Our Legislative Fights Persist in 2026

As we begin a new year, we must reflect both on the progress we’ve made and move forward together to continue protecting our rights and earned benefits.

APWU Victories in 2025

In 2025, we started the year with reports that the current administration was preparing to issue an executive order to move the Postal Service into the Department of Commerce, ending the USPS’s independence as an agency. At the same time, Wells Fargo published a report advocating for the privatization of the Postal Service. In response, APWU members rallied on March 20 to declare “Hands Off!” the Postal Service and took to the streets in New York to protest the global financial services giant.

In late March, our collective bargaining rights were once again under attack. The Paycheck Protection Act (H.R. 2174) passed out of committee, which, if it be-comes law, would restrict all federal and postal unions from deducting dues and other “fees or political contributions” from employee paychecks. Without our dues-checkoff authorization, the APWU would be placed under financial stress, making it challenging to provide essential services to members.

While we were fighting to preserve APWU members’ rights to deduct dues out of their own paychecks, our federal pensions were threatened. On April 30, 2025, the House Oversight Committee advanced cuts to our federal benefits, including raising the Federal Em-ployees Retirement System (FERS) contribution rate, replacing the current “high-3” FERS annuity calculation with a “high-5” calculation, and eliminating the FERS Social Security supplemental “bridge” payment. These dangerous cuts were placed into the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

APWU members made phone calls, attended rallies, and even flew to D.C. to send a clear message to Congress — hands off our union and pensions! Thanks to the hard work of postal workers, labor unions, and allies, our right to deduct dues and our FERS retirement benefits remain fully intact!

The Struggle Continues This Year

Although we were successful in fighting against attacks on our benefits, collective bargaining rights, and even our jobs, now is not the time to rest! With the midterm elections quickly approaching this November, we must fight back against misinformation on voting by mail. We know first-hand that Vote-by-Mail is both secure and efficient, and that almost 100 million people relied on the Postal Service to process and deliver their ballots in 2024. Any attempt by the federal government to intervene in a state’s ability to administer its own elections is an attack on democracy. To read more about recent attacks on Vote-by-Mail, please turn to page 15.

What YOU Can Do to Join the Fight

The fights we take on affect every postal worker and every community we serve. From protecting good union jobs to defending universal service, success comes when we take action together.

Visit apwu.org/legislative-action-center to access our new “Legislative Action Center,” where you can find different ways to support our current fights, such as:

• Donating to COPA
• Calling our Legislative Hotline at 844-402-1001
• Checking your voter registration status
• Finding and joining a rally or other action
• Getting involved in your AFL-CIO State Federation or Central Labor Council (CLC)
• Finding your elected officials at the federal, state, and local level (and a meeting with them)

We will keep the Legislative Action Center updated with current information and add resources as they become available. We encourage you to not only use this website for yourself, but promote it to your family, friends, coworkers, and members of your community.

While we do not know what attacks we may face this year, we invite every one of you to make one important New Year’s resolution: stand, work, and fight together with us in 2026!