Due to the continued increase in parcel volumes throughout the country, the U.S. Postal Service and the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association (NRLCA) have agreed to modify Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) 13 of the 2018-2021 USPS-NRLCA National Agreement and the corresponding Assistant Rural Carriers (ARC) Implementation Guidelines cited in the MOU.
These modifications/updates have been agreed upon primarily to allow for expanded scheduling of ARCs during the week to provide assistance with the delivery of parcels and for these employees to be appointed in any office with rural delivery. ARC appointments will no longer be restricted to offices receiving Sunday Amazon.
We are asking everyone to make sure that the managers in your office are aware of this extended use of the ARC position. The NRLCA is very much aware that the COVID pandemic has caused a shortage of rural carrier craft employees due to COVID leave and carriers being quarantined. However, we are also aware that USPS managers have not abided by the contract to sufficiently hire and retain leave replacements in the rural carrier craft. The NRLCA can no longer tolerate this violation of our contract. If your office is short on leave replacements, management should be advertising the position, and make sure that it is posted on USPS.GOV. We see many offices that are short on leave replacements and do not even have signs in the lobby and outside the post office advertising the job.
This MOU gives the USPS another avenue to hire ARCs in any office. With peak season just around the corner, we must do our part to see that management is doing their job to hire a sufficient number of leave replacements. If management is not doing their part to hire leave replacements and refuses to do so, please contact your NSS District Representative for guidance.
Click here to view/download the notification cover letter distributed to the field by USPS Labor Relations. 
Click here to view/download the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and ARC Implementation Guidelines
Assistant Rural Carriers (ARC) MOU 13 and Implementation Guidelines