Nearly 200,000 mail carriers have reached a tentative agreement with the United States Postal Service (USPS) that includes air-conditioned trucks and salary increases.
The agreement, which was reached Friday, still needs to be ratified by union members. If approved, the contract will run through November 2026.
"Both sides didn't get everything they wanted," Brian Renfroe, the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said to the Associated Press. "But by bargaining in good faith, we ended with an agreement that meets our goals and rewards our members."
Along with pay, a big issue was a lack of air-conditioned vehicles.
The Postal Service began rolling out new electric delivery vehicles this summer which are equipped with air-conditioning.
The new contract will require the Postal Service to "make every effort to acquire vehicles equipped with air conditioning" and follow repair and maintenance procedures to ensure it continues working.
Within a few years, the older delivery trucks will become a relic of the past and the new fleet of 60,000 electric vehicles will be the primary vehilces.
Other perks in the contract include backdated pay raises, an increase of the top pay, and a reduction in the amount of time it takes new workers to reach that level.
As part of the agreement, all city-based mail carriers will get three annual pay increases of 1.3 percent each by 2025, some of which will be paid retroactively from November 2023.
Employees will also get retroactive and future cost-of-living adjustments.
The Postal Service said the contract supported "Delivering for America," its decade-long mission to modernize operations and adapt to customers' needs.
"This is a fair and responsible agreement that serves the best interest of our employees, our customers and the future of the Postal Service," said Doug Tulino, the deputy postmaster general and chief human resources officer.
Rural mail carriers are not covered by the contract since they are represented by a different union.
Letter carriers have worked without a contract since the old one expired in May 2023.
