NRLCA Contract: Wage Increases, RRECS, and Retroactive Pay

The current National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association contract with the U.S. Postal Service runs from May 21, 2024, through May 20, 2027, and was ratified on June 15, 2025. It gives career rural carriers three annual general wage increases, keeps the existing semi-annual cost-of-living adjustment formula, raises pay for Rural Carrier Associates and Assistant Rural Carriers, shortens the step-progression clock, changes how route evaluations trigger pay adjustments, and triples the incentive for buying a new right-hand drive vehicle.¹² The full text was published as Handbook EL-902 in October 2025.³

Annual Wage Increases

Career rural carriers receive three general wage increases over the life of the contract:

November 2024: 1.3 percent (retroactive)
November 2025: 1.4 percent
November 2026: 1.5 percent

For a carrier on a 40-hour route at Step 7 of Table One, those raises work out to roughly $917, $988, and $1,058 in additional annual pay for each year.⁴

Cost-of-Living Adjustments

The COLA formula and the July/January cycle carry over unchanged. There is no rebase, so the calculation stays the same as under the prior agreement. The early adjustments have been meaningful: the July 2024 COLA added about $978 annually for carriers on Table One and Step 15 of Table Two, and the January 2025 COLA added roughly $416. Stacked with the November 2024 raise, the first three COLAs pushed initial pay for regular rural carriers and part-time flexible carriers up by about 3.7 percent.⁴

Pay Changes for RCAs and ARCs

Non-career carriers received targeted increases. All Rural Carrier Associates get a 1 percent annual increase in lieu of COLA, applied retroactively alongside the general raises.⁴

Table 4 RCAs, generally the lowest-paid classification, get two additional bumps effective no later than 180 days after ratification: $0.55 per hour across the board, plus an extra $1.00 per hour once a Table 4 RCA hits three years of service. Combined with the annual increases, total wage growth for these classifications is projected at 7.1 to 14.8 percent over the contract’s life.⁴ USPS said the provisions include “measures to assist with rural carrier associate retention.”²

Faster Step Progression and Quicker PTF Postings

Career carriers on the Table Two pay scale advance faster under the new agreement. The waiting period between step increases dropped from 52 to 50 weeks.⁴

For non-career carriers looking to move into career status, the contract clarifies that non-probationary RCAs are to be considered for local and district Part-Time Flexible postings. Posting windows are shorter too: local postings dropped from 10 to 7 calendar days, and district postings from 15 to 10 calendar days.⁴

Route Evaluation and RRECS

The Rural Route Evaluated Compensation System, which USPS rolled out in May 2023 to replace periodic manual mail counts, drew heavy criticism from carriers and the union after early evaluations produced steep pay cuts. One carrier reported facing a potential loss of $8,000 per year, and the NRLCA filed a step-4 grievance over the rollout.⁵

The new contract rewrites Article 9.2.C.10 to change how RRECS pay adjustments work between periodic evaluations. The old 60-minute threshold, which required a route’s evaluation to change by an hour before any pay adjustment kicked in, is gone. When boxes are added to or removed from a route, the salary adjustment is processed immediately. New delivery points are added to a route’s evaluation when delivery begins; points are removed only after 90 days of vacancy. These interim adjustments stay in place until the next periodic RRECS evaluation.⁴

Leave

The contract adds an annual leave exchange option. Career employees who are at their maximum leave carryover ceiling and used fewer than 72 hours of sick leave the prior year can sell back up to 40 hours of annual leave.⁴

Bereavement leave was expanded by adding grandchildren to the definition of “Family Member” in the relevant memorandum of understanding. Union leave language now covers Area Conferences for leave approval purposes.⁴

Right-Hand Drive Vehicle Incentives

Carriers who provide their own vehicles on Equipment Maintenance Allowance routes get sharply higher incentives. Buying a new right-hand drive vehicle now pays a $3,000 incentive, up from $1,000. Converting an existing vehicle to right-hand drive, or buying a used right-hand drive vehicle, each pay $1,500, up from $500.⁴

Probationary Periods

Non-career probationary periods were redefined. For RCAs, the probationary period is 90 days actually worked or 180 calendar days, whichever comes first. For ARCs, it is 90 days actually worked or one calendar year.⁴

Retroactive Pay

Because ratification came in June 2025 but the contract took effect in May 2024, a large share of the wage increases and COLAs applied retroactively. Retroactive pay for provisions effective before August 23, 2025, was scheduled to appear on paychecks dated February 27, 2026.⁶

How the Contract Was Ratified

USPS and the NRLCA reached the tentative agreement on April 18, 2025. The membership approved it on June 15, 2025, by a vote of 9,730 in favor and 4,880 against, an approval rate of about 67 percent. The roughly 14,600 ballots cast represented about 11 percent of eligible members and less than 7.5 percent of the 130,000 rural carriers employed by USPS.⁷⁸ Acting Postmaster General Doug Tulino called the agreement “economically responsible, fair to our employees and serves the best interest of our customers.”²

The complete text is available as Handbook EL-902 through the NRLCA website.³

1
Federal News Network. USPS and NRLCA Strike Deal on New Contract
2
USPS Newsroom. National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association Approves Contract With USPS
3
NCRLCA. Handbook EL-902 Released
4
NYRLCA. 2024-2027 Tentative Agreement Highlights
5
Federal News Network. USPS Delays Rollout of New Pay System After Data Shows Pay Cuts for Rural Carriers
6
RuralInfo.net. Tentative Scheduled Dates for Salary Adjustments Agreed to in the 2024-2027 National Agreement
7
Government Executive. Another Postal Union Approves Its Collective Bargaining Agreement
8
WSWS. NRLCA Contract Ratification