Employees to See Pay Raise

Under the new 2018 – 2021 National Agreement, employees will receive four retroactive pay raises. The current rates went into effect on February 29, 2020 and will be reflected for the first time in earnings for Pay Period 09-2020. Pay Period 09 begins Saturday, April 11. Pay checks will be dated for May 1, 2020. Retro pay covering the period from September 24, 2018 through April 10, 2020 will follow.

The Postal Service has yet to confirm a date that employees will receive retroactive pay. Recently passed laws regarding the COVID-19 pandemic providing new and additional benefits to employees require immediate and extensive programming and have delayed the Postal Service’s confirmation of the date.

What if I am no longer working at USPS or in an APWU bargaining unit?

Employees who worked during the retroactive period will be paid the higher rates due for that work. Workers who transferred, separated, quit, retired, deceased, etc. will be compensated for any time worked when higher rates were due. The higher rates will be reflected in adjustments to TSP, Retirement, terminal leave payments, and life insurance. Retirees will eventually get any necessary adjustments to annuity payments – including retroactive annuity adjustments.

New Schedule, New Steps

Employees in the new pay schedule in Grades 5 through 7 could not progress beyond Step J in the last contract. With the new contract, employees in Grade 5 can progress to Step K and those in Grades 6 and 7 can move into steps K and L. Employees in Grade 8 stopped at Step K in the last contract; now they can progress into Steps L and M. The step wait time for all steps for Grades 5 though 7 is 36 weeks. For Grade 8 steps, the wait time is 30 weeks.

Most employees on the new schedule are well below the previous top steps, but about 200 employees are immediately eligible to move into the new steps. Eligible employees will be moved into the higher steps in Pay Period 11, effective May 9. They will move based on time waited in the previous top step. For example, a Grade 6 Step J employee who has been in Step J for 20 weeks would wait another 16 weeks before moving to Step K. Someone who has waited 40 weeks in Step J would move into Step K in PP 11-2020 with 4 weeks of wait time credit for advancement to Step L. An employee with 72 weeks of wait time in Step J would skip Step K and move into Step L in PP 11-2020.