said, “now we must see that Jimmie Jackson didn't die in vain.”

We must see even now that all those who were murdered in Alabama, Mississippi and throughout the disenfranchised Black Belt South didn’t die in vain.

I was 21, turning 22 years old in the summer of 1964 and I had lived through four young Black girls being killed by a bombing in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963 and three young men, two white and one Black, being murdered in Mississippi in the same period. Then I saw Bloody Sunday on TV, where hundreds of people, protesters, were teargassed and beaten for peacefully demanding the right to vote.

And as I was saying earlier, here we are 60 years later, where Black legislators in the deep South and in Tennessee are sitting down in the state legislatures in protest demanding that the right to vote not be taken away from them, demanding that all majority-Black political districts not be disenfranchised based on the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court to totally gut the Voting Rights Act. That's what they did, they just struck down the Voting Rights Act, which took us over 100 years to enact. They struck it down in a day.

And now there's a wave of protests throughout the South, mainly Black people, but not just Black people, saying to this Supreme Court, to the Congress, and particularly to the Republican-dominated Congress, and to the world, that we’re not going back. And the world will see that through our united actions, that we’re not going back. The world will see once again the ironclad determination of Black people and their allies, refusing to go back, protesting and demanding that we go forward.

Protesting and demanding that not only will we not be pushed back to Jim Crow, but that we’re going to put an end to those who are trying to take us back there: Donald Trump and his minions, Donald Trump and his Supreme Court, Donald Trump and his corrupt Congress, Donald Trump and his corrupt White House. You’re not going to take us back. We refuse to go back. We’re fighting to go forward. And in going forward, we will put an end to all of these travesties of justice. We will put an end to the so-called white backlash, which thinks it has a political destiny to make America worse again, not great again, to take the American dream and turn it into the American nightmare.

We will not go back, and we can’t say this strong enough, that what we need to do in the days ahead is protest what the Supreme Court has done, to confront and challenge what's going on in the state houses in the Deep South, and what the governors and congresspeople in the Deep South are trying to do to bring back Jim Crow, to bring back that period when Black people were terrorized, brutalized and murdered for trying to exercise their constitutional right to vote, which was earned through a revolution that took place in the 1860s.

There are three amendments that came out of that revolution. These were the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, and the 15th Amendment. The 13th, abolishing the buying and selling of Black people. The 14th Amendment, giving equal protection of law, and making it a law that if you are born in America, you are automatically an American citizen. And the 15th Amendment, extending the franchise, the right to vote, to those who had been in bondage during slavery.

Since the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the political history of the Deep South has been about state governments in the Black belt states’ resistance to the voting rights of Black citizens.

Since 1877, the year when the North and the South agreed that the South was uniquely suited to be the guardians of the “Negro Problem,” they agreed on keeping Black folks out of politics and redeeming the South from biracial coalitions that protected and enforced the voting rights of Black folks and the masses of propertyless people who were denied the franchise.

1877, the year of the great betrayal, with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes for president, marked the beginning of the reign of white supremacist terrorists initiating campaigns of racist violence and political repression. Mississippi, a state whose population was 70% Black, led the South to hold state conventions to establish a movement of disfranchisement creating a system of obstacles between the voter and the ballot box, ushering in an era of disenfranchisement that lasted for over 75 years.

Electoral structures designed to keep Black folks from voting were not only profoundly undemocratic but helped to maintain a status quo that keeps the South the most economically, socially and culturally most backward quadrant of the nation.

Those amendments to the Constitution were revolutionary then, but apparently not enough to settle this question once and for all. So, that’s our task. Our task is to finish this revolutionary process that was started back in 1861, to finish this revolutionary process in the 21st century.

We will not go back, and if we’re not going back then we have got to go forward, and going forward means putting an end not for once but once and for all to these racist policies and the racist regime that sits in Washington instituting these policies.

All Power to the People!

#Commentary #VotingRightsAct #OppressedNationalities #FrankChapman #PeoplesStruggles #Featured

The measure comes in the wake of comments from Postmaster General David Steiner in March suggesting that the USPS could “run out of cash” by October of this year in the worst case scenario or by February 2027 if certain payments are deferred. He further threatened that if something wasn't done, USPS may need to cut delivery days or close whole stations, painting a picture of desperation for the oldest continuous federal service in the United States.

This is just the most recent example in a long list of government officials and politicians sounding the alarm on the perpetually dying USPS, an entity that has posted billion-dollar “losses” since 2007. Of course, postal delivery is a service provided at an expense, not a business which earns a profit, but that's never included in these forecasts. What isn't mentioned in any of the reports on the move to suspend USPS contributions to the FERS, and the others covering Steiner's comments about the impending demise of the Postal Service, is that Steiner is an acting board member with private sector competitor FedEx, a role he has held since 2009. Steiner was hand-selected by President Donald Trump in May 2025 to take on the role of Postmaster General.

To compound the issue, at least for letter carriers at USPS, Brian Renfroe – the current national president of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), the union which represents city carriers – released a statement the same day, aligning himself and the union he leads with management's perspective that this decision is a necessary cost-saving effort, calling on Congress to take action. While there is certainly a kernel of truth to the idea of congressional action, what is even more true is that USPS hemorrhages money in other ways that are easily identifiable – and correctable – that weren't so much as hinted at in Renfroe's statement but which rank-and-file members of NALC across the country are keenly aware of themselves.

For starters, USPS currently maintains a management-to-carrier ratio of around 1:7, meaning for every seven carriers in a station, there is a supervisor or manager in that office. In the 1990s, by comparison, that ratio was 1:20 or greater. To further put this into perspective, the starting annual salary for a supervisory role with the Post Office is north of $70,000, compared to the average starting pay of a regular city carrier, which clocks in at around $33,000. To take this a step further, in 2025 alone, those same over-paid supervisors and managers so thoroughly violated the contract between USPS and the NALC that it resulted in billions of dollars in grievance settlement payouts (to say nothing about the costs of arbitration and other things associated with following grievance procedure). There are other management-related cost issues, to be sure, but these are just two of the most obvious examples.

For Postmaster General David Steiner, sitting board member of FedEx, to not mention these things in his comments makes perfect sense, given his position. However, for NALC President Brian Renfroe to essentially be in line with the management perspective on the suspension of USPS contributions to the FERS is shameful. Unfortunately, this most recent example of failing to support his members and instead represent the interests of management is par for the course for his tenure as president.

Just two weeks before, on March 27, Renfroe was a gleeful participant on a podcast episode for the National Association of Postal Supervisors, a “union” for supervisors who work at USPS, where he commented in so many words that unity between carriers and management was essential at this time. This on its own is enough of a slap in the face to letter carriers who deal with the daily abuse of these supervisors and their bosses, but Renfroe's list of betrayals and failures is much longer and includes many more severe examples.

The most glaring demonstration of Renfroe's total failure as a leader may be the handling of the most recent national negotiations and the contract, which was eventually forced through, a process which extended far beyond an acceptable period, finally wrapping up in April 2025 when the contract had expired in mid-2022. The primary issue is not with the length of the negotiations – which was partially a result of President Renfroe effectively being AWOL for large periods of negotiations, for which he faced charges from the membership at the NALC National Convention in 2024 that he narrowly escaped through bureaucratic manipulation – but instead with the agreement itself and the manner in which it was passed.

In an historic vote, more than 70% of the voting membership said “No!” to Renfroe's sellout deal, which offered a tiny wage increase with no changes to the three-tier workforce, the steps it takes to get to top pay, or anything else that members cared about. At the same time, the contract members were presented with contained numerous concessions.

Reminiscent of the decision by ex-Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. in 2018 with the national UPS contract, Renfroe essentially folded during the arbitration process and the contract was forced on the NALC rank and file. One silver lining resulting from Renfroe's dereliction of duty during negotiations is that negotiations for the next contract have already begun, so the opportunity to rectify the mistakes in relatively short order exists. However, Renfroe is already biting hard on the bait that USPS upper management is putting out and trying to line carriers up with the management position, indicating the potential for an expedited negotiation with more sell-out concessions.

Also looming on the horizon is the 2026 NALC National Convention this summer, which will then shortly be followed by elections for national leadership in the fall. Inexplicably, Renfroe is running again on a platform of maintaining the status quo, though it should be noted here that Renfroe hasn't officially declared his candidacy while he travels across the country attempting to whip up the vote. This matters because once he announces his candidacy, all that travel now must come out of his pocket rather than the union coffers. Membership across the country, again mirroring what occurred with the UPS Teamsters following the implementation of the last horrible contract under Hoffa, Jr., is resoundingly opposed to another Renfroe term.

The primary opposition slate, called the Concerned Letter Carriers (CLC), has a groundswell of support on the basis of their progressive platform, which aims to address rank-and-file concerns about union democracy and transparency, an all-career workforce, and the return of a general fighting spirit to the union. Members across the country are linking up and discussing strategies to ensure victory for CLC leaders James Henry and Corey Walton.

With some hard work and good organizing, the rank-and-file can take back control of the NALC from the Renfroe regime, who can then share the fate of Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. as he is swept out of office after betraying the members he had sworn to serve.

#MilwaukeeWI #WI #Commentary #Labor #NALC