DES MOINES, Iowa — Central Iowa postal workers and letter carriers rallied outside the Des Moines Post Office as contract negations continue.

‘We are just trying to show our support so that our leadership in the bargaining table can go out, go in there with their head held high, knowing that they have our support for a strong, fair contract,” said Margo O’Neill, a letter carrier.

O’Neill helped organize the event and says employees want to see multiple changes during this contract renegotiation. Higher wages, an all-career workforce, and stable hours are the main goal.

“They’ll work you 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week sometimes, and they start you off at wages where people don’t want to stick around,” said O’Neill. “That becomes a really big problem with staffing, which then causes everyone to have to pitch in so much overtime that it’s really hard to maintain a work life balance.”

Justin Edwards is a letter carrier is Des Moines and has done the job for almost 10 years, he says he and the other workers can’t continue as they are.

“We’re struggling. You know, we’re working in the hard winters, you know, just, really tiresome and, you know, we deserve more pay,” said Edwards.

Edwards says he isn’t pulling in enough with his job as a letter carrier and has started to seek other ways to bring in money on the side.

“Besides my main job, I started donating plasma because, you know, I just, I try to put food on the table,” said Edwards.

Brian Riggins, a NALC shop steward, says an important issue during the negotiations should be ensuring letter carrier safety.

“There was a letter carrier that got robbed at gunpoint and when they convicted him, he was only sentenced for 30 days,” said Riggins. “That’s just not a high enough conviction rate for a crime against a letter carrier.”

Attendees were uplifted to see a good turnout despite the cold and Riggins says it’s a good sign.

“This is the most union thing you can do, to come out and bring public awareness to what it is, for what you want,” said Riggins. “We just want a fair contract with better wages, better working conditions, everything like that.”

O’Neill says contact negations have been going on the past few weeks, but the deadline is on February 18. According to O’Neil, if they don’t come to an agreement, they go to arbitration which can take months.