Ticker: USPS Mail carriers reach tentative contract that includes pay raises and air-conditioned trucks

Some 200,000 mail carriers have reached a tentative contract deal with the U.S. Postal Service that includes backdated pay raises and a promise to provide workers with air-conditioned trucks.

The new agreement, which still needs to be ratified, runs through Nov. 2026. Letter deliverers have been working without a contract since May 2023.

“Both sides didn’t get everything they wanted. But by bargaining in good faith, we ended with an agreement that meets our goals and rewards our members,” Brian Renfroe, the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, told The Associated Press.

Among other improvements, the deal increases the top pay and reduces the amount of time it takes new workers to reach that level, Renfroe said. He credited Postmaster General Louis DeJoy for bargaining in good faith throughout the arduous process.

US stocks closed their latest winning week with more records

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% to squeak past the all-time high it had set early this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 36 points, or 0.1%, to its own record set the day before, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.6%.

Netflix helped drive the market with a leap of 11.1% after the streaming giant reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

It helped offset a 5.2% drop for CVS Health, which said it’s likely to report a profit for the latest quarter that’s well below what analysts had been expecting. The company also said David Joyner, an executive vice president, is taking over as president and CEO for Karen Lynch.

Trading overall on Wall Street remained relatively calm, as the S&P 500 closed its sixth straight winning week. That’s its longest such winning streak of 2024.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/HCFBKLi