CARRIERS IN A COMMON CAUSE - NALC

CARRIERSIN A

COMMONCAUSE

A HISTORY OFLETTER CARRIERSAND THE NALC

125TH ANNIVERSARYEDITION

A Publication of the National Association of Letter Carriers

© 2014 NALC

Researched and written by M. Brady Mikusko and F. John Miller

Cover and original design by Dorothy E. Rudzik

Updated edition designed by Lorraine Swerdloff and Mike Shea

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Almost 125 years old, the National Association of Letter Carriers has a long and proud history.This is why, as the 18th president of the union, I feel privileged to offer you this revised andupdated history of letter carriers and the NALC—your union.

Last revised in 2006 and now in its fifth edition, this history breathes life, sharp and vibrant, intothe past. It is a story of letter carriers joining together to fight to protect their jobs, their work-ing conditions, their families—and nationwide delivery service, as important today as it was in 1889, and certainly more threatened now than ever before.

The history of the National Association of Letter Carriers is a story of both continuity andchange, of battles fought over and over again when new forces—and most recently, new technologies—emerged requiring new responses and new weapons. This is only fitting, forwhat letter carriers enjoy today—and what the NALC is today—are both gifts from our brothers and sisters who also worked, dreamed and, in the end, fought for in pursuit of a betterlife for themselves and their families. It is our responsibility to continue the fight and to pass onto future generations not only the union’s history, but also the legacy of solidarity and commit-ment to our brothers and sisters, as well as the union’s historic dedication to preserving andstrengthening the nation’s postal service.

So there is much to tell and much to learn—of people and places, of good times and lean, ofstruggles and victories. And as you read these pages, remember, this is your history—to learnfrom, to preserve and, most of all, to pass on to the next generation of members of the NationalAssociation of Letter Carriers.

In Solidarity,

Fredric V. RolandoPresidentNational Association of Letter Carriers

July 2014

Timeline of NALC History

Introduction

1775-1862: The Early Days of the RepublicThe Spoils System

1863-1888: The Modern Era BeginsAn Obstacle RemovedLitmus Test for the FutureCarriers and the 8-Hour Day

1889-1901: The NALC Is BornThe ReactionThe Battle Lines Are DrawnThe Early Objectives of the NALC

1902-1912: The Reign of TerrorThe No-Strike Amendment

1913-1920: The NALC vs. the PMGRetirement: Lobbying, Protests, RebellionAffiliation with the AFLResistance to Taylorism

1921-1928: The Dawn of a New DayA Change in Tactics

1929-1949: The Great DepressionA Power Struggle EmergesThe NALC Mobilizes

1950-1960: April Is the Cruelest MonthLet Them Eat Cake

1961-1969: The Right To Represent Letter CarriersPromises, PromisesAn Endurance Test: 1966-68The Gathering Storm

1970: A Strike Is CalledVictory!

1971-1978: In the Aftermath of Victory‘Kokomo Is Dead’Rebuilding the Legislative MachineryTriumph of the Rank-and-Filers

1979-1989: On the Cutting Edge of ChangeLegislation to the ForefrontLabor-Management Conflict—And CooperationPreparing for NALC’s Second Century

1990-2002: Facing Revolutionary ChangeResolving Conflict at the WorkplaceAt the Bargaining TableFrom Privatization To Reform

2003-2014: Meeting the Challenges of a Digital AgePreserving Carrier JobsUSPS in TroubleBargaining Under DuressSaving Saturday Delivery

Epilogue

ContentsIV

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The Postal Record

The NALC Symbol:A Legacy That Lives

State Associations

NALC Presidents

Mutual BenefitAssociation

NALC Auxiliary

NALC Bands

Uniform Allowance

Edward Gainor: Father ofthe Shorter Work Week

NALC Headquarters

NALC Health Benefit Plan

Black Letter Carriers

NALCREST

Women Letter Carriers

Branch Mergers

Retired Members

Hero of the Year Awards

NALC and the MuscularDystrophy Association

Centennial Celebration

National Conventions

NALC Food Drive

COLCPE

Leadership Academy

Preserving NALC’s Past

NALC Membership, 1889-2014

The Changing Faceof the NALC

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In Brief

Timelineof NALC HistoryTimeline

First letter carriersappointed byCongress

Eight-hour day law for carriers,championed byCongressman“Sunset Cox,enacted

Carriers from largecities and NALChold consolidationmeeting in NewYork City; firstNALC Conventionheld in Boston,Massachusetts

Mutual BenefitAssociation established atNALC Conventionin Detroit

Lloyd-LaFolletteAct rescinds Gagrules, and givespostal and federal workersright to organize

PostmasterGeneral Will B.Hays announces“humanization” policy and officially recog-nizes postal organizations

NALC HealthBenefit Plan began operation

NALC founded in Milwaukee

Supreme Courtupholds NALCinterpretation ofEight Hour Law intwo decisions; carriers eventuallyawarded $3.5 million in overtime claims

National LadiesAuxiliary founded at NALCConvention inPortland, Oregon

NALC affiliateswith AmericanFederation ofLabor; womenhired as tempo-rary letter carriers as menwent to war

Golden JubileeConvention marksNALC’s first 50years–gold card for50-year membersestablished

1794 1888 1890 1894 1912 1921 1960

1889: 96 members1950: 103,000 members

1930: 58,000 members1910: 27,000 members

1863 1889 1893 1905 1917 1939

Free city deliveryinstituted in large cities

1962 1970 1982 1989 1993 2006 2013

Executive Order10988 issued;NALC wins right to represent citydelivery carriers in nationwide representationelections

National wildcatstrike; PostalReorganizationAct passed

Fair LaborStandards Act litigation settled;Joint NALC-USPS EmployeeInvolvementProcess established

Union celebratesits 100th anniver-sary in Milwaukeewhere it wasfounded

Hatch Act Reformexpands politicalrights for carriers,other postal andfederal employees.

PostalAccountability and EnforcementAct signed into law

Arbitration panelresolves 2011-2016 contract, creating city carrierassistant positionwith a path to acareer position

NALCREST retirement community for letter carriers dedicated

Membership gains power toelect national officers directly

Arbitration paneldetermines terms of a NationalAgreement for the first time

NALC, USPS and other organizations sign JointStatement onViolence andBehavior in theWorkplace

Arbitrators elevateletter carriers toGrade 6, breakinghistoric link withpostal clerks

Restrictions onsubcontracting letter carrier work contained in new NationalAgreement

1964 1972 1984 1992 1999 20071989: 316,000 members

1970: 212,000 members 2014: 289,000 members

vi

A lthough the first federal workersto organize were the skilledcraftsmen working in Navy shipyards and in the U.S.

Government Printing Office, postal workerswere the first federal employees to joinunions in great numbers, with letter carriers the first craft to form its ownunion—the National Association of LetterCarriers. The struggle to form unions oftheir choosing followed a different path forletter carriers and others who toiled for thefederal government than that taken byworkers in American industry.

From the very beginning, letter carriersand the NALC have, out of necessity, facedoff against a special employer, the UnitedStates government. Because governmentemployees work for the public, manyAmericans have believed that governmentworkers owe their employer—ultimatelythe American people—a degree of loyaltyand obedience far beyond that owed byother workers. As a result, letter carriershave sometimes been reluctant to antago-nize both the public and the governmentby engaging in what might be viewed asextreme or radical collective action.

Recognizing the public’s views, theNALC has constantly had to juggle itsmembers’ aspirations against the forces ofpublic opinion and governmental reaction.Prior to 1971, conditions of work had beenfixed by law rather than by direct negotia-tions between the union and the then PostOffice Department, and the NALC reliedexclusively on finely honed weapons of lob-bying and political action to become one ofthe powerful federal unions. But as a directresult of the illegal but unquestionably nec-essary and justifiable 1970 strike, collectivebargaining has given the union and itsmembers a “second front” in the age-oldstruggle to improve letter carrier wages,benefits and working conditions.

Whether lobbying Congress, reachingout to the public, or negotiating with postalmanagement, the NALC has always exhibit-ed unity of goals and methods, thus gener-ally avoiding the factional struggles thatoften divide organizations. In part, thisremarkable cohesiveness has been due tothe nature of the letter carrier’s job: allworkers have labored in the same craft andperformed the same work. But what alsocontributed mightily to this unity and soli-darity from the very beginning was that let-ter carriers, unlike other workers of the late19th century, shared a common employer,the Post Office Department, although deliv-ering the mail in communities scatteredacross the United States. In contrast, whenthe NALC was founded, industry was barelynational in scope, and since most workersorganized locally to fight localized strug-gles, many national unions were national inname only.

Of course, letter carriers’ true employerhas always been the American people,which is why they have shouldered theirsatchels with such pride. One of the NALC'searly presidents, James C. Keller, expressedthis sentiment at the beginning of the 20thcentury: “We hold that he [the letter carrier]is not a messenger boy, but that he is anintelligent part and parcel of the social andindustrial organization of this land of ours.”

Such pride, however, did not change theharsh realities of letter carriers’ lives for, likeother workers, letter carriers worked longand hard to pay the rent and put food on thetable—selling their labor to survive. And likeother workers, they organized because ofeconomic necessity and the injustices onthe job. Like other labor unions, the NALC isrooted in the workplace. The pages that fol-low tell the history of letter carriers whoworked to live—and of unionists who livedfor their common ideals.

Introduction

1775-1862

Let us bind these people together to uswith a chain that can never be broken.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

The Early Days of the Republic

W hen George Washington, our country’s first president,spoke these words in 1782, he and other prominent fig-ures of the time were seriously concerned about the fateof this fledgling nation. Many Americans worried

that a democratic republic composed of thirteen states and avast frontier covering over a million square miles wouldnever survive: the United States was geographically toovast to govern; the customs, opinions and laws of eachstate were too different; and each state jealously guard-ed its rights and powers.As Washington’s remark suggests, he was acutely

aware of America’s precarious situation and saw thedevelopment of a national postal service as a way tobind Americans together into a unified nation. Anationwide postal system had existed since 1775—when the Second Continental Congress appointedBenjamin Franklin the first postmaster general—but by1782, the operation of the post office provided littlecomfort to those Americans worried about their coun-try’s future. Stagecoaches and postriders were too unreli-able, theft common, and postage rates too high. Postal leg-islation passed that year had given the central governmentcontrol of both interstate and intrastate posts, but manycitizens ignored the law. In fact, many Americans ques-tioned the extent of the central government’s postal power.

Benjamin Franklin immortalized in his role

as the nation’s firstPostmaster General

Carriers in a Common Cause � 1

But by 1794, Washington’s wishwas a reality. The Constitution of1787 had granted Congress spe-cific power “To establish PostOffices and Post Roads,” and thisauthority was defined in 1792when Congress approved com-prehensive postal legislation. Twoyears later, in 1794, it officiallyestablished the Post Office as apermanent part of the federalgovernment and authorized theappointment of this country’s firstletter carriers.

In these early days of theRepublic, America’s first lettercarriers received no salaries butwere permitted by Congress tocollect a fee of two cents for everyletter they delivered. Althoughtwo cents was a considerableamount of money in those days,this fee did not guarantee lettercarriers a decent living wage.Since the recipients of letters hadthe option of accepting deliveryservice or calling at the post officeto pick up their mail, most citi-zens chose the latter. Delivery ofone’s mail was a luxury few peo-ple could afford. Thus, the wagesof these pioneer letter carrierswere erratic at best.

The SpoilsSystem

To make matters worse, by the 1830s whatever jobsecurity letter carriers

might have enjoyed was lost asfavoritism and partisanshipbegan to dominate their lives.

This started when AndrewJackson succeeded John QuincyAdams as president after the bitter election campaign of 1828.Once in office, Jackson foundhimself surrounded by his ene-mies—men Adams appointedand who had actively and oftenviciously campaigned againsthim. Jackson’s response to thissituation was ruthless. He fla-grantly replaced everybody—nomatter how qualified—with loyalmembers of his own politicalparty. “To the victor belong thespoils” became the rallying cry of his administration, and thespoils system—rewarding theparty faithful with politicalappointments—quickly becameentrenched in the federal gov-ernment. In particular, it pervad-ed the Post Office Department,

America’s firstletter carriersreceived nosalaries butwere permittedby Congress to collect a feeof two cents for every letterthey delivered.


rippling downwards from thepostmaster general to individualpostmasters and then to postalclerks and letter carriers.

Local post offices intertwinedwith the local political machinesof the national party in power.Letter carriers and post officeclerks acquired their jobs throughpartisan ties and lost them when-ever there was a local or nationalchange in party or even in faction.So no matter how hard a lettercarrier worked or how desperatelya letter carrier needed the job, achange of administration meanthe was out on the streets—notdelivering the mail but lookingfor another way to make a living.In addition, for as long as the carrier held the job, he wasexpected to be a campaign workerfirst, a letter carrier second. If hefailed to live up to this expecta-tion, his work load might beincreased, his pay reduced, or he would be fired.

The spoils system—capriciousand arbitrary at best—fostered akind of passivity among lettercarriers. Hired only for politicalreasons and with the knowledgethat the job was temporary, letter

carriers generally were inclinedto accept inadequate wages andpoor working conditions, both ofwhich were determined by localpostmasters. An individual lettercarrier could improve his ownsituation by becoming friendlywith the postmaster, but therewas little hope of carriers as awhole wresting control over theirwork-lives. This situation, how-ever, was to change within ashort period of time.

1775-1862

Frederick W. Wolf was appoint-

ed a letter carrier in Troy, New

York in 1854 and served for

54 years. At the time of his

appointment, carriers collected

two cents for each letter they

delivered. Since it was not

always convenient to collect on

delivery, Wolf would often mark

the amount due on the door

or side of the house. A large

number of these houses were

destroyed in the fire of 1862

and since Wolf had no other

record of the money owed him,

he never recovered his money.


1863-1888

The Modern Era Begins

The inauguration of free city delivery in 1863 marks thereal beginning of the history of the modern letter carrierand it indirectly marks the beginning of the history ofthe NALC.

Free city delivery was a product of the Civil War: One bitter win-ter day in Cleveland, Ohio, a long line of citizens was anxiouslywaiting at the post office to see if there were any letters from hus-bands, relatives or friends fighting in the war. The assistant post-master and window clerk, J. W. Briggs, was appalled at this sight.He felt the government should accommodate its citizens betterthan he could on that cold day in Cleveland. So Briggs canvassedneighborhood groceries to find out if mail could be brought tothese stores, sorted by post office personnel and then delivered tothe front doorsteps of patrons. Once he got the storekeepers’approval, Briggs marked out the first routes and delivered the mailhimself. The Cleveland experiment was an instantaneous success,and shortly thereafter Congress passed legislation establishing freecity delivery in every city with more than 50,000 people.A moment to be remembered: On July 1, 1863—the day the

savage battle of Gettysburg began—449 modern letter carriersbegan to walk the streets of 49 cities. One hundred and thirty-seven letter carriers delivered mail to the doors of patrons in NewYork City; three letter carriers delivered mail in Louisville,Kentucky; one letter carrier walked his route for the first time inNashua, New Hampshire. The history of the modern letter carrierhad begun.


The Modern Era Begins Almost immediately, local associationsof letter carriers began to spring up incities across the country. A New York lettercarrier association was founded in 1863and a Chicago association in 1870.Originally organized as mutual benefitsocieties and social clubs, these early let-ter carrier associations quickly expandedtheir roles. They began to seek improve-ments in working conditions by enlistingthe aid of local politicians. For those prob-lems that could not be resolved locally, letter carrier associations would elect orappoint delegates and send them toWashington, DC to lobby their senatorsand representatives.Although these early efforts to effect

change were isolated and localized, theydemonstrated letter carriers’ determina-tion to improve their working conditions.But carriers were bucking a spoils systemthat was so deeply ingrained in the service that real change was impossible.Furthermore, as the history of workingpeople reveals, isolated and local effortsrarely move mountains. A national organi-zation representing all letter carriers wasneeded, but the spoils system stood in the way.


Keep At It

When your load is getting heavy

And the miles are “cussed” long,

When your patrons start a-crabbing

And the world is going wrong.

Just pucker up your whistle

In some half-forgotten song,

And keep at it!

When the catalogs are piling up

And loads of circulars come in,

When you’re plowing through

the snowdrifts—

Maybe wet through to the skin—

Just try and pull your mouth

Into the semblance of a grin,

And keep at it!

If you’re tired and discouraged

And you think, “I’ll jack it up—

This is not the job for me:

I have drained life’s bitter cup.”

Say! Some other jobs are harder

Than the postman’s—don’t give up!

And keep at it!

“Lucy”

Derry, New Hampshire

1863-1888

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An ObstacleRemoved

A serious movement to reformthe spoils system did notdevelop until after the Civil

War. It gathered strength during the1870s and ironically benefitted fromthe shooting of President JamesGarfield on July 2, 1881, by what history books have long described as a “disappointed office seeker”—CharlesJ. Guiteau. Immediately, reformersargued that Garfield was a victim of thespoils system: If there had been a prop-er civil service system, there might nothave been a “disappointed office seek-er” turned assassin. Garfield’s death onSeptember 19 elicited an intenseresponse from the public, which prodded the Congress into action.

This country’s first civil service law,known as the Pendleton Act, waspassed by Congress in 1883, two yearsafter Garfield’s death. Among otherprovisions, it specifically required letter carriers and post office clerks inevery post office with 50 or moreemployees to take competitive examsto qualify for their jobs. It also includ-ed language which made their posi-tions permanent. Although the lawexcluded all postmasters and employ-ees in the smaller post offices, approx-imately half the postal workforce wascovered. So for the first time sinceAndrew Jackson’s administration, letter carriers were hired because theywere qualified for their jobs—notbecause they were members of a cer-tain political party. Furthermore, thesesame carriers could not legally be fired


First lettercarriers of theHarrisburg,PennsylvaniaPost Office,1879.

The Postal Record, NALC’s officialmonthly journal, is slightly olderthan the union itself. First

published in 1887 as a privateenterprise by Alvin G. Brown ofMassachusetts, the Record wasdevoted chiefly to the concerns ofletter carriers, but also carried mate-rial of interest to all postal workers.

John F. Victory, a letter carrier electedNALC national secretary at the 1890 con-vention, purchased The Postal Record fromBrown in 1891. A talented writer, Victory edited the magazineand built up its subscribership during his term of office. TheNALC bought The Postal Record from Victory on December 1,1893, acting on a resolution of the Kansas City, Missouri con-vention that year.

“Raffles” was the namegiven by irreverent NALCmembers to the drawing ofthe rakish-looking postman(above right) which appearedon every cover of The Postal

Record for 31 years. Then, inAugust 1938, Editor MichaelT. Finnan came out with anew cover. It was still thesame blue-gray color but“Raffles” was replaced by adrawing of a vigorous-lookingmodern carrier. “Son ofRaffles” only lasted 41 con-secutive issues, replaced byphotographs starting in January 1942.

This “modernization” of The Postal

Record cover occurred only monthsbefore the union, in keeping with aresolution passed by the Los AngelesConvention of 1941, began mailingthe magazine to every member’s resi-dence instead of delivering it in “clubbundles” to union halls and post officeworkrooms for members to retrieve.Today, copies of the magazine alsoland on the desks of important deci-sion-makers in Washington, D.C. andthroughout the international labormovement. In a concession to the realities of the internetage, selected features and columns are also posted on theunion’s website.

for political reasons. As a result of thesereforms, the high turnover among lettercarriers began to diminish, and a perma-nent core of carriers with a stake in theservice developed.The passage of the Pendleton Act had

another effect on letter carriers—lessobvious, but just as important. The rela-tionship between Congress and letter carriers began to change. If letter carrierscould no longer be counted on to repre-sent the political interests of senators andrepresentatives at home, why should theCongress do anything for them? Congress’interest in the welfare of letter carriersquickly faded, and carriers found it neces-sary to unite to protect their interests.And now that letter carriers were nolonger dependent upon local and nationalpoliticians for their jobs, their loyaltiesshifted from the party and postmaster toeach other. The beginning of the end ofthe spoils system fostered a community ofinterests among letter carriers which hadnever existed before. The stage was set fororganization.

Litmus Testfor the Future

A lmost immediately after thePendleton Act went into effect in1883, letter carriers in the New

York area banded together to obtain anannual vacation law.Officially, letter carriers were not

allowed vacations. They were supposed towork 365 days per year, includingSundays. The postmaster in New York City,however, permitted his carriers to take tendays of vacation per year, providing theirfellow workers agreed to cover the routesof those on vacation. At the same time,federal employees in Washington, DC,including those working in the headquar-ters of the Post Office Department, wereallowed 30 vacation days per year, a privi-lege not extended to the employees of theWashington, DC post office.


1863-1888

John F. Victory

The Postal Record


Arithmetic

Question 1: A carrier makes 4 trips a day,carrying 64 letters and 32 papers each trip.The letters average in weight ¼ oz. eachand the papers 2 oz. each. How manypounds of mail does he deliver in a day?(16 oz. to the pound.)

Question 2: In an office employing 35 carri-ers, each carrier loses 20 minutes a day inidle talk. Suppose the average salary ofeach to be $2.50 for ten hours work, what isthe cost to the Government of the lost timeeach day, and what will it amount to in ayear of 313 working days?

Local Delivery

Question 1: Name the principal railroads(not exceeding five) which pass through orterminate in this city, and give the location(the street or streets on which situated) ofthe principal depot or ticket office of each.

Question 2: Name four streets which passnearest to the building in which this exami-nation is held, and mention one public build-ing or prominent business house on each.

Question 3: Name the principal hotels inthis city (not exceeding five) and the loca-tion (street or streets on which situated) of each.

Carrier Exam, late 1800sSample Questions from the Qualifying Examination for Letter Carriers

Frustrated with the discrepancy intreatment and newly blessed with theprotections the Pendleton Act had pro-vided them, Washington letter carrierspetitioned the Department for thesame leave privileges as otherfederal workers in the city.Petitioning the

Department wasunprecedented in thehistory of the service,and it did not reactfavorably to thisaggressive behavior.The Department’slaw officer issued astatement declaringthat no law existedunder which letter car-riers could be allowedany vacation days what -soever. The postmaster at theNew York Post Office wassoon ordered to cease giving carriersannual leave.The New York City letter

carriers did not passively accept this Departmental dictate, but ratherdecided to agitate for an annual vaca-

tion law. Together with letter carriersfrom several other cities, theyapproached Congressman Samuel“Sunset” Cox, and in 1884, after amonumental effort, Cox was able topersuade Congress to pass legislation

giving all letter carriers—not justthose in New York City orWashington —a 15-day vaca-tion, with pay, every year. Asurprising victory, it gaveletter carriers first-handexperience in the advan-tages of organized agita-tion. Letter carriersthroughout the nationwere vividly remindedthat in unity there is,indeed, strength.A word about “Sunset”

Cox. He was the one greatexception to congressional apa-thy, working long and hard to

improve the conditions of letter carri-ers. A Democrat, a former congress-man from Ohio, and a two-term con-gressman from New York, he took upthe cause of the letter carrier withinthe halls of Congress. It was Cox who

Samuel S. Cox

was responsible for persuading Congress in1879 to establish a regular pay scale for lettercarriers. Up until this time, letter carrier paywas set by each postmaster, and glaringinequalities extended from city to city. The1879 law created two grades of carriers inthe larger post offices, with salaries fixed at$800 and $1,000 a year. In the smaller postoffices, where letter carriers’ jobs were stillsubject to the spoils system, Congress limit-ed carriers’ wages to $850 per year, regard-less of years of service.

Carriers and the 8-Hour Day

T he struggle for an eight-hour day is alandmark in letter carrier history. Itwas also an intense nationwide move-

ment, one involving an enormous number ofworkers in addition to letter carriers.The movement began soon after the

Civil War. The nation was industrializing, the economy was expanding and labor wasbeginning to realize its potential strength.The Depression of 1873-79 interrupted thecampaign, but by the early 1880s, the move-

ment for an eight-hour day began to revive.Letter carriers’ involvement began as

early as 1868 when Congress passed aneight-hour law for federal “laborers, work-men and mechanics.” The Post OfficeDepartment, arguing that its employees didnot fit the description, refused to comply.Frustrated in their attempts to force theDepartment to reverse itself, angry lettercarriers in a number of large cities—NewYork, Chicago, Omaha, Buffalo, Brooklyn—turned for help in the 1880s to the NobleOrder of the Knights of Labor, the leadinglabor organization of the time. Letter carri-ers formed local Knights of Labor assem-blies and many became leaders within theorganization.By the mid-1880s, the Knights were at

the peak of their power. By 1886, more than 700,000 workers had joined this newly militant organization. The entire nationwas up in arms over the eight-hour day.Workers were striking and protesting.Employers were fighting back with avengeance, intent upon smashing both the Knights and the movement.Like private employers, postal manage-

ment also vigorously opposed the move-


1863-1888

US

PS

Lib

rary

ment. And when an eight-hour bill for letter carriers, drafted by the Knights ofLabor, was introduced in Congress in1886, the Department harassed any andall active supporters. Some carriers who

led the campaign were fired forminor infractions of work rules.Others were either transferred toless desirable routes, assignedroutes far from their homes, givenextra duties or ordered to take vaca-tions with no advance warning. In New York City, 150 letter carrierswere suspended when the post -master discovered they were mem-bers of the Knights. They were laterreinstated, but only after thenational office of the Knights ofLabor interceded on their behalf.Confronted with the aggressive

opposition of the business commu-nity, the movement for an eight-hour daylost steam and finally dissipated. However,amidst the ruins of this major defeat forlabor, one group of workers—the nation’sletter carriers—used the influence of theirlocal associations to achieve success. Withthe help of their congressional champion,

“Sunset” Cox, supported by the lobbyingof local letter carrier associations, particu-larly those in New York and Philadelphia,Congress overrode the Department’sstrong opposition and passed the Knights’eight-hour bill for carriers in 1888. Thisvictory was jubilantly celebrated on July 4of that year by a massive parade of lettercarriers from Connecticut, Massachusetts,Maryland, New Jersey, New York,Pennsylvania and Washington, DCthrough the streets of New York City.For letter carriers, who at that time

were working at least 10 to 12 hours a day,seven days a week, the enactment of theeight-hour bill was an impressive and longoverdue victory. But perhaps more impor-tant than the passage of the law were theforces released by the intense ferment ofthe eight-hour day movement itself. Nowletter carriers began to see themselves—and each other—differently. “Eight hoursof work per day” was the issue aroundwhich many letter carriers organizedthemselves into a body of workers—workers fighting for a common goal.Letter carriers were now ready to organizea union.


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“Eight hours ofwork per day”was the issuearound whichmany carriersorganized into abody of workersfighting for acommon goal.

1889-1901

The NALC Is BornL

etter carriers had tried to organize a national union at least threetimes—in 1870 in Washington, DC, in 1877 in New York City, andin 1880 again in New York City. Recognizing that these earlierattempts had failed in part due to the expense of regularly

convening enough carriers to sustain a national organization, in1889 the Milwaukee Letter Carriers Association decided to timetheir call for another national meeting of carriers to coincide withthe annual reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic—an organi-zation of Union Army veterans—so that letter carriers who wereveterans could take advantage of reduced train fares.In issuing the invitation sent to every city delivery post office

in the United States, the Milwaukee carriers advised delegateswithout regulation postal uniforms “to bring a letter of introduc-tion from the postmaster or superintendent” and to to bring “credentials from superior officers.” The Milwaukee carriers also set forth a partial agenda for the meeting:

“1. The formation of a national organization.2. Petitioning Congress for an increase of carriers’ salary.3. Organizing a U.S. Letter Carriers’ Mutual Ins. Co.4. The pensioning of carriers after continued service of [num-

ber to be debated] years.5. Providing substitute carriers with a fixed salary during their

period of probation.”Ironically, the 60 carriers who answered Milwaukee’s convention

call—48 accredited delegates and at least 12 other participants—werenot from the large cities such as Philadelphia and New York that hadworked so hard for the passage of the eight-hour law, but primarily fromsmall and middle-sized cities. So when August Dahlman of Milwaukeecalled the convention to order on Thursday, August 29, 1889 in themeeting hall above Schaefer’s Saloon at 244 West Water St., delegateselected John J. Goodwin of Providence, Rhode Island, as temporarychairman, perhaps in an effort to balance regional concerns.


William H. Wood,

NALC’s first

president.

Delegates moved quickly, unani-mously adopting a resolution to forma National Association of LetterCarriers and then, on the next day,elected William Wood of Detroit asthe first president and appointed an Executive Board to coordinate alllegislative efforts.

The Reaction

The Post Office Departmentwas shocked when it foundout the carriers had organized

a union. Resistance followed theshock almost immediately. For exam-ple, in St. Louis, as in other cities, allthe leaders of the local branch weresummarily dismissed and the branchtemporarily disbanded. In somecommunities, members of the unionwere brutally forced to work eighthours on and off over a 24-hour period. In other communities, unionsupporters were given the least desirable routes.The initial response of many car-

riers when they heard that a nationalassociation had been organized wasalso one of resistance, coupled withsuspicion. Generally speaking, carri-ers from the big cities had not takenpart in the first, historic meeting inMilwaukee and they were unsure ofhow to respond to the so-called“national association.” Initially, theyremained apart, and, in fact, sent a

legislativecommittee to lobbyCongress dur-ing the 1889-90 legislative session—asdid the newnational association.The two groupsimme-diatelyworkedagainst each other, clashing overobjectives. Congress, unsure ofwhich one to deal with, refused to listen to or act upon either committee’s concerns.Letter carriers were angry and

upset over this legislative fiasco. TheMay 1890 issue of The Postal Record,a new publication devoted to theinterests of all postal employees,contained an eloquent statementfrom John J. Goodwin, a member ofthe newly formed NALC ExecutiveBoard. He expressed the general frustration:

Hasn’t the bitterness of complete fail-ure sickened our friends of guerrillawarfare?

The need for united action wasobvious. The question was: Were lettercarriers capable of setting aside theirdifferences and working together?


Ironically, on August 29,

1889, the same day the

NALC was founded, Samuel

“Sunset” Cox, congressional

champion for the eight-hour

day for letter carriers, made

his last public appearance—

fittingly before a group of

New York City carriers.

Eleven days later, Cox was

dead. Carriers all over the

country mourned his death

and began raising funds to

erect a statue in his honor.

On July 4, 1891, an eight-foot

bronze statue of “Sunset”

Cox was unveiled in lower

Manhattan. Over 2,000

letter carriers from the New

York City area, joined by

delegations of letter carriers

from cities as far away as

San Francisco and New

Orleans, attended the event.

The two groups of carriers decidedto try. The New York Letter CarriersAssociation organized a meeting of del-egates from cities not connected withthe NALC. Representatives from theNALC were also invited to attend. Thisconference was held in New York Cityon July 4, 1890—one month before thefirst annual convention of the NALCwas to take place. During the meeting,letter carriers succeeded in ironing outtheir differences and merging theirorganizations into one, resolving “That every delegate at the Conferencepledge himself to use his best efforts tofurther the interests of the NationalAssociation, and to induce their respec-tive cities to promptly become branchassociations....” The catchphrase at thetime was, “We should be co-laborers ina common cause.” And this was thespirit with which carriers attended theirfirst convention in August 1890 inBoston, Massachusetts, and electedGoodwin president and John F. Victoryof New York secretary. The NALC wasnow truly launched.The union grew rapidly after resolv-

ing its organizational crisis: 58 branchesin August 1890, 231 branches by August

1891, and in August 1892, the NALCboasted 333 branches.

The Battle Linesare Drawn

Once organized, the NALCimmediately represented its members in a major

confrontation with the Post OfficeDepartment. This battle—over the still-controversial eight-hour day—was to be a decisive one for the NALC.The Post Office Department,

extremely unhappy with passage in1888 of the eight-hour law for carriers,openly ignored it for several months.Then the Department adopted a policyof deliberate evasion: It reinterpretedeight hours a day to mean eight hours aday for seven days a week—or 56 hoursa week. For example, letter carriers whoworked nine hours a day for six daysstill owed the Department two hours ofwork on Sunday. This deliberate misreading of the law was enforcedthroughout the country. But the NALC—with its feet barely on the ground—responded swiftly and forcefully by


1889-1901

The Second Annual

Convention of the

NALC was held in

Detroit, Michigan,

August 5-7, 1891.

National Postal Museum Library


suing the federal government.The suit startled everyone, espe-

cially the Post Office Department.Even more startling was the result:The NALC won the case in 1893,when the Supreme Court awardedletter carriers a total of $3.5 million,settling thousands of overtime claimsagainst the Department.This first successful battle with the

Post Office Department helped con-solidate the new labor organization.Letter carriers formerly indifferent tothe NALC or afraid to join because ofmanagement reprisals flocked to theunion in great numbers. Only fouryears after the union’s foundingmeeting in Milwaukee, its reputationas a fearless and successful advocatewas permanently established.The same year the NALC won its

suit, the Post Office Department initi-ated a program which greatly aggra-vated its relations with the NALC andletter carriers. The “spotter system”was supposedly designed to weed outinefficient and dishonest letter carri-ers to improve service. In reality, thespotter system was initiated to cir-

cumvent thenewly estab-lished civil service laws. Italso harassed orforced from theirjobs a good num-ber of carriers whowere active in theNALC. In fact,many letter carri-ers at the timebelieved the pur-pose of the systemwas to underminethe NALC.The spotter system operated like

this: hundreds of men, hired by theDepartment as a reward for theirpolitical loyalty to President GroverCleveland and the Democratic party,were assigned to travel secretly fromcity to city literally to spy on carriersas they worked and to report all viola-tions of work rules. If a charge againsta carrier was sustained, the postmastercould fire the carrier and hire a newletter carrier of the right political persuasion—that is, a Democrat.

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The spotters, none of them withpostal experience, did their jobsexceedingly well. By the end of 1893,approximately one-third of theentire letter carrier force in Chicago,Cleveland, and Philadelphia hadbeen brought up on charges.The activities of these Department

spies were repugnant to say theleast, and the charges they broughtagainst carriers ranged from the triv-ial to the malicious. For example, in1895, 40 spotters brought chargesagainst 173 Chicago letter carriers.Fifty of the carriers were chargedwith stopping to answer questionsor to speak to their patrons as theydelivered the mail. Only two of thecharges were of a serious nature.An example of the more malicious

and outrageous charges carrierswere forced to endure took place inAkron, Ohio, in 1895. A spotter wassecretly watching a letter carrier onhis route when the carrier happenedto glance through a ground-floorwindow of a patron’s home. Seeing awoman and child lying on the floor,he immediately entered the house,found the two almost suffocated by agas leak, and carried them out tosafety. The spotter reported theevent to his superiors and recom-mended the letter carrier’s dismissalfor “deviation from his route.” In theend, the carrier was suspended for15 days without pay for violatingpostal work procedures.Perhaps the most contemptible

aspect of the spotter system was themanner in which letter carriers weretold of the charges. In almost everycase, carriers were not informeduntil months after the alleged viola-tion had occurred. Then, withoutwarning, a letter carrier would beasked to explain his behavior topostal officials. Naturally, few lettercarriers were able to remember and


1889-1901

The NALC Symbol:A Legacy that Lives

So said a branch itemsubmitted to ThePostal Record from

Indianapolis in 1891,referring to the newNALC symbol and reflect-ing the pride and enthu-siasm letter carriers feltfor the infant union.The decision to adopt

a union logo was made atthe first NALC conventionin August 1890, with thedelegates appointing acommittee to come upwith a suitable design.The result—a hand bear-ing a letter addressed“U.S.A.” within a circleenscribed “NationalAssociation of LetterCarriers”—was adopted inJanuary 1891. Producedas a gold badge hangingfrom a sheaf pin, the sym-bol soon became popularwith carriers throughoutthe country.The reason for pro-

ducing a badge with adistinctive symbol was tohelp letter carriers—asunion members and asskilled workers—identifyone another. As reported in the 1890 Postal Record,

“these badges oremblems will be quiteuniversal,and will protectCarriers andPostmasters ofsmalleroffices frombeingimposed uponby anyoneclaiming themselves asP.O. men in good stand-ing when they are not.”To ensure the sanctity

of the badge, they couldonly be ordered by abranch secretary—at$1.20 apiece in solid goldand 55 cents in gold plate. NALC’s decision to

adopt a logo paralleled atrend developingthroughout the youngtrade-union movementto identify goods pro-duced by skilled unioncraftsmen. Among theoldest in the Americanlabor movement, NALC’ssymbol continues tostand for letter carriers’pride in their union, theircraft and their service tothe public.

“The badges of the National Association have beenreceived and the boys are highly delighted with them,and we are constantly being complimented on their

beauty by the public.”

therefore could not adequatelydefend themselves.This continual harassment gravely

affected morale, and the NALC repeat-edly protested to Department officials.The union submitted a formal proteston October 28, 1895, but theDepartment would not listen. Lettercarriers were angry and frustrated, andno resolution was in sight. Finally, thepress took up the carriers’ cause. Forexample, the Superior, WisconsinTelegram editorialized in 1895:

There may be some things which thepresent administration has donewhich the general public ... will com-mend, but the setting of a gang of spot-ters to dog the steps of Uncle Sam’s carriers is not one of them.... It is ashame and a rank injustice to placethe reputations of thousands of honest,hard-working men at the mercy of ahorde of irresponsible fellows whosechief anxiety is to earn their salaries....

In March 1896, the spotter systemwas disbanded. Strong pressure fromresponsible newspapers had forcedCongress to deny the Post Office

Department further funds for theemployment of these spies.

The EarlyObjectivesof the NALC

It should be a source of pride totoday’s letter carriers that fromthe NALC’s very inception, the

union displayed deep concern for theplight of all carriers—those in smallcities as well as those in big, the old as well as the young, substitutes aswell as regulars.When the letter carriers met in

Milwaukee and Boston in 1889 and1890, three issues were of paramountimportance: a uniform wage struc-ture, a minimum wage for substitutes,and a guaranteed pension for carriers.After these meetings, the NALC, as therepresentative of over 5,000 letter car-riers, began its long, hard struggle toimprove the working conditions ofUncle Sam’s “gray coated carriers.”

Hundreds ofspotters wereassigned totravel secretlyfrom city to cityliterally to spyon carriers asthey worked.


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Priority number one was equaliza-tion of wages. The NALC believed allletter carriers should receive anannual wage of $1,200, regardless ofthe size of the city in which theyworked. An editorial in The PostalRecord in 1889 described letter carri-ers’ strong feelings on this issue:

We have asked again and again whatreason can be given for the distinctionmade between carriers in cities havinga population of 75,000 and of thosewith less population. Do they workmore hours? Manifestly not. Do theyhave any heavier bonds? Oh, no! Dothey deliver more pieces per carrier? Asan aggregate, yes; in individual cases,frequently not. Do they walk farther?No, the shoe is on the other foot!

Do they get any more pay? Yes, sir!They get one thousand dollars a year,while the carriers of the lesser citieswho do the same work must be con-tent with eight hundred and fifty dollars. Why is this so? We give up.Why should it be so? It shouldn’t. It isan outrage.

But Congress would notbudge on the issue.By the early 1900s, with no sig-

nificant wage increase since 1887,the NALC also began to lobby foran increase in wages generally.Carriers were beginningto lag seriously behindother workers in thelabor market. Whilebricklayers were earn-ing an average of $4.00 aday in 1900, and carpenters,$2.80, letter carriers were earningan average of $2.21. Even theAmerican Federation of Labor, aloosely knit alliance of skilled craftunions originally organized in 1881,endorsed a salary increase for lettercarriers at its 23rd annual conven-tion in 1902, but to no avail.The NALC’s second priority was

alleviating the intolerable conditionsof substitute carriers. For a wage of $1 per year, subs were required toreport to the post office at least onceevery morning—and often again atnoon—to see if they were needed

1889-1901

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that day. If they worked, they received adaily wage; otherwise, they received noremuneration whatsoever. Furthermore, it was impossible for a

substitute to keep another job to sup-port himself or his family, because ifthe post office needed him, the sub hadto deliver the mail or be fired. In otherwords, substitute carriers were expect-ed to eke out a bare existence until anopening in the civil service listoccurred in three to five years, if notlonger, before they could then beappointed regular carriers.The adversity under which substitutes

labored was graphically portrayed by anearly 1900s substitute carrier who, withbarbed humor, satirically described “a veryeconomical dish for 6 o’clock dinner”—fitnot for a king, but for a substitute:

Make a raise of a 10-cent soup bone, thenearer the hoof the more bone for themoney; then for each member of thefamily take three nice, fresh, large snow-balls... and put the whole mess into akettle over a slow fire. When it comes to aboil, allow the mixture to simmer gentlyfor two hours. Pepper and salt to taste.Serve. Should the family be increased byan additional member or two, add moresnowballs of the same brand, take nosubstitute. But under no circumstancesincrease the quality of the bone, as thereis a danger of gout, if made too rich.After a meal of this sort a man is forti-fied for at least two days to pack aboutfifty pounds of mail up any number offlights of stairs or up any old hill and torepel the attack of vicious dogs.

The NALC pleaded tirelessly withCongress to alleviate the distress ofsubstitute carriers. As an article in a1901 Postal Record stated, “all the glit-tering promises of future compensationwill not feed or clothe a man.” But,again, the pleas fell on deaf ears.


NALC’s State Associa tionsdate back to at least asearly as 1892, when let-

ter carrier represen tatives from17 smaller Massachusetts citiesmet to discuss the equalizationof wages. Originally established in

response to a feeling that theNational Association was notsensitive to this particular need,the meeting’s 41 delegatesformed the MassachusettsAssociation of Letter Carriers ofSecond-Class Offices. Althoughorganized as a challenge to thenational union, the value of

state associations was soon rec-ognized as a positive force. ByJuly 1903, The Postal Record wasable to report many large andenthusiastic meetings held byNALC State Associations. TheRecord extolled the benefits ofstate meetings of letter carriers,citing the promotion of mutualsupport, the sharing of opinionamong branches, and theopportunities for members tomeet their Congressmen. Today, state associations exist

in every state except Alaska andplay a key role in NALC’s legisla-tive activities. They marshal

members to contact their elect-ed representatives on behalf ofNALC-supported legislation,vote for union-endorsed politi-cal candidates, and contributeto the Committee on LetterCarriers Political Education, theunion’s political fund. Stateassociations also conduct leg-islative and political trainingsessions at their conventionsattended by branch delegatesand held at least once every twoyears, as well as on other occa-sions. Since 1978, every NALCmember has been required tobelong to a state association.

State Associations


The Early Days of the Republic: 1775›1862I 19Carriers in a Common Cause � 19

NALC Presidents

Theodore C. Dennis

1891-1892

Frank E. Smith

1892-1893

John J. Goodwin

1890-1891

William H. Wood

1889-1890

John N. Parsons

1896-1900

James C. Keller

1901-1905

Richard F. Quinn

1895

C. C. Couden

1894

Edward J. Gainor

1914-1941

William C. Doherty

1941-1962

William E. Kelly

1907-1914

Jeremiah D. Holland

1905-1907

J. Joseph Vacca

1977-1978

Vincent R. Sombrotto

1979-2002

William H. Young

2002-2009

James H. Rademacher

1968-1977

Jerome J. Keating

1962-1968

Fredric V. Rolando

2009-

1902-1912

The Reign of Terror

P olitical agitation by letter carriers and the NALC didnot go unnoticed in the government. Many mem-bers of Congress were bitterly opposed to the veryexistence of the NALC, believing that the organiza-

tion was subversive and hence dangerous to Americandemocracy. Interestingly enough, however, when federallaborers, workmen and mechanics first organized in the1830s, the federal government did not challenge employees’right to unionize or even to strike. It was only when lettercarriers and postal clerks—distinctly government employeesrather than workers who might labor for anyone—formedunions that the government began to oppose organization. Itbased its opposition on a newly established principle: thegovernment, as a sovereign employer, had rights and privi-leges above and beyond those of other employers and thuscould impose any conditions it wished on its employees.


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The first of a series of executive actionsseeking to stamp out the NALC and otherpostal organizations was issued in 1895.Irritated with the increasing politicalactivity of the NALC and the clerks’organizations, the postmaster generalpublished an order prohibiting postalemployees from visiting Washington, DCto influence legislation. This order, poorlyenforced and widely ignored, was animportant foreshadowing of what was tocome, for in the 1900s when letter carri-ers and other postal employees lobbiedvigorously for a pay raise and other legis-lation, conservative leaders in Congresscomplained to the president.President Theodore Roosevelt, too,

had been deluged with telegrams, lettersand petitions from postal workers andtheir supporters. So on January 31, 1902, he seized the offensive and issuedthe first of the famous “gag orders.”Roosevelt’s executive order forbade allpostal and federal employees, “directlyor indirectly, individually or throughassociations,” to solicit members ofCongress for wage increases or to try toinfluence the passage of any other legis-lation—except through the heads oftheir department. The order, an attemptto muzzle or gag organizations like the

NALC, effectively deprived gov-ernment workers of their consti-tutional rights to speak freely andto petition the government.The NALC was thunderstruck at

the gag rule’s infringement of its rightsand the rights of all letter carriers. Thegovernment’s fierce opposition andoppression were completely inappropri-ate given the relatively mild—if irritat-ing—activity in which the NALC wasengaged: lobbying, election activity, andother political pressures. But the NALC’sorganizational strength and the opensupport it received from the organizedlabor movement undoubtedly intensi-fied the government’s fears. Andalthough it was customary for membersof Congress to pressure letter carriersfor support prior to an election cam-paign, it was a relatively new anduncomfortable experience to have thatpressure reversed.The gag rule of 1902 was only the

beginning of the reign of terror inflictedby the government and Post OfficeDepartment. In 1906, Roosevelt issuedanother executive order that permitteddepartment heads to dismiss employeeswithout notice and—contrary to previ-ous practices—without stating the rea-sons in writing. In addition, letter carri-


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1902-1912

ers and postal clerks could no longer discusstheir working conditions in public. Finally,in 1909, President William Howard Taft for-bade postal and federal employees fromanswering congressional requests for infor-mation on their pay or working conditionsunless authorized to do so by their depart-ment heads.The NALC and other postal organizations

did not know how to respond to this massivegovernmental attack. Although the presidentof the NALC, James C. Keller, personally pre-sented a memorandum to Roosevelt statingthe NALC’s objection to the 1902 executiveorder, the gag was not rescinded. In the end,the NALC accepted the gag as a recognizedrule of federal government because theunion believed it was important to main-tain good relations with the Post OfficeDepartment. As Keller stated in 1903:

We know that to enjoy the better conditions,we must earn them, and earning them, wemust secure them in the right manner. Forshould we attempt to secure any benefits by

questionable methods, we, as governmentemployees, would bring discredit upon our-selves as well as the service in which we areengaged.

Acceptance of the gag, however, certainlydid not mean the NALC ceased representingits members. The Association continued tofight for legislation, but the gag rule’s prohi-bition of open legislative activities made itfar more difficult for the union to have adirect impact on issues of concern to carriers. To circumvent the gag, NALC repre-sentatives and other letter carriers talked totheir congressional friends on an informaland private basis—but always with the realization that, if caught, they would bepunished. Furthermore, the gag rule allowedthe NALC to endorse legislation which theDepartment itself had already approved.Frustrating as this indirect role was, theNALC remained as active as it could in thelegislative arena, obtaining a modest payincrease in 1907.


While the Post Office was

still using horse-drawn

vehicles to deliver the

mail in the early 1900s

(as in Oakland, CA, pic-

tured above), it was also

experimenting with motor-

ized vehicles, including

motorcycles.

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Not surprisingly, however, asworking conditions deterioratedand the morale of all postalemployees plummeted, militantfactions arose in the ranks ofpostal workers, especially therailway postal clerks. Unrest,defiance of orders, work stop-pages and threats of formalstrikes erupted throughout theservice, particularly after the lastgag order in 1909. And in spite ofthe Department’s efforts to pre-vent it, the complaints of work-ers—including letter carriers—finally reached Congress. By 1910, when the Democrats

won control of the House ofRepresentatives, the political climate had changed. RobertLaFollette, a progressiveRepublican Senator fromWisconsin, led an anti-gag cam-paign. NALC President William E.Kelly urged passage of anti-gaglegislation before the SenateCommittee on Post Offices andPost Roads, and Samuel

Gompers, president of theAmerican Federation of Labor,also actively supported removalof the gag from the mouths ofpostal and federal workers andtheir unions. Unfortunately, thePresident of the United States,William Howard Taft, participat-ed in the campaign by publiclydefending the gag rule in 1911:

Government employees are aprivileged class upon whose entryinto government service it isentirely reasonable to imposeconditions that should not andought not be imposed upon thosewho serve private employers.

Yet despite Taft’s plea, theCongress of the United Statesdecided the government’s claimof special status had gone toofar. On August 24, 1912, theLloyd-LaFollette Act was enact-ed, rescinding the gag rule andending 10 years of severe repres-sion of letter carriers and other government workers.


1902-1912

There’s a man about the town,Climbing up and coming down

On his round;And he brings us cheerful news,Or perhaps a case of blues,

Twice a day.

With a sure and patient pace,With a keen and kindly face,

He comes ’round;He is whole-souled and discreet,And wears half-soles on his feet

Toward the ground.

There’s an angle in his back,Made by that eternal pack

That he bears;But the public never knows,Nor would any one suppose,

That he cares.

Is the weather scorching hot?He complains not of his lot

Nor is sad;Does there come a zero spell?His refrain is “All is well,”

And he’s glad.

Bearer of the nation’s load.Packhorse of the path and road.

He is trueTo his trust and to his task—Almost anything you ask

He will do.

Postman, nameless though you beI have carved a niche for thee

In my heart;Postman with the sloping back,Half-soled shoes and heavy sack.

Play your part!

—Austin, Texas

The New York Evening Journal

The Postman


Mutual Benefit Association

F rom its earliest years, theNALC pioneered programsfor mutual support and wel-

fare to complement its struggles forimproved working conditions. Evenbefore the union was founded in1889, letter carriers in several citieshad formed local mutual aid asso-ciations that provided mutual sup-port and welfare. By 1891, the fledgling national

union took on this responsibilitywhen it established the MutualBenefit Association at its Detroit

convention. Incorporated the nextyear in Tennessee, the MBA offeredlow-cost life and other kinds ofinsurance to help protect lettercarriers and their families.A second program, the National

Sick Benefit Association, wasestablished at the NALC’s conven-tion in Portland, Oregon in 1905. Itwas organized primarily for mem-bers in smaller branches, sincemost of the large branches hadalready set up their own sick bene-fit plans. The Association provided

benefits of $8 a week for up to 20weeks to carriers unable to workdue to accident or illness; insur-ance premiums were between 55and 80 cents per month.Today, the U.S. Letter Carriers

Mutual Benefit Association, runby elected union officers, makesavailable to members life insur-ance, annuities and hospitalconfinement coverage products—thus continuing the NALC’slong tradition of mutual supportand assistance.

The No-StrikeAmendment

T he Lloyd-LaFollette Act of 1912 wasthe most important piece of legisla-tion affecting the rights of letter

carriers and the NALC until 1962 whenJohn F. Kennedy issued Executive Order10988 establishing a formal labor relationsprogram in the federal government.Besides outlawing the gag rule and guaran-teeing government workers the right topetition and lobby Congress, the Lloyd-LaFollette Act recognized the right ofpostal and federal employees to organizeand join labor organizations. The legisla-tion, however, contained one proviso: it

forbade postal employees from affiliatingwith any outside organization whichimposed “an obligation or duty...to engagein any strike against the United States” orwhich proposed to assist postal employeesin such a strike. This no-strike amendmentwas inserted at the last moment to ease theminds of those senators who feared thataffiliation with the American Federation ofLabor might draw postal and federal work-ers into a strike against the government.At the same time Congress passed the

Lloyd-LaFollette Act in 1912, it also passedtwo other bills: The Reilly Eight-in-TenHour Act and the Mann Sunday ClosingAct. The Reilly law, legislation which theNALC had been working for since 1909,specified that postal employees could notbe required to spread their eight-hour shiftover a period of more than 10 consecutivehours. This act ended the cruel practice ofmaking employees—especially unionactivists—work around-the-clock on a“stop and go” basis. The second law mandated the closing of post offices onSunday, assuring letter carriers and postalclerks one day of rest in seven. All in all, 1912 was not a bad year for

letter carriers and the NALC.



L aboring under oppressiveworking conditions,poorly paid and unable tolobby Congress for wage

increases or other legislation toimprove their plight, letter carriersin the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries turned to thewomen in their families for sup-port in the fight for dignity andsecurity at the workplace. As a result, a number of local

“Ladies Auxiliaries” were formed,but with the issuance of PresidentTheodore Roosevelt’s infamous1902 gag order, it became evenclearer that a unified nationaleffort was necessary. Responding to an organizing

call from Portland, Oregon Branch82’s Ladies Auxiliary, 72 womenfrom 52 cities in 26 states metSeptember 5, 1905 during NALC’sfifth national convention inPortland to form a National LadiesAuxiliary, forerunner of today’sNALC Auxiliary. They unanimouslyelected as the organization’s firstpresident Nellie Heffelfinger, amember of Branch 24’s Auxiliary inLos Angeles. Their goal,Heffelfinger stated, was to “aidwherever possible the carriers,both socially and financially.” Fourdays later, NALC’s delegates for-mally recognized its new partnerduring the union’s conventionwhen, not coincidentally, theunion had implicitly recognizedthe importance of women voters toits legislative endeavors by adopt-ing a resolution in support ofwomen’s suffrage, still 15 years inthe future.Roosevelt issued a second gag

order in 1906, and PresidentWilliam Howard Taft further

restricted the rights of postal andfederal workers three yearslater—both additional gag ordersmaking the Auxiliary’s role champi-oning letter carrier rights moreessential. Although the 1912 Lloyd-LaFollette Act lifted the gag orders,the National Ladies Auxiliary grewsteadily, creating new local auxil-iaries throughout the country and,beginning in 1921, state auxiliaries.Simul taneously it played an impor-tant role in the union’s legislative campaigns for salary increases,Sunday post office closings, shorterSaturday work days, paid sickleave, 40-hour work weeks, and theestablishment of the Civil ServiceRetirement System in 1920. Thepassage of the 1939 Hatch Act pro-hibiting partisan political activityby postal and federal workers alsoreinforced the importance of theAuxiliary in fighting for letter carri-ers wages, benefits and fair work-ing conditions. As women entered the carrier

workforce in the 1960s, menbecame eligible for Auxiliary mem-berships, and in 1974, the organi-zation dropped “Ladies” from itstitle. Open to all family membersage 16 and above for decades, theorganization still consists primari-ly of the wives and female relativesof male letter carriers. The adventof collective bargaining movedmany key issues from the legisla-tive arena to the negotiatingtable, and Hatch Act reform legis-lation in 1993 has allowed activecarriers to participate more fullyin electoral politics. Nonetheless,the NALC Auxiliary remains anessential part of the union’s leg-islative program.

PresidentNellie HeffelfingerLos Angeles, CA

Vice PresidentDora M. CarlToledo, OH

SecretaryGrace O. Wheeler

Portland, OR

TreasurerMary E. Curtin

Lynn, MA

The first officers ofNALC’s National Ladies Auxiliary

NALC Auxiliary

1902-1912

1913-1920

The NALC vs. the PMG

A fter the passage of the Lloyd-LaFollette Act in 1912, letter carriers and the NALC breathed a collective sigh of relief andexperienced a brief moment of respite. But this respite was . -harshly interrupted when the new president, Woodrow Wilson,

appointed Albert S. Burleson as postmaster general in March 1913.Burleson, one of the most anti-union postmaster generals in postal

history, immediately declared a new war on postal employees and theirunions. His goal was to run the Department at a profit, and he chose todo this at the expense of the postal workforce.As soon as he took office, Burleson demanded the repeal of all three

of the progressive laws passed in 1912. He also vehemently opposed anypay increases for letter carriers and postal clerks in spite of a dramaticrise in the cost of living once World War I began in 1914. By 1916, thedollar was worth half of what it had been in 1907—the year letter carri-ers had last received a pay increase. Incredibly, when Congress voted a10 percent pay increase for all federal employees in 1917—a year whenthe cost of living jumped by 20.3 percent—Burleson succeeded inexcluding postal employees from the raise. Furthermore, Burlesonopposed all bills designed to establish pensions or annuities for postalemployees. He believed that when a worker’s job performance declineddue to old age, he should be demoted or fired—no matter how manyyears the worker had labored for the Department. Last, but not least,Burleson refused to recognize or to meet with any representatives fromthe NALC, and even called for the dissolution of all postal employeeunions. In fact, Burleson refused to grant leave without pay to the offi-cers of the postal unions, forcing NALC President Edward Gainor toresign from the Post Office to continue performing his union duties.


In response to such blatant anti-worker and anti-union policies, theNALC shed the habits developed duringthe gag years and sprang into action.With its gag now removed, the NALConce again took its fight directly toCapitol Hill and once again began tobuild close relations with congressionalcommittees. Letter carriers desperatelyneeded a pay raise, sick leave benefits,compensation for disability and retire-ment benefits, and the union began tolobby hard for critical legislation that had been delayed or ignored by theDepartment and Congress.The rank and file supported this

renewed and vigorous activity. For exam-ple, in a letter to The Postal Record in1916, a carrier from Buffalo, New York,urged action on wage legislation:

It took us many long years to obtain ourlast increase [1907], but then we begged asthe supplicant begs. Now we must make arespectful but insistent demand: not forthe sop to be thrown at us, but for a livingwage that will enable us to have meat atleast once a week without having to putour watch in pawn.

Although no salary bill was passed in1916, the NALC was successful on twofronts that year. First, when Burlesonarbitrarily decided to pay carriers whocollected the mail $200 a year less thanthose who delivered it, the NALC protest-ed the change to its congressionalfriends. In response, Congress enacted abill which made such a salary distinctionillegal. Second, on September 7, 1916 the NALC obtained passage of one of the most important laws to affect lettercarriers then and now—the first FederalEmployees’ Compensation Act. Thislandmark legislation provided that federal employees suffering work-relatedinjuries would receive compensation for disability and death as well as medical care.

1913-1920

Retirement:Lobbying,Protests,Rebellion

One of the most interesting by-products of the NALC’s struggleagainst Burleson was the devel-

opment of a strong concern with theplight of the older letter carrier. Since its founding in 1889, the NALC

had been lobbying unsuccessfully forsome kind of annuity or pension for oldcarriers, or, as they were then called, “the superannuated carriers.” The issue was so important it remained alive evenduring the gag years. In 1907 a carrierwrote this eloquent statement to ThePostal Record:

These old comrades of ours who havestood shoulder-to-shoulder withus for years in our struggle forbetter conditions are nowscarcely able to endure the hard-ships and exactions of the serv-ice ... and their only hope is thatthey may have strength to strug-gle along for a few yearsmore until the associa-tion [NALC] succeeds indoing something forthem. Hundreds are inthat condition nowand thousands willsoon be, and evenyou, the reader ofthis, if you are a let-ter carrier and livelong enough, will be inexactly the same condi-tion, for this pension legislationthat we seek is not primarily andsolely for the benefit of theold men of today; it is for theold men of the future—you and I as well.


Perhaps the most dramatic of these protestsoccurred in Fairmont, West Virginia, in 1915.The Fairmont postmaster, complying withBurleson’s strict instructions, fired an old lettercarrier because he could no longer perform hisjob satisfactorily. Furious at the postmaster,the remaining 25 employees—letter carriersand postal clerks alike—decided to protest byresigning from their jobs at the same time. All25 workers were then immediately arrestedand thrown in jail for striking against the fed-eral government.The jailed workers were shocked at the gov-

ernment’s reaction. They were not striking—they had simply quit their jobs. But the gov-ernment persisted in prosecuting the case.Without money to pay for their defense, thecarriers and clerks threw themselves on themercy of the court. In turn, the court imposedfines ranging from $5 to $500 upon all but oneof the employees—the 25th worker, a lettercarrier by the name of W. H. Fisher, hadhanged himself in his cell on the night beforehis trial.Interestingly, the question of whether mass

resignations of federal employees were actuallystrikes had been discussed at length four yearsearlier, during the anti-gag hearings in 1911.The American Federation of Labor defendedthe right of “one man” or a “thousand” men toresign, while the Post Office Department insist-ed that a mass resignation was an act of coer-cion and conspiracy against the United States.The issue was still unresolved when the Lloyd-LaFollette Act was passed in 1912. But this didnot stop the government in Fairmont threeyears later. Its response was quick and devas-tating, a lesson not lost on letter carriers.

Affiliationwith the AFL

In the midst of the oppressive Burlesonyears, a major debate was taking placewithin the NALC: Should the NALC affiliate

with the American Federation of Labor?The debate over affiliation began in the early

1900s. When a committee appointed at NALC’s1903 national convention reported back to dele-


Once Burleson became postmastergeneral in 1913, the NALC devoted moreand more energy and resources to theproblems of retired and soon-to-be retiredcarriers. Igniting this activity wereBurleson’s adamant opposition to anyretirement benefits and the Department’scallous firing of old carriers who could notkeep up with the job’s demanding pace. Athree-pronged movement emerged. TheNALC led the movement by lobbyingCapitol Hill unceasingly for retirementlegislation. The National Ladies Auxiliary,also long a force in the retirement arena,accelerated its activities. And rank and filecarriers engaged in demonstrations andprotests throughout the country.

Mrs. Nellie M. McGrath delivering mail during World War I.

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gates two years later, it recommendedagainst affiliation, fearful that theFederation’s priorities might begin to takeprecedence over those of letter carriers. In1914, when the question was once againraised, many carriers were worried aboutthe strike issue. Unfamiliar with the goalsand structure of the AFL, many carrierswrongly believed that the AFL leaderscould order a strike, forcing them to defythe no-strike amendment of 1912. Othercarriers feared affiliation with the AFLwould diminish the NALC’s own identity.Still others believed the NALC could takecare of itself and need not affiliate with anyother organization. And undoubtedly agreat number of letter carriers, still bruisedand nervous after more than 10 years ofthe gag, were simply not ready for affilia-tion with the broader labor movement.Not surprisingly, then, when a referen-

dum vote on the question was finally talliedin August 1914, 18,769 letter carriers votedagainst and 3,968 voted for affiliation.Yet by 1917, when the issue arose

again, the tone of the debate was very dif-ferent. Letter carriers demonstrated moreawareness of the strong and importantconnection between the history of lettercarriers and that of the rest of the labor

movement. One carrier used the pages ofThe Postal Record to remind NALC mem-bers of the nationwide campaign for aneight-hour day in the late 1880s:

The first 8-hour law for letter carriers wasapproved May 24, 1888, a year before theNALC was organized. The streets of manya mill town have run red with the blood ofwage workers [so] that we [letter carriers]of today might enjoy an 8-hour day.

The 664 delegates to the national con-vention in Dallas in September 1917 wereobviously moved by the same sentiments.When PresidentGainor recom-mended that theaffiliation issue besubmitted to areferendum by themembership, del-egate after dele-gate arose, plead-ing instead for animmediate voteon the issue. Acarrier from NewOrleans forcefullyexpressed themajority’s view onaffiliation:

1913-1920

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I believe the only realrelief we can find is byaffiliating with othermen laboring by thesweat of their brow,men who have unitedfor their own protec-tion and that protec-tion can only besecured through directand immediate affilia-tion with the AmericanFederation of Labor.

Moved by theseimpassioned pleas,the convention sus-pended its rules and,

by a voice vote, the delegates directed thesecretary of the NALC to affiliate immedi-ately with the AFL, which the union did onSeptember 20, 1917.When the convention’s action was tested

in a nationwide referendum in early 1918,92 percent of the NALC membership votedfor affiliation—in startling contrast to 83percent against it in 1914. What accountedfor this dramatic turnaround? The questioncan be answered in three words: PostmasterGeneral Burleson. His savage anti-workerpolicies convinced carriers in 1917 thatthey needed the protection and support ofthe rest of the labor movement.Buoyed by its affiliation with the AFL,

the NALC turned its energies to the legisla-tive front, intent on improving the situationin spite of Burleson. In 1917, a carrierdescribed these activities in amusing terms:

For years we have been howling our heads offfor a retirement law. We went to Rochesterand hurrahed for a straight pension. We wentto San Francisco, waved flags and hurrahedsome more, making retirement the para-mount issue.... We pestered our Congressmenwith letters and telegrams until we becamealmost a nuisance. Then we had our friendsand relatives and fraternal organizations

send letters and telegrams to ourCongressmen....

Three years later, the NALC’s persistentand prolonged efforts finally bore fruit. OnMay 22, 1920, the Civil Service RetirementAct became law, and for the first time, lettercarriers received retirement benefits. Thelegislation itself provided for retirement atage 65 with annuities ranging from $180 to$720 per year. Carriers also registeredimpressive legislative gains on June 5, whena bill giving carriers their first sick leavebenefits—10 days a year—and a salary billincreasing wages to a scale ranging from$1,400 to $1,800 a year were enacted.For letter carriers and the NALC, 1920

was indeed a time of harvest.

A t the same time the NALC was vot-ing to affiliate with the AFL andlobbying for progressive legislation

for letter carriers, the union was fiercelyresisting a new phenomenon in America:the scientific management movement. TheNALC was not alone in this struggle, formany trade unions in both the private andpublic sector were also resisting theencroachment of scientific managementinto their workplaces.Scientific management—also called

“Taylorism” after its founder, FrederickWinslow Taylor—was an attempt by man-agement to apply the methods of science to the workplace. Its purpose was to com-pletely control all decisions on the job—many of which were then made by theworker—and increase workers’ total productivity and efficiency.The Post Office Department, intrigued

with the new movement, began to experi-ment with Taylorism during Burleson’sregime. The Department called its program


Resistance to Taylorism

1913-1920

“the efficiencysystem.”Departmentofficials wouldsingle out theyoungest, mostphysically fit carri-

er and use him astheir “average carrier.”The officials wouldwatch the carrier as heworked, measuring witha stopwatch each andevery task performedboth in the office andon the street. The car-rier’s pace, measuredin minutes, became the

standard by which all other carriers wereexpected to perform. Naturally, few lettercarriers could easily maintain the pace,which forced them to speed up their efforts.Some even had to run instead of walkingtheir routes to return to their stations bythe required time.Such standards may seem normal to car-

riers of today who are expected to case mailaccording to the “18 & 8” guidelines. But tocarriers in the early 1900s, the system wasshocking—an aberration. They were notused to such strict control and pressure,and they found it cruel and dehumanizing.Carriers who could not maintain the accel-erated pace were often punished with areduction in wages and some were dis-missed. Many carriers even broke downunder the mental and physical strain.The NALC, beseiged on all fronts by

Burleson, tried to fight against Taylorism by lobbying hard for what was called “anti-

stopwatch” legislation. In 1916, theunion backed the Tavenner Bill,which called for outlawing the stop-watch and other time-measuringdevices in time-motion studies of anygovernment job. The Tavenner bill,however, was never passed, and theNALC—like other unions—wasunsuccessful in its attempts to pre-vent scientific management frominvading the workplace.

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Such standards may seem normal to carriers of today ... but to carriers in the early 1900s, the system was shocking—an aberration.


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Women delivering the mail

during World War I.

1921-1928

The Dawn of a New Day

I n 1921, the new president, Warren G. Harding, usually regarded as one of the worst presidents of the United States, appointed anew postmaster general, Will H. Hays, to succeed the much-hated Burleson.

Four days after taking office, Hays electrified all postal employeeswith this proclamation:

Every effort shall be exercised to humanize the ... [post officedepartment]. Labor is not a commodity.... There are 300,000employees. They have the brain[s] and they have the hand[s] to do the job well; and they shall have the heart to do it well.

Seven days later, on March 16, Hays invited the president of theNALC, Edward J. Gainor, and the leaders of other postal organiza-tions to meet for informal discussions. At the meeting, heannounced an open-door policy to the leaders of the postal unionsand invited them to see him whenever they had a problem.Letter carriers responded enthusiastically to Hays’ proclamation

and his positive attitude toward the NALC. The April 1921 issue ofThe Postal Record described the outpouring of good feeling in anarticle entitled “The Dawn of a New Day”:


When one emerges from a dungeon intothe sunlight, one is temporarily blindedand confused. Letter carriers and otherpostal employees are in a similar situa-tion.... The selection of Mr. Hays of theword “humanize” in expressing theDepartment’s attitude toward the men and women workers in the postalestablishment, was happy.... Not inyears has such a sentiment beenexpressed by a head of this Depart -ment. How strange and yet how sweet!

To improve the working conditionsof postal employees, Hays sought todevelop a closer relationship with rep-resentatives from the various postalemployees’ organizations. To this end,he established a National WelfareCouncil—later called the NationalService Relations Council. The nationalpresident and secretary of the NALCboth played an active role in the activities of the Council right from itsinception in 1921. In fact, NALCSecretary Edward Cantwell served asthe Executive of the Council from its inauguration until his death in 1924.

On the national level, the NationalService Relations Council discussedtopics directly related to the welfare of city delivery letter carriers such as uniforms, the possibility of aChristmas holiday, working conditionswithin local post offices, cafeterias,credit unions, and free physical exami-nations for workers. Local WelfareCouncils were also established to focus

on condi-tions withinindividual post offices,includingsuch issues as drinkingfountains,swingrooms, dust,sanitationand lighting.

Will Haysremained inoffice onlyone year.Although no important legislation affecting letter carriers waspassed by Congress during his year inoffice, Hays’ commitment to improvingthe working lives of letter carriers andhis belief that improvement in condi-tions and morale would improve delivery service for the American people left a lasting legacy.

When Hays resigned, the NALC con-tinued its tradition of honoring friendsby making Hays an honorary lifetimemember of the NALC. Pleased, yetuncomfortable with the term “honorary,”Hays asked to become a regular dues-paying member instead. The NALCConstitution did not permit anyone topay dues who had not earned that rightby carrying the mail, but an exceptionwas made for Will Hays—a member ofthe NALC until his death in 1954.


“One need but read the branch

items ... to note how the fin-

ished and altogether admirable

work of these bands feature in many

demonstrations held under the auspices

of this Association. They grace banquets,

entertainments and social sessions. They

enliven a smoker.... And on the occasion

of our great national conventions where,

happily, many Letter Carriers’ Bands

invariably lend their presence, they give

zest and color to the gathering....”

This glowing tribute in 1922 by NALC

Secretary Edward J. Cantwell aptly

describes the activities of the letter carrier

bands over the years, especially during

the union’s formative decades. Musically

gifted carriers first organized letter carrier

bands in the late 19th century, which

came together in massive parades during

the union’s early

national conventions.

Over the past several decades, the

bands’ importance has diminished since

few band members are letter carriers,

and convention parades are no longer

held. Nonetheless, a sizable number of

bands remain to perform at conventions

and local events, thus preserving the

union’s traditions of music and service.

NALC Bands

1921-1928

The Sub by B.F. Ellison Jr., Los Angeles

A Changein Tactics

Although Hays’ term of officewas brief, his administration setthe tone for relations between

the NALC and the Department for therest of the decade. As a result of this climate of mutual respect, theNALC—which by this time had createdone of the most successful lobbies onCapitol Hill—decided to seize theoffensive in the fall of 1923 when itembarked on a major campaign toachieve a living wage for postal

employees. This campaign, led by theNALC but waged by all the postalunions, was one of the biggest in thehistory of postal unionism.

Letter carriers’ wages in the early1920s were miserably inadequate. The1920 salary bill—which had raised let-ter carrier salaries to between $1,400and $1,800 per year—was obsolete theday it was passed. And in the rapidlyexpanding economy of the early 1920s,the wages of letter carriers and otherpostal workers lagged further and further behind the wages of workers in the private sector.

The salary campaign opened at theNALC’s 24th Biennial Convention in1923 in Providence, Rhode Island, andspread to every congressional district in the country. Acting on the advice ofNALC National Headquarters, manylocal branches formed special cam-paign committees and enlisted the support of local associations of postalclerks, rural letter carriers, railway mailclerks, and even supervisory officials.These committees presented their caseto patrons, Boards of Commerce, repre-sentatives and senators. Mass meetings


See that poor raggedHungry looking guy,Working when he canAnd trying to get by!Wondering how and whereHe’ll get his next grub—Folks call him “The Mail Man,”But he’s just a Sub.

Reports for dutyReal early at dawn,Waits and hangs aroundTill the Regulars are gone.He’s treated just likeA cigarette stub—Folks call him “The Mail Man,”But he’s just a Sub.

He goes home at nightTo his wife and his childAshamed of his plightAnd more worries pile;His purpose beatenBy fate’s blunt cruel club—Folks call him “The Mail Man,”But he’s just a Sub.

“No Work Today,”But I stuck aroundIn hopes they would sayFor you work’s been found,But useless it wasThey gave me the rub—Folks call me “The Mail Man,”But I’m just a Sub.

But, what does he get—He’s done no one harm;The rain and the wet,The snow and the storm,Still he does his bestThough he plays the dub—Folks call him “The Mail Man,”But he’s just a Sub.

Nice little daintiesFor kiddies to eat—Good wholesome foodAnd much needed meat—How can he buy them?No money, poor cub—Folks call him “The Mail Man,”But he’s just a Sub.

Of course he’s a man—A good worker, too,But often he’s told:“There’s nothing to do.”When in fact there is—Piles, in many a tub—Folks call him “The Mail Man,”But he’s just a Sub.

Isn’t there some wayTo lighten his loadSo he can pay—The bills he has owed?Sure, he’s a good sportBut tires of being snubbed—Folks call him “The Mail Man,”But he’s just a Sub.

A parcel post

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of postal employees were held in citiesand towns as diverse as Piqua, Ohio,and New York City. A letter carrier fromPittsburgh proclaimed “$2,400 or bust”in The Postal Record, and added:

The days for idle talk are past, and thetime for action is here. Let every postalemployee take a hand in this affair, andmake the halls of Congress echo and re-echo with the voice of the people.

The campaign was so effective thatsome members of Congress, irritatedwith the tidal wave of letters supportinga wage increase, criticized the NALCand the other postal organizations.Nevertheless, in June 1924, a bill waspassed that increased wages by $300 ayear to a maximum level of $2,100 andraised substitutes’ wages to 65 cents anhour. Not only did the bill pass, but itpassed by overwhelming majorities: 73-3 in the Senate and 361-6 in the House.

The NALC’s success was short-lived—despite widespread support for the bill,President Coolidge vetoed it. And theveto took a particularly damaging form:Congress received the veto message thesame day it adjourned for the fall elec-tions, making it impossible to overridethe president’s action.

By the time the Congressreassembled on December 1,1924, the mood and temperwere different. William C.Doherty, later the presidentof the NALC, described thecongressional about-face:“They did not love us inDecember as they did inJune.” The NALC and otherpostal organizations lobbiedfrantically but, in the end,failed to obtain the necessarysupport. Coolidge’s veto wassustained by a single vote in the Senateon January 6, 1925.

Although disappointed, the NALCdid not give up as it made clear in the July 1924 Postal Record:

The salary campaign will go on to suc-cessful conclusion.... We will march on to certain success. Thrice armed is hewhose cause is just. We will not fail.

On February 28, 1925—after arenewed campaign of intensive lobby-ing—the NALC and the other postalunions won the wage fight whenCoolidge reluctantly signed new legislation that incorporated the salary provisions of the earlier bill.


1921-1928

In the rapidlyexpanding economyof the early 1920s,the wages of lettercarriers and otherpostal workerslagged further andfurther behind thewages of workers inthe private sector.

1929-1949

The Great Depression

It was around noon on October 24, 1929, when the stockmarket began to crumble. By 2:30 p.m. the ticker tape wasalmost two hours late, and five days later, on October 29, it was all over. The stock market had crashed and the

Great Depression was soon to follow.Almost immediately, unemployment began to mount at the

rate of 4,000 workers per week, and then the ranks of the job-less seemed to have no limits. Four million were unemployedin 1930, 11 million in 1932, nearly 13 million by 1933.Thousands upon thousands of workers—unable to meet mort-gage payments or pay rent—lost their homes. Many of thenewly poor built homes of scrap metal and egg crates in citydumps. Bread and soup lines stretched endlessly through thenation’s cities. Some lived on bread and coffee; others pickedover garbage cans to feed their families.

William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor,told a congressional committee in 1930 that in Detroit, Michigan,“the men are sitting in the parks all day long and all night long,hundreds and thousands of them—muttering to themselves, ‘outof work, seeking work.’” And in the summer of 1932, people weremarching in Washington, DC’s Anacostia Flats singing:

Mellon* pulled the whistle Hoover rang the bell Wall Street gave the signal—And the country went to Hell.


_______________

*Andrew Mellon, a powerful banker and industrialist,

was Secretary of the Treasury at the time.

Letter carriers and other postalemployees found themselves in astrange situation during the early daysof the Depression. Before theDepression, most Americans consid-ered the average pay of a letter carrier—$2,064 per year—a mediocre salary.But during the Depression, it was anenviable amount of money. And in anation of 13 million unemployed, thesecurity of postal jobs made such posi-tions even more attractive. In 1933, aletter carrier from Oregon describedthis ironic reversal:

All my neighbors are out of work, and ifI go to them and cry about my condi-tion they think I am crazier now than Iwas five years ago when they used totell me to throw away that mail sackand get a decent job. Now, any one ofthem would be glad to carry mail for adollar a day.…

Under these circumstances, it is notsurprising that letter carrier and postalclerk positions attracted some of thecountry’s best educated people—whoin easier times might have becomelawyers, doctors or teachers. Jerome J.Keating, president of the NALC from1962 to 1968, was a notable example ofthis phenomenon. Keating became asubstitute carrier in March 1924 tohelp pay his way through college. Aftergraduating from the University ofMinnesota in 1930, he had the oppor-tunity to become an instructor andlater a professor. But Keating decidedto remain a letter carrier because a let-ter carrier’s job offered more securityduring the Great Depression than thatof a college teacher.

If, like Keating, letter carriers wererelatively fortunate compared to manyother workers, the Depressionnonetheless affected them in very significant and often devastating ways.As the Depression deepened, a drive toslash the wages of all governmentemployees gained momentum, grewsteadily, and culminated in Hoover’s

Economy Act of 1932. This law author-ized the first wage reductions in thehistory of the federal service: onemonth’s furlough per year for everygovernment employee. For letter carri-ers, this meant an 81/3 percent decreasein wages.

The election of Franklin D. Rooseveltin late 1932 only aggravated the situa-tion for letter carriers. Most peopleremember Roosevelt as a president whotried to alleviate widespread sufferingand revive the American economythrough “New Deal” legislation.However, on the campaign trail in 1932, he espoused a far differentpolitical philosophy. Roosevelt hadcampaigned against Hoover on a plat-form of government economy, and heeven had gone so far as to promise tocut government spending to the boneand balance the national budget—cam-paign promises that did not bode wellfor any government worker. True to his


1929-1949

word, on March 20, 1933—just 16 daysafter taking office—Roosevelt replacedHoover’s furloughs with a straight 15 per-cent salary cut. This drastic cut, com-bined with a subsequent nine-day fur-lough for postal workers, reduced lettercarriers’ wages to their 1916 level.

What effect did these reductions haveon letter carriers and their families? Afew quotations from a questionnaire theNALC sent out to its members in 1933illustrate some of the hardship:

Had to call the doctor last month onaccount of sickness and he claims all thechildren [7] are undernourished and [yet]I am spending all my salary on food andthe barest of necessities.

I certainly hope we get back to full payvery soon, for I for one cannot hold outmuch longer. The Federal man has beenabout the only one with a job the pasttwo years and all his relations andfriends look to him for assistance. I donot believe there is a man in our officethat is not helping friends and relatives...

Unless some relief is given, we will beforced to take our boys out of school.

For village carriers, whose pay was$750 a year less than city carriers, lifewas even harder:

My wife lost her job clerking in a storefor $12 per week, because the publicthought that both of us were not entitledto a job. Within the last year my fatherand sister have lost their jobs and thatputs three more for me to feed, clotheand keep warm.

Hardest hit by the Depression, how-ever, were substitute carriers. City subsearned 65 cents an hour and village subs earned as little as 50 cents anhour—meager wages even before the 15 percent wage reduction. The steepdecline in postal business forced theDepartment to reduce deliveries andother services, making it impossible forsubs to work enough hours to survive.For example, in many large city officessubstitutes earned as little as $6 a week.Finally, Hoover’s Economy Act of 1932prohibited the filling of most regularvacancies in the postal service—a crueland devastating setback for subs whosevery livelihoods were dependent uponadvancement.


When free city delivery was established in 1863, the first lettercarriers were not required to wear uniforms. Five years later,however, Congress authorized the use of uniforms and

Postmaster General Alexander W. Randall issued an order prescribing amandatory uniform for letter carriers:

A single-breasted Sack Coat … with five brass buttons … pants of same material with fine broadcloth stripe one half inch wide down each leg.…

In those early days, letter carriers were forced to pay for their own uniforms, a large expense considering their meager salaries. And while uniform styles have changed with the times, the burden of purchasinguniforms remained with letter carriers for another 86 years. Finally, in1954, Congress passed a Uniform Allowance Act, providing letter carrierswith $100 per year to purchase their uniforms. Since the advent of collec-tive bargaining in 1971, the union has negotiated the amount of the allowance. As a result, the allowance has increased over the years in aneffort to keep pace with rising uniform costs and the larger selection ofapproved items carriers are authorized to wear.

Uniform Allowance

Deeply concerned about the plightof the subs, regular carriers came totheir assistance. In Oklahoma City,regular letter carriers announcedtheir willingness to take leave withoutpay, and in Glendale, California, theyagreed to go on vacation—in bothcases so that subs would have somework. The Glendale scribe wrote in a1934 Postal Record:

Regular carriers are not having such agood time or making too much, but weare not starving and we should bewilling to give a day’s work per monthto aid a brother.

In Wichita, Kansas, the branchformed a special sub-relief organiza-tion to supply funds to needy subsand their families.

Substitutes tried to help them-selves, too. A committee of subs from Cleveland, Ohio, traveled to Washington in 1933 to present their plight to the RooseveltAdministration. Subs in several largecities joined with other substitutepostal workers to form their ownorganization, the NationalAssociation of Substitute PostalEmployees, because they thought theestablished unions were neglectingtheir problems. Although the claimwas not true, their impatience withthe NALC’s and other postal unions’progress was understandable.Desperate and undoubtedly influ-enced by the large number of strikesand demonstrations all acrossAmerica, these subs decided to voicetheir complaints. They marched onWashington, DC in 1934 demanding a“job for every substitute.”

In the face of the government’smassive attack on their members’livelihoods, NALC President Edward J. Gainor and National SecretaryMichael T. Finnan lobbied continuous-ly for wage restoration for all govern-ment workers and relief for substi-tutes. In a 1934 “Memorial to

Congress,” the NALC presentedimpressive documentation that carriers’ wages were already inade-quate before the wage reductions, andthat the hardship caused by the reduc-tions far outweighed any possible ben-efits. The wage reductions, the NALCfurther argued, were having no appre-ciable effect on balancing the budget.

Ultimately, yet unintentionally, theRoosevelt administration aided theNALC in its fight for pay restoration.During 1933 and 1934 Roosevelt wasurging civilian employers to maintainhigh wages and shorten the workinghours of their employees to get theeconomy moving again. At the sametime the administration insisted oncontinuing the 15 percent salaryreduction for all government employ-ees. The NALC called this policy“insincere and inconsistent.” A lettercarrier highlighted the contradictionin a 1934 Postal Record:

Is the government going to have onepolicy for industry and another fortheir own employees? How long canthe administrationurge industry toincrease wages andshorten hours andforce their ownemployees to do theopposite? What willbe the fate of thefight for wagerestoration?

The NALC andother postal and fed-eral organizationsfinally won the fight.The wages of all gov-ernment employeeswere completelyrestored by April1935. And by the endof the decade, substi-tute carriers obtainedsome relief when abill giving them their


1929-1949

The 15 percentsalary cut,combined witha subsequentnine-day furlough forpostal workers,reduced lettercarriers’ wagesto their 1916 level.

first annual and sick leave benefits waspassed on July 18, 1939.

A PowerStruggle Emerges

For the American labor movement,the Great Depression was a periodof turmoil and change. At the

beginning, the number of union mem-bers plunged as more and more workersjoined the ranks of the unemployed. By1933, however, hundreds of thousands ofindustrial workers were knocking at thedoors of AFL unions seeking the benefitsof organization. Yet many AFL unionswere unable or unwilling to let them in.Then, in the middle of the decade, agroup of unions committed to organiz-ing industrial workers bolted from theAFL to form the Congress of IndustrialOrganizations (CIO). These CIO unionsquickly mounted successful organizingcampaigns in auto, steel and other massproduction industries.

In contrast, the NALC maintained itsaffiliation with the AFL and survived theperiod largely insulated from the cross-currents that buffeted many other unions.This is not to say, how ever, that the leader-ship of the NALC came out of this experi-


He goes around from house to houseAnd rings the bell or knocksWhen there is something to be slippedInside the letter box.

His pouch is filled with messagesOf happiness and cheerAnd also those that draw a frownOr possibly a tear.

He brings the blanks for income taxAnd statements by the score,As well as word from Uncle SamThat it’s time to go to war.

He carries papers, magazines,And ads of every sort,Besides the V-mail letters fromThe farthest foreign port.

He is the messenger of love,Surprise and tragedy,He is the constant carrierOf time and memory.

So while I’m over here fightingAnd going through all this hell,You just keep on delivering lettersTo Mrs. Paul L.

—S/Sgt. Paul L. Scheliam

ence unscathed. For Edward J. Gainor,president of the NALC since 1914, theGreat Depression precipitated the begin-ning of the end of his administration.

Although trouble for Gainor andother officers of the NALC did notbecome serious until 1938, signs of dis-content within the membership wereevident earlier. In 1933, a small numberof carriers—unhappy with the wagereductions—began to criticize theunion leadership in The Postal Record,and the NALC convention in AtlanticCity that year was combative.Restoration of wages in 1935, however,helped mollify some of the discontentedmembers. Then, in the late 1930s, aswar broke out in Europe and the cost ofliving began to rise, letter carriers grewmore and more dissatisfied with their1925 wages. Not surprisingly, a call fornew leadership and more militant tac-tics at the national level was heard.

The first overt step in the power strug-gle between the established leadership—the “Old Guard,” as they were called—andyounger, more militant members withinthe NALC was ironically taken in PresidentGainor’s home state of Indiana. In 1938,Indianapolis Branch 39 and 27 otherbranches petitioned for a national referendum to amend the NALCConstitution. The so-called HoosierAmendment, which called for the electionof national officers by direct mail ballotingrather than by convention delegates, wasaimed directly at the Old Guard. Seventy-two percent of the membership voted inthe referendum, and the proposedamendment was defeated on April 15,

The Mailman


1939 by a 31/2-to-l majority. Gainor hadwon the first round.

The scene of the next stage in thestruggle for power was the NALC’sGolden Anniversary Convention, heldin the city of its birth, Milwaukee, onSeptember 4, 1939. From the momentthe convention opened, tension filledthe air. The “Hoosier Amendment” mayhave been defeated five months earlier,but the incident was not forgotten byGainor or the delegates in attendance.In addition, Great Britain and Francehad declared war on Germany the daybefore the convention opened—asobering event which, as one can imag-ine, increased delegates’ anxiety.

The convention opened on anuproarious note when a rowdy groupof letter carriers who were not officialdelegates attempted to speak. A cross-fire of cheers and calls to “throw themout!” immediately erupted. Only afterPresident Gainor threatened to havethe police haul the dissidents from theroom was the convention able to con-tinue with its normal business.

The afternoon of the third day,when the Committee of Resolutionsread Resolution 70 to the delegates,was the moment of highest drama.Resolution 70 proposed to amend the

NALC Constitution to prohibit anynational officer from standing forreelection upon reaching the age of65. If adopted, the resolution wouldhave blocked four of the top NALCofficers, including Gainor, from run-ning for office in 1941. The conven-tion floor exploded into an uproarover this proposal, and after a noisyand often acrimonious debate, a voicevote defeated Resolution 70. Gainorhad once again prevailed.

His troubles, however, did not endon that tumultuous afternoon in1939. In the months following theconvention, there was no progress onthe legislative front, and dissatisfac-tion within the rank and file was ram-pant. Fourteen years without a wageincrease was far too long. Then, as the1941 convention approached, Gainorchose to run for re-election, insteadof retiring as many people hoped hewould do. There was a feeling that theorganization was reaching a point ofcrisis, and a way out had to be found.

Two key events then happenedback-to-back. InDecember 1940,more than 200branches, led byBranch 1 in

Edward Gainor, NALC president from 1914through 1941, led the long struggle to reduce letter carriers’ hours of work from 48 to 40

hours. His eventual success earned him tribute asthe “Father of the Shorter Work Week.”

Under Gainor’s leadership, the NALC secured legislation in 1931 creating a 44-hour work week forcarriers, and then a 40-hour week in 1935. Gainoralso brought his campaign for shorter working hoursto all American workers as vice president of the American Federation of Labor.

Edward Gainor


father of the shorter work week

1929-1949

Detroit, signed a petition for a referen-dum to amend the NALC Constitution.The amendment—another version ofResolution 70—provided that no oneover 65 could run for national office.One month later, William C. Doherty ofCincinnati’s Branch 43, a young memberof the Executive Board, chose to makehis move. At the semi-annual meeting ofthe National Executive Board in January1941, Doherty announced that he wasrunning for president of the NALC. Sixof the 21 members of the Board walkedout of the room with him, joining theDoherty team.

The next few months were difficultones for the NALC as the referendumbecame the battle ground on which theGainor and Doherty forces fought.Anyone who was for the amendment wasagainst Gainor, and vice versa. There wasno middle ground. A carrier from GrandRapids, Michigan, illustrated the pointwith his partisan remarks in the February1941 Postal Record:

Let us not try to straddle the fence. Eitheryou are for this dastardly piece of legislationor you are against this vicious attackagainst our national officers.

On April 5, 1941, the power struggleeffectively ended. With almost 90 percent of the members voting, theamendment won by an extremely narrow margin: 26,583 to 23,838. And onSeptember 6, 1941, with no one oppos-ing him, William C. Doherty was electedpresident of the NALC at the Los Angelesconvention.

The NALC Mobilizes

Sixteen years without a pay raise—that was the situation letter carriers faced in 1941 and that

was why they elected William C. Doherty.Although Congress had arbitrarilyslashed their wages during the GreatDepression, the cost of living had

declined and carriers were financiallybetter off than many other workers. Butthe job that had seemed enviable duringthe Depression once again becameundesirable as the economy revived. By1941, when the economy was expanding,city letter carriers were earning a maxi-mum of $2,100 while workers in ship-yards and other defense industries werenow making two to three times more,and many other workers were also earn-ing good wages. Nonetheless, the gov-ernment greeted letter carriers’ requestsfor a pay increase with stoical indiffer-ence. In response, letter carriers weremore than frustrated—they were angryat being treated like second-class citizens by their employer, the U.S.Government. A Michigan carrier articu-lated the majority’s feelings in The PostalRecord when he wrote:

They all talk about the wonderful workthe postal employees are doing all overthe country, but we have heard that, for...years. That don’t help us to buy our foodand clothing, that’s just a lot of waterover the dam; what we want is a raiseright now.

In response to this treatment, dele-gates to the 1941 convention instructedBill Doherty and the rest of the officersto obtain a $900 increase, pushing topletter carrier wages to $3,000 a year. But before Doherty could initiate amajor salary campaign, the Japaneseattacked Pearl Harbor on December 7,1941, and America entered World WarII. In the next six to eight months, theentire nation mobilized to support thewar effort.

Over 15,000 letter carriers joined thearmed services to fight for their coun-try. The rest continued to carry thenation’s mail, as essential a job in waras in peace. Temporary replacementswere sought to fill vacancies, but withwages so low it was difficult to findworkers. Many carriers simplyabsorbed their absent co-workers’duties. In addition, postal employees


were asked to perform extra wartimetasks, such as the distribution of over120,000,000 ration books. Letter carriersworked long and hard during World War IIand they did so willingly, with no com-plaints, except one: They were having anextremely difficult time feeding their families on 1925 wages.

In 1942, with mobilization of the coun-try’s war resources well underway, theyoung, aggressive Bill Doherty began acampaign for a temporary wartime bonusof $300 a year. This salary drive was thefirst in a series of electrifying campaignsthat channeled the anger of the member-ship into a single voice demanding justice.

Doherty’s leadership was dynamic andinnovative. He seized the offensive imme-diately. On Saturday night, August 8, 1942,in a “Labor for Victory” broadcast spon-sored by the American Federation ofLabor, Bill Doherty carried the NALC’smessage directly to the American people:

1929-1949


G.I. Mailman —Louis J. SankerHe can march! What of it? The tramp of his feetBack home had been wearing a trail in the street.His shoulders that square now to pull off his packHad sagged to a load for many years back.He had hurried along with a militant stride,for a uniform always was part of his hide—And the service he gave repaid him in pride.

Heat was a hammer, and cold was a claw;Wind was a razor rasping him raw;And rain was a deluge drowning desire…But, stung by the storm, he sheltered his fire;Elbowed the wind, taunted the rain,Derided discomfort, made light of his pain—For a duty well-done was adequate gain.

The folks he had served might have measured his worth:He solaced in death, was joyous in birth;Kept tight the courage of mother and dad,Till he knocked on the door with word from the lad.He treasured their thanks, took pride in their praise—But it’s strange that nobody thought of a raise,For nigh twenty years never thought of a raise.

I think I should explain that the NALCis different from most other unions. Wecan’t strike. In fact, we have no desire tostrike, even when conditions are astough as they are now. That’s becausethe letter carriers are working for UncleSam and for you, the people of theUnited States.… You, the people of theUnited States, are our boss. We knowyou want to treat us right. That’s whywe hate to remind you that you havefallen down on us.

After explaining the dire financialcircumstances letter carriers were in,Doherty made his pitch:

I’m speaking tonight to the people wholive on every city street and countryroad in America. I’m speaking to youfor the letter carrier who comes yourway every day. Your letter carrier hasasked me to enlist your help. All youhave to do is to write a letter or post-card to your Congressmen.

Local NALC branches repeated andexpanded on the same message inbroadcasts from their communityradio stations. Letter carriers and

women in the National LadiesAuxiliary sent letters to their congres-sional representatives, communitynewspapers and labor newspapers,and also sought endorsements fromstate and central bodies of the AFL.Finally, on April 9, 1943, the salarycampaign achieved success, as letter carriers received a $300-a-yearwartime bonus, effective until June 30, 1945.

Bill Doherty, however, did not stop. The wartime bonus was only ashort-term solution to an 18-year-old problem. In 1944, he called for another salary campaign to obtain apermanent $400-a-year pay increase.Needing little prodding from nationalheadquarters, letter carriers respond-ed enthusiastically to his call in awidespread outburst of local actions.In fact, Doherty derived many of hisideas directly from the membership.After Chicago’s Branch 11 and a num-ber of branches held large salary ral-lies, he called for a National SalaryRally Week during October 22-28,


Convention delegates

parade in Denver during

the 1943 convention.


1944. When carriers from Branch 36in New York distributed tens of thou-sands of handbills after work hours toeducate the public on the salaryissue, the handbill was published inThe Postal Record and Dohertyencouraged other branches to takesimilar action. No stone was leftunturned in this long, arduous, andwell-organized campaign. And onceagain, Doherty and the carriers werevictorious: On July 6, 1945, PresidentHarry S. Truman signed a bill givingletter carriers their first permanentpay increase in 20 years.

This victory, important as it was,brought the top salary of letter carri-ers to only $2,500—still an inadequatewage and still short of the 1941 NALC convention mandate for a $900 increase.

On August 14, 1945, the Japanesesurrendered and the war ended. BillDoherty again seized the initiative byarguing that the war could no longerbe used by Congress as an excuse forinaction. On August 29—just sixweeks after the last pay increase—hecalled for another campaign to raisewages. His dramatic strategy paid off.With Congress now able to direct itsattention to domestic matters, thesalary bill sailed through bothHouses, and on May 21, 1946President Truman approved another$400 a year increase for letter carriers.

Strengthened by these successes,Doherty led the NALC to even greatervictories in the immediate post-waryears. The union secured passage of10 important pieces of legislationbetween 1946 and 1948, includingtwo more pay increases for city carri-ers. And one of the original objectivesof the NALC—equalization of wagesfor all letter carriers—was finallyachieved on October 29, 1949, when alaw abolishing village delivery servicewas enacted, giving city delivery sta-tus to all village carriers. For the first

time since July 1, 1863, when 449modern carriers began to walk thestreets of America, city delivery carri-ers received the same wages regard-less of the size of the community inwhich they worked.

Naturally, letter carrierswere ecstatic over their leg-islative victories. By the endof the 1940s, the job of a let-ter carrier was beginning tocompare favorably with jobsin private industry. Lettercarriers’ anger and frustra-tion over past congressionaldelays and inaction dis-solved with each victory. Notsurprisingly, however, thespectacular campaigns con-ducted by the NALC antago-nized some of the popula-tion. An article entitled“Postman Voodoo” in theOctober 10, 1949 issue ofNewsweek had this to say:

Congress suffers from a strangeoccupational ailment. Postmanitis ismarked by a high fever and a flut-tery stomach; although not fatal, itnevertheless is terrifying. It recurswhenever the legislators start think-ing about what might conceivablyhappen if they ever did anything tomake the nation’s mail carriersangry. The only cure for it, as far asCongress knows, is simply to vote foreverything the postal employees’lobby wants.

These attacks did not faze BillDoherty. His position was unassail-able: Since the NALC was prohibitedfrom collective bargaining and deniedthe power to strike by its employer,the Congress of the United States, it was the responsibility of Congressto listen and respond to the NALC’s petitions. The NALC was not a pressure or special interest group—it was a union.

1929-1949


For the first timesince July 1, 1863,when 449 moderncarriers began towalk the streets ofAmerica, city deliv-ery carriers receivedthe same wagesregardless of the sizeof the community inwhich they worked.

1950-1960

April is the Cruelest Month

A pril 18, 1950 was a turning point in the history of both letter carri-ers and the NALC. It was a day that carriers of the time wouldnever forget— a day that in many ways foreshadowed theupheaval of March 1970 and, by triggering the union’s outrage and

reaction, demonstrated that the NALC was, as had been true from its found-ing, committed to providing the best possible mail service for the public.When President Truman appointed Jesse Donaldson postmaster gen-

eral in 1947, rank-and-file letter carriers were pleased. A career man,Donaldson had once carried the mail. He, if anyone, would understandtheir problems and treat them fairly. But despite their hopes,Donaldson would deeply disappoint the nation’s letter carriers.The April 18 incident was set in motion earlier when Congress and

the Bureau of the Budget slashed Post Office Department funds to thepoint where Donaldson did not have enough money to operate the serv-ice. Instead of fighting the cuts and enlisting the lobbying support of theNALC and other postal unions, Donaldson meekly accepted the reduc-tions. Then, on April 18, 1950, without consulting the postal unions orCongress, Donaldson issued an order that still affects letter carriers andthe public today. He reduced residential mail deliveries to once a dayand most business mail deliveries to twice a day, while also severely cur-tailing many other postal services such as street collections, windowservice and parcel post deliveries. Donaldson’s objective was to save theDepartment over $80 million.


To today’s letter carrier—longaccustomed to once-a-day mail delivery—Donaldson’s order mayseem unremarkable. But for letter car-riers in 1950, the order was equivalentto a stab in the back, or—as a carrierin Salt Lake City described it—“thecarrier service has been hit below thebelt.” From the very beginning of theirhistory, letter carriers have taken deeppride in providing first-rate mail service to the American public. Infact, when letter carriers founded theNALC in 1889, they expressed two reasons for organizing a union: mutual benefit and “the good of thepublic service.”The infamous order of April 18,

1950 also permanently changed thejob of letter carriers and the nature oftheir work day. Prior to this order, a

letter carrier would return to the sta-tion after the morning delivery, takean hour or hour and a half break toeat and rest, and then sort mail beforeembarking on the second delivery.The one-trip delivery order forcedcarriers—for the first time in their history—to remain on the street constantly from the time they left theoffice until the end of the work day. In addition, lunch breaks werereduced to 30 minutes.Although the order evoked a deluge

of protests from the NALC, otherpostal employees, the public, and thepress, letter carriers were especiallyindignant. Suddenly they found them-selves eating their lunches on streetcurbs and next to or in collectionboxes in all kinds of weather. Restroomfacilities also became a major problem.


1950-1960

Donaldson’s April 18 orderdelayed the mail of soldiersfighting in South Korea.AP Wide World Photos, Inc.

These unpleasant new predicaments aggra-vated the more serious hardships of theorder: longer routes, some lengthened by asmuch as one-third; heavier loads; and lostwork opportunities for substitutes. Last, butnot least, it was the letter carrier who borethe brunt of the public’s disgruntlementover the decline in service.Under the leadership of Bill Doherty and

Secretary Jerome Keating, the NALC vigor-ously campaigned for the restoration ofservice. Doherty accused Donaldson of“raping the postal service” and immediate-ly marshaled the forces of the NALC topush Donaldson to rescind the order. Theunion argued that Donaldson’s order—more drastic than any issued in two WorldWars or the Great Depression—was a hys-terical reaction to a manageable and com-mon problem faced by previous postaladministrations. Doherty and Keatingdecried the “public-be-damned” attitude of Donaldson, and they called upon theAmerican people to decide the issue. But before the order could be rescinded,the Korean War broke out in June 1950, and any further action on the issue wassuspended.Throughout the decade, the NALC con-

tinued to fight for restoration of services.The longer routes, heavier work loads anddeteriorating working conditions were seriously affecting the health and morale of its members. Disability rates, deaths andearly retirement had increased markedly.Doherty appealed to the nation’s sense ofhumanity in June 1952:


New York City letter carriers protest Donaldson’s April 18, 1950 order slashing service.St. Petersburg Times

Unless some higher authority stepsin and re-establishes humaneworking conditions in the PostalService, every post office in thenation will be no more than atombstone for those letter carrierswho went down under the killingpace of the curtailment order.

In that same year, more than1,500 letter carriers in New York Cityheld a mass meeting to protest the1950 service cuts and further cur-tailments ordered in 1952. Thesecarriers sent a telegram to PresidentTruman demanding Donaldson’sdismissal.But the NALC’s fervent protests

were all in vain. The service curtail-ments of 1950 were never restoredand the issue was never seriouslydebated in Congress.

Let ThemEat Cake

Although working conditionsdeclined drastically after theservice curtailments of 1950,

from merely a dollars-and-cents pointof view, the job of a letter carrier wasconsidered a good one in 1952. A $400-a-year pay increase in 1951 pushedcarriers’ wages to a scale between$3,270 and $4,070—a direct result ofintensive salary campaigns and a sym-pathetic Congress. By 1952, letter car-riers had caught up to workers withsimilar jobs in the private sector andwere finally earning a living wage.But 1952 was an election year, and

letter carriers had no intention ofvoting away their recent, hard-earned


1950-1960


NALC’s efforts to create a permanent

home for the union began as early

as 1925, but no serious action was

taken until 1944 when dues money was

earmarked for a Building Fund. To help the

project become a reality, individual mem-

bers, branches and auxiliaries voluntarily

gave thousands of dollars to the Fund. The

NALC honored Fred B. Hutchings of Branch

134, Syracuse, New York, for bequeathing

the largest individual contribution, more than

$35,000, by naming the new building’s

meeting hall after him.

Construction on the NALC Building at 100

Indiana Avenue, NW, in Washington began

in late 1950, and the building was dedicated

on August 30, 1952, before 3,000 people at

a ceremony at the foot of Capitol Hill.

Carriers from all over the United States

came to celebrate the occasion with over

600 people arriving on a special train from

Brooklyn, and others by car, train and

plane. Seven letter carrier bands traveled to

the dedication from as far away as Salt

Lake City and Seattle, and American

Federation of Labor leaders William Green

and George Meany spoke to the assembled

crowd as did legendary Postmaster General

James A. Farley.

The new eight-story building provided the

union with sufficient space not only for the

union’s headquarters operation, but also to

move the Mutual Benefit Association’s head-

quarters from Nashville and the National

Sick Benefit Association from Boston and

include the NALC Hospital Plan—now the

NALC Health Benefit Plan. The growth of

the Health Plan was a major factor in moti-

vating the union in 1964 to add an eight-

story annex to the original building, although

the building’s added space could not contain

the explosion of the NALC Health Benefit

Plan which moved to the northern Virginia

suburbs in 1972.

Since the building had more space than

NALC required at the outset, the union was

able to rent to other unions and organiza-

tions, with the income helping to cover

mortgage payments, critically important in an

era when the union was strapped for cash.

Today, with the building owned free and

clear, rental income from those floors occu-

pied by tenants goes toward maintenance

and upgrades of mechanical systems.

Named the Vincent R, Sombrotto

Building by the unanimous decision of the

delegates to the 2006 convention in honor of

the union’s sixteenth national president, the

building continues to meet the union’s needs

after more than six decades, albeit with

occasional renovations and remodeling.

Moreover, the building’s location, only

a stone’s throw from the United States

Capitol, has carried considerable prestige

over the years while enabling the union’s

officers and members to travel a short and

direct route when advancing the union’s leg-

islative interests.

NALC Headquarters

Top: Dedication ceremony forthe National HeadquartersBuilding on August 30, 1952.Far right: The building in 2013.

The bust of PresidentVincent R. Sombrotto thatresides in the lobby ofNALC Headquarters.

gains. So, on Labor Day 1952, when DwightD. Eisenhower, the Republican candidatefor president, addressed the NALC conven-tion in New York City, delegates listenedcarefully to his words. Traditionally, everychange in administration in Washington,DC has generated speculation and someapprehension among government workers.But in a spirit of friendliness, Eisenhowermade this pledge:

If I have … the responsibility of filling thehighest post in the land, I am going tohave one ambition: that, at the end ofthose four years, every working man andwoman in the United States would say,“He was fair.”

In the same address, he uttered a promisewhich letter carriers would long remember:

I want to repeat to the full conventionwhat I promised and the request that Imade to your president … only a coupleof weeks ago. I said to him, “Mr. Doherty,if I have this grave responsibility, Irequest that, if ever you find anythingcoming up that you believe is damagingthe Postal Service or is unfair to anymember … you bring that to me, and Ipromise you in advance you won’t sit onthe doorstep anytime to get to me.”

But eight years later when Eisenhowerconcluded his second term as president,letter carriers were bitter and sullen; theirhope of maintaining economic equalitywith other workers had vanished. Why?What happened in those eight years? After Ike’s resounding victory in the

election of 1952, he appointed Arthur E.Summerfield to the position of postmastergeneral. A businessman, Summerfield wasshocked at the antiquated practices thathad turned his new charge—the Post OfficeDepartment—into an administrative night-mare. During his first 18 months on the job,he completely overhauled the Department,instituting modern business methods anddecentralizing it into 15 regions. These brilliant accomplishments, however, weremarred by Summerfield’s insensitivity tothe needs of postal employees and hisindifference to the concerns of the NALCand other postal unions. Determined to runthe Department at a profit, Summerfieldzealously pursued a strategy of keepingpostal salaries as low as possible.The battle line between the NALC and


1950-1960

NALC PresidentBill DohertyintroducesDwight D. Eisenhower, the Republicancandidate forpresident, toconvention del-egates in 1952.

Summerfield was drawn in1954 when Summerfieldtried to push a reclassifica-tion and salary plan throughCongress. The plan, based ona study of postal pay struc-ture which Summerfield had commissioned FryAssociates, a business con-sulting firm, to write, wouldhave radically altered theservice’s entire classificationsystem. In addition, the planwould have raised letter carriers’ wages an average of$100 a year—although somecarriers would only havereceived $10—while raisingsome supervisors’ salaries byas much as $5,000. The NALC was outraged atSummerfield’s insulting offerof such a pittance to carriers,who had not received a payincrease in three years. Butin many ways, the NALC waseven more outraged that

there had been absolutely no priordiscussion or consultation with theunion about the plan.

The Lloyd-LaFollette Act of 1912,which recognized letter carriers’ rightto join a union, did not require the

Department to consult with or recog-nize the NALC, even though the unionhad long represented over 90 percentof working city delivery carriers. Thislimitation in the law did not seem sig-nificant in 1912. But by 1950, whenthe NALC had not been consulted oreven warned of Donaldson’s one-a-day delivery order, the letter carriers bristled. The weakness of Lloyd-LaFollette stared them in the face. TheSummerfield administration, with its“daddy-knows-best” attitude, intensi-fied the NALC’s dissatisfaction withthe status quo. Union recognition anda labor-management relations billbecame a new rallying cry—at thevery same time carriers were fightingtooth and nail for economic justice.In 1954, Congress responded to

NALC’s call for economic justice. After the Fry Associates’ plan died incommittee, Congress passed a morerealistic and fairer postal pay bill bylandslide majorities—352-29 in theHouse and 69-4 in the Senate. Thebill, however, stopped dead in itstracks in the summer of 1954, forEisenhower, just as Calvin Coolidgehad done in 1924, vetoed the pay bill.The veto, a bitter pill for letter car-

riers to swallow, was only the begin-ning of Eisenhower’s quiet assault on


“I’m sorry you didn’t get as much of a raiseas you expected, Mr. Figby ... Maybe they’llissue a stamp commemorating you!...”

George Lichty & Chicago Sun-Times Syndicate

McNaught Syndication

The Wonderful Wizards of Washington

the welfare of postal workers. One yearlater, on May 9, 1955, the presidentvetoed another pay raise for postalworkers. Finally, in June 1955, a paybill was signed into law—letter carri-ers’ first pay increase in four years.Critical as the increase was, it did notpacify rank-and-file carriers who wereshocked at the administration’sintense opposition. In August 1956, a letter carrier in Worcester,Massachusetts hinted of rebellion:

Are we not entitled to partake of theAmerican way of life? We are sick ofsympathy. If only the letter carrierwould realize the dormant power inhis ranks. We never would acceptthe answer: “They have no bread?Then let them eat cake.”

Three months later, The PostalRecord reported that “the averageAmerican family” earned $5,520 a yearbefore taxes in 1955 while the averageletter carrier earned $4,400—$1,120 a year less. Yet, the 1956 Republicanplatform stated: “Good times inAmerica have reached a breadth anddepth never known by any nation.”On August 1, 1957, letter carriers

tried the unusual in their fight for bet-ter pay. The method: prayer. Tens ofthousands of letter carriers throughout

the nation paused from their dailytasks to pray for a salary increase. In hundreds of cities, clergymenappeared at the local post office earlyin the morning to conduct a shortservice.In spite of this dramatic act of faith,

Summerfield and Eisenhower wereunmoved. Another postal pay bill,approved by Congress, was vetoed byEisenhower in September 1957. Andnot only did Eisenhower veto it, but heresorted to the pocket veto techniqueto kill it—waiting until members ofCongress had gone home beforeannouncing his veto decision. TheLadies Auxiliary of Branch 235 sent a“Death Notice” to The Postal Record.Edged in black, it captured the bitter-ness of the times:

Cause of Death: PresidentEisenhower. Attempting to survive are the wives, mothers and childrenof postal workers.

At the same time, U. S. News andWorld Report reported that while thewages of workers in private industryhad increased between $20 and $36 aweek in the previous five years, lettercarriers’ wages had increased by amere $5.50.Dissatisfaction welled up in the

ranks of carriers. Although Eisenhower


1950-1960

A Washington, DC letter carrier, Robert S.Bancroft, was used asa model for this 1955certified mail stamp.

Washington, DC letter carrier enter-ing church to prayfor an increase in salary in 1957.

signed into law a pay raise on May 27, 1959, it didlittle to quell the mounting resentment. Somecarriers vented their anger at the union and itsofficers and either quit paying dues or threatenedto quit the union. In response, an understanding Milwaukee,

Wisconsin letter carrier tried to redirect the disaffected carriers’ frustration:

No matter what you believe, neither Congress,nor anyone else, is going to enact or even introduce legislation for your benefit, if yourconcentrated action is not in evidence. There simply is no Santa Claus.

Other carriers began to question the no-strikeprovision of the Lloyd-LaFollette Act and laterlegislation. Tentative whisperings were heard ofwork stoppages, mass sick-outs, and moreaggressive action. By 1960, letter carriers were having serious

financial difficulties. Many carriers worked twojobs to support their families, and their wivesoften were forced to work to supplement carriers’meager income. A substantial number of lettercarriers could not even qualify for an FHA loan to buy a home. A letter carrier from Paducah,Kentucky asked the members in February of 1960:


During the early decades of the

20th century, postal employees

fought for and obtained some,

but not all, of the employment benefits

received by workers in more enlight-

ened segments of the private sector.

By 1920, the government had adopted

workers’ compensation, sick leave and

a retirement system—but it stubbornly

resisted an employer-sponsored health

insurance plan for another 39 years.

To solve the problem of meeting

medical expenses on a letter carrier’s

salary, the NALC founded a hospitaliza-

tion and surgical plan for its members in

1950. The plan operated for nine years

before the U.S. Government, after a

hard-fought legislative struggle, finally

agreed to establish an employer-spon-

sored health insurance plan for all fed-

eral workers. The Federal Employees’

Health Benefits Act of 1959 opened the

way for the NALC to offer a new plan

with greatly expanded coverage of med-

ical costs. Following an enrollment peri-

od during which Plan enrollment shot

up from 32,000 to more than 101,000,

the new NALC Health Benefit Plan

began operations on July 1, 1960.

The Plan has been enormously suc-

cessful since its founding and today is

one of the most highly rated plans in the

federal program, offering a range of

options providing excellent medical, surgi-

cal, hospital and prescription drug cover-

age to letter carriers, other postal employ-

ees, federal workers and dependents.

Moreover, due to NALC’s success at the

bargaining table, the Postal Service pays

most of the premium cost for health cov-

erage for letter carriers and their families.

Headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia,

outside of Washington, DC, the Plan is

administered by a large professional

staff led by elected union officers

directly accountable to NALC members.

NALC Health.Benefit Plan.

How many of us have any change in ourpockets a couple of days after pay day?Are we too proud to admit our poverty?

Deeply affected by these outcries of painand suffering, Bill Doherty and JeromeKeating led one of the most dynamic salarycampaigns in the NALC’s history in early1960. The campaign, called “Crusade forEconomic Equality,” was aggressivelyfought, and Congress responded by passinga pay bill in June. But Eisenhower, in hislast year as president, vetoed the legisla-tion. His veto message denounced the “dis-turbing” and “shocking” lobbying activitiesof the NALC and other postal unions.Undaunted by Eisenhower’s scathing criti-cism, the NALC lobbied fiercely for a vetooverride and was victorious. On July 1, 1960,Congress overwhelmingly overrode the veto—one of only two of the 169 Eisenhowervetoes to be overridden in eight years.The Eisenhower era ended in January

1961, when John F. Kennedy assumed thepresidency. Letter carriers of the time, thenhopelessly behind the economic parade,would never forget the friendly “Ike” whovetoed four pay raises.


1950-1960

Letter carriers in action—Crusade for Economic Equality.

1961-1969

The Rightto RepresentLetter Carriers


W hen President-elect John F. Kennedy appointed J. Edward Day postmaster general in 1961, a reporterasked Kennedy whether Day intended to restoretwice-a-day delivery. Kennedy, known for his wit and

having just had a letter take eight days to reach Boston, replied thathe hoped Day “would be able to restore once-a-day delivery!’’Although twice-a-day delivery was not reinstated by Postmaster

General Day, progress during the Kennedy Administration wasachieved on an entirely different front—one directly affecting lettercarriers and their union.Labor-management relations in the Post Office Department had

reached a new low by 1960. Subject to the whims of local andregional supervision, letter carriers were almost totally withoutrights and protections. The 1912 Lloyd-LaFollette Act required thatemployees be given notice of any proposed adverse action and beallowed reasonable time to file an answer to charges. But workershad no right to a hearing or to representation. The NALC itself hadno representational rights on the workroom floor, there was no col-lective bargaining agreement between the union and theDepartment spelling out the rights and obligations of both parties,and there was no grievance procedure through which the unioncould challenge management’s actions. The only written documentwas the Postal Manual, which a carrier from Stamford, Connecticutdescribed in 1961:

P … is for porous—full of loopholesO … is for omnipotence—unlimited

powerS … is for sovereign or supreme powerT … is for tease or taunt—they make

provisions for you in one paragraphand take them away in the next

A … is for archaic, old-fashioned andantiquated

L … is for latitude—they allow them-selves plenty of it

M …is for mobility—you can alwaysmove when you are boxed in

A … is for authority—it takes the place ofjustice

N … is for negotiate—though it veryrarely works

U … is for unilateral or one-sidedA … is for adjudicate—to determine a

case as a courtL … is for last but not least—It is up to

the discretion of the Postmaster. This one line nullifies all the provisionssupposedly made for our welfare.

Totally lacking any power to confrontpostal management, the NALC had nochoice other than to depend upon thelegislative process. Consequently, battlesover employment relations really took

place in congressional committeesrather than at the negotiating table or onthe workroom floor. The system—or lackof a system—came under increasingcriticism during the late 1940s andthroughout the 1950s. The censure camefrom a variety of sources: the NALC, theNational Federation of Post OfficeClerks, the AFL-CIO (the product of amerger between the two giant laborbodies in 1955), the American BarAssociation, two Hoover Commissions,and the National Civil Service League.These groups all agreed on one majorpoint: labor-management relations inthe federal government seriously laggedbehind private enterprise and even localgovernments. The NALC went much further in its critique, contending thatthe Department’s authoritarian attitudesand practices were far more reminiscentof the Dark Ages than of the modernworld that extolled consultation andcooperation.Ever since World War II, countless

legislative proposals to improve federallabor relations had been in the congres-sional hopper, primarily due to theefforts of the NALC and other postalunions, but none of these bills was everbrought to a vote. By the beginning ofthe Kennedy administration, however,the NALC’s long, relentless campaign forunion recognition legislation was gain-ing ground. The Rhodes-Johnston Bill,providing for recognition and collectivebargaining, was on the verge of enact-ment. In addition, more than 20 unionrecognition bills were introduced in theHouse and the Senate in early 1961.Labor-management legislation wasimminent.President Kennedy, a supporter of

union recognition while a senator, madehis move on June 22, 1961. Fearing thatcongressional action might foist a laborrelations system on the governmentwhich he was unprepared to accept,Kennedy pulled the rug from under


1961-1969



everyone’s feet by establishing a TaskForce to study the issue. This effectivelystopped any action in Congress. Then, on January 17, 1962, Kennedysigned Executive Order 10988. Theorder—which NALC President BillDoherty called the “Magna Carta forGovernment Workers”—replaced theoutdated Lloyd-LaFollette Act of 1912.Executive Order 10988 established

an Employee-Management Coop era -tion Program in the federal govern-

ment. The program officially recognized the legitimate role of unions in the formulation andimplementation of personnelpolicies. From the NALC’s per-spective, the most significantprovisions of the Order con-cerned representational rights.Kennedy’s Order provided that alabor organization would gain“national exclusive recognition”once a majority of the employeesin the appropriate “bargainingunit” chose the organization asits representative. The organiza-tion would then represent

employees in grievance discussions,and negotiate a national contract withmanagement. Although bargainingwould exclude wages, hours, and fringebenefits, the NALC had, at long last,gained the right to protect its memberson the workroom floor.In compliance with the Order, the

Post Office Department conducted anationwide representation election inJune 1962. The NALC ran a spiritedelection campaign, urging carriers tovote for the “Big 9”—since the unionwas ninth on the ballot. Over 367,000postal workers participated and, notsurprisingly, the NALC led the ballotingwith over one-third of the total votescast. On July 1, 1962, six major postalunions were granted national exclusiverecognition. For the first time in NALC’shistory, the union had the right to represent all city delivery carriers indealings with postal management.With no experience or background

in collective bargaining on either side,the NALC and the Post OfficeDepartment entered into their firstnegotiations in mid-October. Since Bill

President John F. Kennedy

signs Executive Order

10988 on January 17,

1962. NALC President

William C. Doherty (fourth

from left) looks on.


1961-1969

Doherty had retired earlier that year tobecome the Ambassador to Jamaica,the new NALC president, Jerome J.Keating, led the NALC negotiatingteam. Five months later, on March 20,1963, the first National PostalAgreement was signed. After signing,Keating reflected,

… such triumphs are never instanta-neous creations. They never springcomplete and perfect from the browof any individual. Years of cam-paigning on the part of the postalunions preceded the events.

The NALC adapted swiftly to thedemands of the new collective bargain-ing environment. Three more nationalagreements were signed—in 1964, 1965and 1966. However, during the courseof negotiations in 1965 and 1966, a serious flaw in the Order became all too apparent: there was no mechanismto compel the Department to reach an agreement—or honor one oncereached. In other words, the Depart -ment was required to consult and nego-tiate with the NALC, but managementretained its final decision-makingauthority. For example, all arbitrationdecisions were advisory rather thanbinding, and there were no provisionsfor the arbitration of bargainingimpasses. In fact, the Department couldeven disregard its prior commitmentsby claiming an “emergency situation.”Frustrated by this imbalance of

power, a carrier in Fort Plain, New York,asked in 1965:

What good is the national contractwhen the Department can takeaway all these supposed rights attheir whim? What kind of contractis it where one side does not have tolive up to its agreements if it doesnot desire?

Yet despite its obvious limitations.Executive Order 10988 provided theNALC with an important education in

the art of negotiation and collectivebargaining. These skills would prove to be crucial in the struggles to come.

Promises,Promises,

In the same year John F. Kennedysigned Executive Order 10988,Congress passed legislation guar-

anteeing that the wages of all postaland federal workers would keep pacewith the rising salaries of workers inprivate industry. The ComparabilityAct of 1962—much like ExecutiveOrder 10988—stirred hope among therank-and-file letter carriers whosewages had lagged well behind the payof their middle-class friends andneighbors working in private industryduring the economic expansion of the1950s. The frantic race to keep up withworkers in private industry appearedover, and there was a general belief

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, letter carriers throughout

the nation mourned his death. Over 300 uniformed letter carriers attended a

special memorial service in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Milw

auke

e Jo

urna

l

Although never entirely free from the

racism pervading American society,

the United States Post Office has long

been a place of exceptional economic oppor-

tunity for black workers, and blacks have car-

ried the nation’s mail since almost the begin-

ning of city delivery service. The earliest

known black letter carrier may have been

James B. Christian of Richmond, Virginia,

who began carrying mail I869, followed a few

months later by William Carney who was

founding vice president of NALC Branch 18

in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

A runaway slave, Carney suffered such

severe wounds in the suicidal assault on

Confederate Fort Wagner near Charleston,

South Carolina by the all-black, all-volunteer

54th Regiment Massachusetts Infantry in

1863, that for more than 30 years he limped

every step of the way as he delivered mail in

New Bedford.

Information about early black letter carriers

is scant, but it is likely that many were Civil

War veterans like Carney. It is also clear that

some held union leadership positions in

cities like Memphis and Little Rock in the

last decade of the nineteenth century.

Nonetheless, until at least World War II, few

African Americans carried the mail—with one

account claiming under 1,400 belonged to

the NALC by the late 1920s, less than three

percent of the total membership.

The history of African-Americans in the

NALC reflects the changing nature of race

relations in the larger society. For many

decades, NALC convention delegates debat-

ed whether the union would accommodate

itself to the practice of segregated branches,

which existed in certain regions of the coun-

try. The Dallas convention in 1917 approved

“dual charters”—one branch for whites and

another for blacks in the same city—but two

years later the Philadelphia convention

repealed this constitutional pro-

vision. Despite the 1919 action,

hundreds of segregated

branches chartered between

1917 and 1919 continued to

function for decades, and

attempts were made to revive

issuance of dual charters at

convention after convention.

Finally, in 1941, proponents of

dual charters succeeded, claim-

ing that in some single charter

cities—primarily, but not exclu-

sively, in the deep south—black

letter carriers were being frozen

out of white branches and that,

in fact, there were also cases

where branches controlled by

black carriers refused membership to newly

hired whites.

This action was reversed in 1954, but dual

charters continued to exist in some cities

until delegates to the 1960 Cincinnati con-

vention instructed NALC officers to merge all

remaining dual charter branches. By the

1962 convention, only two branches had

failed to comply and they both surrendered

their charters, finally making dual charters a

relic of the past.

The resolution of the dual charter issue

marked the beginning of the full integration

of African-Americans into the union. Until

then, the national leadership of the union

had been entirely white. In the mid-1960s,

however, black carriers were appointed

national field directors, later called national

business agents, and from the 1970s on,

they filled leadership roles at every level of

the union, including resident officer posi-

tions. By 2014, African-Americans com-

prised more than one-fifth of the active carri-

er workforce, and an ever growing number

of the union’s retirees.

Like the country as a whole when con-

fronted with the issue of race, the NALC

has for decades been engaged in an ago-

nizing self-appraisal of its own ideals.

Perhaps a black carrier from Yazoo City,

Black Letter Carriers

William Carney wears a Civil War coat on his

New Bedford mail route, circa 1890.

Car

l Cru

z co

llect

ion,

New

Bed

ford

His

toric

al S

ocie

ty

1961-1969

that, at long last, there would be justice forletter carriers.But this feeling was short-lived, for by the

mid-1960s disenchantment had begun to setin. In 1964, a small pay raise based on thecomparability principle was passed byCongress, but only after an 18-month strug-gle by the NALC. And in 1965, the NALCencountered new barriers: the Vietnam Warand the threat of spiraling inflation. PresidentLyndon Johnson, refusing to increase taxes to prevent inflation, issued wage guidelinesproposing that private and public sectorwage increases stay within 2.3 percent a year.In response, trade unions forcefully arguedthat labor would be the victim of inflation,not the cause, and private-sector unionsignored the guidelines. Public-sector workers,however, were not so fortunate.Ironically, when the NALC embarked on

its salary campaign in 1965, it was confidentof one thing: Lyndon Baines Johnson. Duringhis 24 years in the House and the Senate,Johnson had never voted against the welfareof letter carriers, and he had strongly sup-ported the pay comparability principle in1962 and 1964. So in 1965, letter carriers wereunderstandably unprepared for what was instore for them. Johnson, consumed by thewar and the possibility that rampant inflationwould damage his “Great Society” programs,did a complete about-face. When Rep. MorrisUdall authored a bill to close the comparabil-ity gap by 1968, Johnson rejected it out-of-hand. Instead, he offered postal and federalworkers a choice—a 3.6 percent across-the-board pay increase, or nothing at all. TheNALC, recognizing that the proposedincrease would not bring carriers into paritywith comparable workers in the private sec-tor, was shocked at Johnson’s position andangrily protested. But in the end, Congressbowed to administration pressure and passeda miserable 3.6 percent wage increase. Representative Udall, after describing the

new pay bill as a “toothless, watered-down,emaciated, illegitimate outrage ... an abortionof a pay bill,” asked two agonizing questions:

Mississippi best expressed what the

union would later unequivocally stand

for when, during the dual charter

debate in 1919 in Philadelphia, he

reminded his fellow delegates:

“To make this world safe for democra-

cy is to treat all men right and equal.…I

am not pleading to you in the interest of

the colored, white, Indian, Chinaman,

Japanese, Norwegian or any race of

men, but as an American citizen plead-

ing for right and justice for all men.”



Were all the great principles of the1962 Federal Pay Reform Act mereplatitudes to lull postal and otherfederal employees … into a falsehope that we had finally laid thefoundation for a sensible and work-able salary system? Is federal salarycomparability, after all, only a myth?

By the end of 1965, letter carriersthroughout the country knew theanswer to both these questions.

An EnduranceTest: 1966-68

Unrest in the NALC burst forthin 1966, as abuses increasedand morale plummeted. At

the NALC’s Detroit convention inAugust, President Jerome J. Keatinggave a powerful, fighting speechdenouncing the Johnson administra-tion’s latest offer of a 2.9 percent payincrease—even less than the yearbefore. Again, President Johnson wasattempting to prevent inflation byforcing public workers to acceptpainfully low wages.

That same summer, the Post OfficeDepartment issued a barrage of newcost-cutting policies and procedures.These measures—which includedsevere curtailment of overtime forexperienced workers as well as anincrease in the use of temporaries—markedly increased on-the-job frustra-tions for carriers. Service deterioratedand working conditions became intol-erable. During August and Septemberof 1966, carriers from all over thenation wrote NALC NationalHeadquarters to describe the situation:

Batesville, Arkansas: Three hundredfirst-class letters curtailed because ofno overtime on three different daysin July.

Columbus, Ohio: Eighteen-year-oldseasonal assistant dumped 1,000 letters, 325 magazines into field.

Dothan, Alabama: Two regularscalled from annual leave to avoidovertime to others.

Buffalo, New York: 35 auxiliaryroutes at this office. Clerks frequentlypaid overtime while carriers held to40 hours or less.

Marion, Ohio: One temporaryemployee left four relays undeliv-ered. His girlfriend helped him deliver the rest.

Atlantic City, New Jersey: Up to 70feet of first-class mail not distributedeach Saturday in July, causing delaysin delivery.

In October 1966, the system brokedown completely. Almost every majorpost office in the country reported hugebacklogs of undelivered mail. In Chicagoalone, more than 10 million pieces ofmail were piled up for three weeks. Thecause—restrictions on use of overtimeand greater use of temporaries.

Jerome J. Keating


1961-1969

The possibility of sponsoring a non-profit

retirement home for letter carriers and their

spouses was originally discussed at NALC’s

Cleveland convention in 1954. Acting on a resolution

approved by the San Francisco convention in 1958,

the NALC appointed a special committee to study

the proposed project.

After much study, the NALC decided to build a

retirement facility on a 153-acre tract in Polk County on

the shore of Lake Weohyakapka (Walk-in-the-Water) in

central Florida, midway between Tampa on the Gulf

Coast and Vero Beach on the Atlantic Coast. Ground

was broken on July 1, 1962, with NALC President

Doherty turning the first shovel of earth.

The community was named “NALCREST,” short for

“National Association of Letter Carriers Retirement,

Education, Security and Training.” More than 2,000

people celebrated Nalcrest’s dedication ceremony on

January 20, 1964, as the dream of a permanent retire-

ment home for letter carriers came true.

Over the years, Nalcrest has developed into a

full-fledged retirement community with 500 apart-

ments clustered in 66 one-story buildings, a “Town

Center,” the 500-seat William C. Doherty auditori-

um, and a sports complex named in honor of

NALC President Vincent R. Sombrotto. Fully

owned by the NALC since September 2002 when

NALC’s mortgage was retired, no union dues are

Nalcrest

used to support the facility. Rather, as a non-

profit community, Nalcrest’s reasonable rents

cover operating expenses.

Nalcrest residents, although retired, con-

stantly demonstrate their union heritage and

social service values. Retired carriers meet as

Branch 1-A—an honorary branch of the NALC,

since residents must maintain their membership

in their home branches. Residents also band

together during difficult times to maintain their

community—such as when three hurricanes

wreaked havoc on the area in 2004. President William C.

Doherty turns the first

shovel of earth on July 1,

1962, culminating his

campaign to create

Nalcrest. Doherty later

resided there until his

death in 1987. Left:

Nalcrest in 2014.


Soon after the backlogs were cleared andthe immediate crisis ended, Congress yield-ed to administration pressure and passedJohnson’s pay bill. Carriers would receiveanother pittance—a 2.9 percent raise. APaterson, New Jersey carrier expressed thedeepening dissatisfaction:

To this writer, our choice is clear, we canno longer afford the luxury of indulgingourselves and kidding ourselves that wecan make do with a small increase....I, for one, feel another 2.9 percent wouldnot help and in my opinion I would rathergo down fighting than accept anothersuch insult.

But carriers’ meager pay increases wereaffecting much more than their pride. Manycarriers were struggling just to remain abovethe poverty line. Their wages were so low thatin some states, carriers were eligible toreceive food stamps, Medicaid and otherassistance designed for the poor. Ironically,Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” was help-ing some letter carrier families to survive.Breakdowns in service, deteriorating

working conditions and poverty-level wagestook their toll: Morale fell so low that manycarriers were leaving the Service for betterjobs in private industry. By 1967, the employ-ee turnover rate in the Service was approxi-mately 26 percent a year, and it was difficultto find people willing to work as carriers.In the 1967 and 1968 contract negotia-

tions, the Post Office Department turned itsback on these grim realities, choosing to fanthe already smoldering fires of resentmentspreading through the ranks of carriers. TheDepartment, believing it had lost too muchpower in earlier agreements, adopted a hardline, “take-it-or-leave-it” bargaining stance.This was especially true in 1968, when it successfully increased the power of localpostmasters and took away many local bar-gaining rights the NALC had enjoyed duringthe previous three to four years.The NALC and its members gave voice to

their utter frustration at this turn of events—a frustration that many observers at the timebelieved stemmed from the union’s inabilityto bargain over the bread-and-butter issuesof wages and benefits. In many ways, this

As early as 1895, ThePostal Record reportedthat feminists and suffra-

gettes were demanding thatwomen be allowed to work asletter carriers. And somewomen—probably not many—did deliver the mail in the earlydays of letter carrier history, evenunder the most difficult condi-tions. In fact, in the 1890s, ThePostal Record reported at leasttwo instances of women deliver-ing mail in the West under chal-lenging and sometimes danger-ous conditions. But despite theseexceptions, the hopes of the

early equal rights advocates werea long time coming, for the letter carrier craft remained nearly all-male for many years.Women letter carriers made

their first appearance on citystreets during World War I andII, taking the places of mendrafted into military service.Almost all of these women car-ried the mail temporarily, relin-quishing their jobs as menreturned home from war. By1956, only 92 women nation-wide served as city carriers. But in the 1960s, women

began to enter the letter carriercraft in greater numbers, pro-pelled by the rise of the modern

Women Letter Carriers

Women letter carriers in 1917.

Nat

iona

l Pos

tal M

useu

m L

ibra

ry

1961-1969

judgment was correct—but it was alsoincomplete. Observers were underestimat-ing the mood of letter carriers. Carriers weretired of begging for better wages, yes. Butthey were just as tired of the blatant inequal-ity of power between the Department andthemselves. Fed up with the perception thatthey lacked muscle, carriers began to voice a growing militancy. In August 1968, aCincinnati, Ohio letter carrier expressedwhat was on the minds of many:

We are not in a kidding mood. Far fromit. We are deadly serious. This is the reason we must come up with someanswers—now! Our members are sick todeath of the “you have to take what theydish out” attitude. Do we have to contin-ue to take it? Or is there another way out?Must we always come begging for the“crumbs” of what other labor forceswould call “antique?”

The letter carriers of this country are notof “faint heart.” And we cannot longendure the classification of second-classcitizens.… Resolutions may be introduced[at the upcoming NALC convention], and

if accepted, could give our membershipthe right to “carry a big stick.” This wouldnot be the first time the subject of theright to strike was brought up at conven-tions. The difference is, this year the delegates may just be mad enough to do something about it.

The GatheringStorm

W ith some of the union’s nationalleaders urging members toembrace “militant unionism,”

letter carriers were becoming increasinglyassertive during the summer of 1968.Alarmed, in July the Post Office Departmentissued a strike contingency plan to allregional directors, field postal inspectors,and local postmasters in first-class offices.But the union’s unwillingness to take collec-tive action became clear when 3,700 dele-gates from across the country gathered inBoston in August 1968 for NALC’s nationalconvention.

women’s movement and the esca-lating Vietnam conflict that bothdrew more men into military service and created high-payingdefense-industry jobs. Despiteenduring occasional discrimina-tion and harassment from man-agers, co-workers and customers,the number of women carriersclimbed steadily if slowly, reach-ing 5,000 shortly after the cre-ation of the USPS 1971, and top-ping 16,000 in 1982. By 2014, over58,000 women comprised morethan 30 percent of the city carrierworkforce. With a parallel increase in

the percentage of women in theNALC, female carriers have

become a growing force in theunion. In recent years, womenhave held resident officer positionssuch as secretary-treasurer, assis-tant secretary-treasurer and direc-tor of life insurance and have also served as national trustees, national business agents andregional administrative assistants.Hundreds of women also serve asbranch presidents, branch secre-taries, stewards, arbitration advo-cates and dispute resolution teammembers, while a large number arepresidents of state associations. Inaddition, women comprise roughlya quarter of national conventiondelegates and over nine percent ofthe union’s retired membership.



With boththe NALC’snational andlocal leadersunderstandablyconcernedabout the legalimplications ofthe union evenasserting itsright to strike,sponsors of aresolution thatcalled upon theunion’s nationalofficers “when-ever it becomesnecessary to doso...[to] use [thestrike] weaponfor the welfareof its members”

claimed that this was a misrepresenta-tion of their views. They substituted aweaker resolution instructing NALC’snational officers both to “investigatefully the legal and legislative technicali-ties” of giving the government employ-ees the right to strike and to study the“feasibility of removing the no-strikeoath” required as a condition of employ-ment. Dele gates approved the substituteresolution without objection and thenvoted down the original resolution,again without objection. Caution hadtrumped militancy. If the decision to study the legal issues

related to whether government employ-ees could be granted the right to strikewas intended to defuse carriers’ growinganger, it failed, for it could not dampenthe intensity of letter carriers’ resentment.Any hope that the impending crisis

could be averted dimmed further withthe inauguration of Richard Nixon aspresident in January 1969. Perhapsanother kind of leader might have beenable to empathize with the anger of let-ter carriers over decades of injustice—or

even to sense the inevitable conflict. ButRichard Milhouse Nixon, who hadserved as vice president during the yearsof the Eisenhower vetoes, was not thatleader. His actions pushed the deepen-ing crisis closer to confrontation by rais-ing expectations he would then thwart.Just as Eisenhower had, Nixon

offered the carriers empty promises.Immediately after taking office, the newpresident issued this statement:To that underpaid man who[Postmaster General] Red Blountspoke to us about the other day whoworks in … [New York] and starts at$6,000 a year; if he went to theSanitation Department, he couldget $10,000 a year. Let them knowthat we back them. Let them knowthat better days are coming.…

Two days later, on February 12, 1969,the Nixon Administration announced itsintention to increase postal pay by lessthan 3 percent. Then, on May 28, 1969,President Nixon announced his solidsupport for abolishing the Post Office asa cabinet-level Department of theExecutive Branch and replacing it with aself-supporting postal corporation. All ofthe postal unions had vigorouslyopposed this idea ever since it was firstproposed by Postmaster GeneralLawrence O’Brien in 1967 and subse-quently endorsed by President Johnson’sKappel Commission on PostalOrganization in 1968. The NALC and theother postal unions believed the nation’spostal service should remain a publicservice—directly accountable to the peo-ple through their elected representatives.Furthermore, the NALC feared that ifCongress were to lose its leading role inmaking postal policy, the NALC wouldlose the one powerful weapon it haddeveloped over the years: lobbyingCongress. So Nixon’s strong commitmentto postal reform at a time of approachingcrisis pushed the NALC to a more radicalposition. The union insisted that if there

The unioninsisted that if there were to be a postal corporation,postal workersmust have theright to strike.


were to be a postal corporation, postal work-ers must have the right to strike—whichNixon’s plan banned, while also strippingaway Civil Service benefits and protections.Then, on June 17, 1969, Nixon demon-

strated his blindness to the storm gatheringaround him. In the face of NALC’s lobbyingfor a substantial pay boost, he issued anExecutive Order raising postal pay by 4.1percent, effective July 1, 1969. With inflationrunning above 5 percent, this was far shortof meeting the critical needs of postalemployees barely able to make ends meet.NALC President James Rademacher, recog-nizing how short tempers had become, sentan open letter to every member the sameday urging members to “cool it”—not engagein slow-downs or sick-outs—because theunion had a comprehensive legislative battleplan to win a better increase. In a bid topressure Congress for a better pay package,he also announced a court challenge to the“no-strike” oath required of all federalemployees. A week later Rademacher, testify-ing before a House committee, denouncedthe proposed raise and declared that postalemployees had the right to strike.The discontent, however, could not be

contained, and embittered workers in NewYork City began to act. On June 20, protestserupted all over the city, with the largest heldoutside the Manhattan General Post Office,where more than 2,000 letter carriers andpostal clerks shouted “Strike! Strike! Strike!”while carrying signs saying “Nuts to 4.1” and

“Pay, Not Peanuts.” Oneprotester even brandished ahand-written sign, “Howabout an all-out sick call.”Another 400 postal workersprotested at the GrandCentral Post Office in mid-town Manhattan where they chanted “NoMail Monday” and “I’m Sick Monday.” On thesteps of the Brooklyn Post Office, a massprotest turned ugly when the police inter-vened and two carriers were arrested.Although the mail was delivered in New

York the following Monday, on July 1, 1969, 11days after the mass protests, events escalated.Almost all of the letter carriers and postalclerks at the Kingsbridge Station in the Bronxcalled in sick. In response, the New York Citypostmaster sprang into action, carefully fol-lowing the instructions detailed in the strikecontingency plan. Supervisory personnelwere called in to scab, postal inspectorslaunched an investigation of the action, andall absent workers were given 24 hours toanswer charges that they had engaged in anillegal activity. The very next day, while all 56letter carriers and 16 clerks at Kingsbridgewere being suspended, 16 of the 36 letter car-riers in the Throggs Neck Branch, also in theBronx, called in sick, and they too were sus-pended almost immediately. The disruption of service was minor, and

eventually all the employees returned towork after most served a two-week suspen-sion, with the rest judged to have legitimateexcuses for not working on the days of thesick-out. But letter carriers and postal clerks

1961-1969

Low pay did not prevent letter

carriers from doing their jobs

with unflinching dedication

during the late 1960s. A letter

carrier from Branch 39 contin-

ues casing the mail after a car

crashed through a post office

wall in Indianapolis.



in New York were far from frightened by the Department’s investigations andsuspensions, as radio reports of the“sick-outs” sent a charge of electricitythroughout Branch 36’s membershipand strengthened the resolve of theincreasingly angry letter carriers whowere gaining a sense of control andpride. They understood that theKingsbridge and Throggs Neck carriershad defied the government by engagingin illegal job actions. In an effort to keep the lid on,

Rademacher traveled to New York inAugust for a special meeting of Branch36, the union’s largest with 7,200 mem-bers in Manhattan and the Bronx. Atthe meeting, called to consider theramifications of the July job action,Rademacher told cheering New Yorkcarriers that pay legislation was certainto pass within the next six weeks, and ifnot, he would personally lead a strike.In the meantime, he urged calm.Through the end of the summer and

throughout the fall, all remained quietin New York, for although the six-weekdeadline passed with the prospects ofpay legislation uncertain at best, theNALC president wavered. Congress, the

Department, Nixon and Rademachercontinued to haggle over postal reformand postal pay, with Nixon taking theposition that no postal pay bill wouldpass unless the legislation also estab-lished a postal corporation. But withChristmas nearing, the monthly meet-ings of Branch 36 grew more and morestormy as Branch 36’s leaders, fright-ened by the possibility of an illegalstrike, were faced with an increasinglymilitant rank-and-file willing to takewhatever steps were necessary to liftthemselves out of economic impover-ishment. With hundreds of New Yorkand Brooklyn letter carriers receivingwelfare—in fact, one carrier qualifiedfor $133 a month more in benefits thanhis take-home pay—carriers’ economicsituation was an open sore that wouldnot heal. But the specific issue that galva-

nized rank-and-file opposition to thebranch leadership was the rank-and-file’s efforts to compel the branch tocompensate the Kingsbridge andThroggs Neck carriers who had beensuspended. Although the branch hadalready reached a settlement withpostal management allowing those


Forty letter carriers from

Branch 41 in Brooklyn

applying for welfare in 1969.

carriers to use their annual leave during thetwo weeks they were suspended, at a specialmeeting, members dissatisfied with the set-tlement demanded that the branch also paythe suspended carriers two-thirds pay, anaction the New York Metro Area PostalUnion representing the clerks at the twoBronx stations had already taken. Branch36’s leadership prevailed at the special meet-ing and throughout the fall, but the mem-bers who supported the Kingsbridge andThroggs Neck carriers began to build a net-work of like-minded carriers by collectingthe names and phone numbers of those whospoke in favor of paying the Bronx carriers.At the December meeting, the measure’sproponents were again unsuccessful, butthey found their voice as large numbers ofmembers demanded the branch leadershipcall a job action during the traditionally busyChristmas season. Local union officials werefrightened by the mood of these carriers. Anarticle in Timemagazine later described thistumultuous meeting:

Stamping their feet and clapping theirhands, members of Branch 36 broke uptheir December meeting with raucouscries of “Strike! Strike!”

The mushrooming militancy of the members also was a major concern to NALCPresident James Rademacher. Even thoughin June, Rademacher had asserted the rightof letter carriers to strike and had, in NewYork in August, assured the city’s carriers he would lead a strike if Congress did notapprove a fair wage increase, in his mind,the threat of the strike and not the strike

itself was the weapon of choice to forceCongress to approve a decent wage for hismembers. He feared that if a strike werecalled, only a few members might go out. So in December 1969, when Richard Nixonasked Rademacher to meet privately withhim to forge a compromise on postal payand postal reform, Rademacher agreed.The two men met in the White House on

December 18, 1969—alone except for thepresence of two White House lawyers. At this meeting, they reached the long-soughtcompromise. Nixon agreed to support a 5.4 percent pay increase effective January 1,1970. In return, Rademacher endorsed theidea of an independent “postal authority”which, since the strike ban was retained,would bargain with postal unions overwages, hours and working conditions, withbinding arbitration the last resort for issuesthe parties could not resolve. But when the results of the Rademacher-

Nixon meeting became public, the leaders ofother postal unions as well as members ofCongress were outraged that they had beenexcluded. And letter carriers were incensed.They were fed up with compromises andpromises of better days to come. At Branch36’s January 1970 meeting, the membersrejected the branch leadership’s endorse-ment of the Nixon-Rademacher pact andalso passed by the required two-thirds votethe proposal to compensate the suspendedBronx carriers. Rademacher had seriouslymisjudged the mood of many of his mem-bers in New York and, as events would prove,elsewhere throughout the nation. Letter carriers would not be easily appeased.

The Nixon-Rademacher

meeting, December 18,

1969.


1961-1969

1970

A Strike Is Called


Not surprisingly, New York was the center of the drama, for thecity itself had been a cauldron of social unrest, with protestsagainst the Vietnam War, urban race riots, strikes by teachers,transportation and sanitation workers dominating the news for

several years. Angry Branch 36 members had already raised their voicesprotesting the federal government’s indifference to their plight and theirown union’s ambivalence, and they became enraged in early February1970, when Nixon deferred a wage increase scheduled for July 1.

But the spark that lit the fuse was the news that on March 12, a Housecommittee approved a bill reflecting the Nixon-Rademacher compro-mise. At the regular branch meeting that same day, Branch 36 PresidentGustave Johnson was interrupted as he delivered a report about theNixon-Rademacher bill. Although the branch’s executive board had earli-er directed stewards to tell carriers to oppose calling for a strike, angrycarriers exploded with shouts of “No, no! Not enough! Strike! Enoughtalk! Strike!” and demanded a strike vote. Raucous debate verging on abrawl ended with an agreement to meet again the next Tuesday, March17, and hold a strike vote at that time.

But with Branch 36’s leaders, supported by Rademacher, dead setagainst a strike and fearful that a meeting might work to the benefit ofthe more militant members of the branch, the officers arranged only forthe vote. With members’ credentials challenged in an effort to discour-age voting and creating long lines at the voting machines, the vote onMarch 17, 1970 at the Manhattan Center dragged on until around 10:30p.m. Some 30 minutes later, the results were announced to the members:1,555—yes; 1,055—no. NALC’s largest local had chosen by a 3-to-2 mar-gin to strike against the U.S. Government regardless of whether thenational union joined the strike.

Nea

l Boe

nzi,

The

New

Yor

k T

imes

Johnson told the cheering members,“There will be no mail delivery tomor-row in New York,” adding, “Your voicehas been heard tonight.” The leader ofNew York Metro Area Postal Workers,the union representing the insideworkers in the post office, said hismembers would honor carriers’ picketlines even though they could not votewhether to strike until the union’s nextregular meeting in three weeks. ButBrooklyn Branch 41’s president imme-diately announced that his carrierswould join the strike. Letter carriershad taken a stand. The long-threatenedstrike was on.

Since Branch 36 had night routers,the strike began throughout Manhattanand the Bronx earlier than elsewhere inthe New York area. At 12:01 a.m.,March 18, members of Branch 36 setup picket lines outside post officesand, although not all the members hadvoted, almost every letter carrier inBranch 36 stayed out. Immediately,over 25,000 postal clerks and drivers—members of the giant Manhattan-Bronx Postal Union—honored thepicket lines. And later in the morning,when carriers in Brooklyn and in manyparts of Long Island, northern NewJersey and nearby Connecticut shouldhave reported to work, many of theirbranches joined the strike.

And then the wildfire swept the nation:Branch 34, Boston, Massachusetts;Branch 157, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;Branch 1, Detroit, Michigan; Branch 40,Cleveland, Ohio; Branch 84, Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania; Branch 214, San Francisco,California; Branch 9, Minneapolis and


1970

Postal strikers at the 369th Regimental Armory in New York City refusing to

return to work.

Jack

Man

ning

, The

New

Yor

k T

imes

Pickets on duty at the

Dearborn, Michigan Post Office.Ira Rosenberg, Detroit Free Press

First day on a

new job: A soldier

from Fort Dix, NJ

sorts mail at the

Brooklyn General

Post Office. Barton Silverman, The New York Times

Bill Braginetz said it best—infact, said it so well that today,years later, I remember it wordfor word: “For the first time, I finally feel like a humanbeing,” he told me with tears in his eyes on the afternoon ofMarch 18, 1970, as we walkedup and down East 45th Streetin front of the Grand CentralStation post office inManhattan where we hadworked together for more than two decades—Bill, alwaysthe perfect carrier, on time allthe time, and me, always thecut up and far from perfect.

Shortly before midnight, Iwalked across Manhattantoward Grand Central Stationpost office on the East Sidewith two other Grand Centralcarriers—Eddie Morris andCharlie Sprinkle. Eddie andCharlie had grabbed sheets ofoak tag from my truck for pick-et signs, and we carried somewooden barriers, used earlierthat day for the St. Patrick’sDay parade, over to East 45thStreet outside the post office. At midnight, about a hundrednight letter carrier routers andall the clerks and other postalemployees poured out of thebuilding to join us, and everycarrier and clerk just then com-ing to work honored the line.

Personal recollections of Vincent R. Sombrotto,Branch 36, New York, NY

‘

‘

‘

‘



1970

Branch 28, St. Paul, Minnesota; Branch47, Denver, Colorado; Branch 11,Chicago, Illinois. In large and small com-munities alike, from coast to coast, lettercarriers and postal clerks walked off theirjobs, joined the picket line, and dug in forthe duration. By March 23 the strikersnumbered over 200,000 strong.

Victory!

Almost immediately afterBranch 36 set up picket lineson March 18, the Nixon admin-

istration began maneuvering to crackthe workers’ revolt. Governmentlawyers in New York obtained aninjunction ordering a return to work.But Branch 36’s strikers defied theorder. As the walk-out spread, morecourt orders were issued, and localNALC leaders found themselves in thenearly unprecedented and certainlyuncomfortable position of seekinglegal aid and, in some cases, dodgingfederal process servers.

As the strike reached across thecountry, NALC President JamesRademacher was caught between hisloyalty to his members and his concernfor the union’s future. The incendiaryrhetoric he had employed in New York the previous year when, in theaftermath of the two job actions in theBronx, he had vowed to lead a strike if

Min

neap

olis

Trib

une

The troops arrive

in New York City.United Press International

United Press International

pay legislation wasnot enacted withina few weeks, mayhave helped fuelthe flames ofrevolt. Rademacherunderstood all thereasons why hismembers walkedoff their jobs tofight. Yet he feared

that if he assumed leadership of thewildcat strike, making it official, thegovernment would totally crush theunion—bankrupt it with fines, padlockits offices, strip away its jurisdiction,jail its officers and fire its members.Rademacher later would acknowledgethat there are times when workers haveno choice but to strike—he simply feltthat the morning of March 18 was notsuch a time.

Trying to escape his dilemma andend the crisis, Rademacher firstattempted to persuade the strikers toreturn to work. After being assured bythe Nixon administration that negotia-tions would begin once the strikeended and only then, the NALC presi-dent carried this message to an emer-gency meeting of the presidents of theunion’s 300 largest branches on March20 in Washington, DC. He personallyurged the presidents to call their mem-bers back to work so he could pursue

negotiations, and in a spirited, noisy session, hundreds of local leadersaccepted the idea with this proviso: If agreement were not reached in fivedays, NALC would stage a nationwidework stoppage.

The next day, Saturday, March 21,Rademacher sent a telegram to all6,500 NALC branches outlining theplan—return to work Monday andallow five days for negotiations beforetaking nationwide action. But theback-to-work appeal had virtually noimpact on the picket lines, because formany of the strikers, the wildcat wasaimed as much at the union’s failuresas it was at the government’s. At ameeting of Branch 36 the same day,the members voted almost unani-mously to stay off the job, and acrossthe country other branches voted towalk out or stay out.

His efforts at persuasion havingfailed, Rademacher turned on thestrikers: At a press conference Sunday,March 22, he charged that the NewYork City walkout had been instigatedpartly by “subversive” elements—members of the left-wing Students for a Democratic Society. Rademacheralso threatened Branch 36’s leaderswith expulsion from the NALC, andsent national officers out to the field to quash support for the strike.


Striking letter carriers

in Paterson, New Jersey.United Press International


1970

But on the picket lines, most strik-ing carriers and clerks were not listen-ing to the administration’s promisesnor those of Rademacher, for despitethe pleas from the national union,fewer than 60 of some 200 branchesout on strike returned to work. Pres -ident Nixon, with business interestsclamoring for action and the effects ofthe strike rolling across the country,went on the offensive on March 23 inan effort to end the crisis. On nation-wide television, Nixon took his case tothe American people and declared anational emergency. He also ordered25,000 soldiers into New York City tomove the mail. Not since GroverCleveland became the first presidentto order troops to break a strike bycalling infantry, cavalry and artilleryunits to end the 1894 Pullman railroadstrike in Chicago had a presidentresorted to such a desperate and ill-conceived move. The troops were inef-fective: They never moved much mail,as shipments had been embargoedacross the country and the militaryunits had none of the skills craft work-

ers possessed. Still, Nixon’s use of soldiers as scabs, his implied threat tosend troops to other cities, the mount-ing legal pressure and threatenedfines, criticism of the wildcat action byAFL-CIO President George Meany plusRademacher’s appeals and claims ofprogress, together convinced manypostal workers to return to work. Butnot the strikers in New York City.

It was only when the officers ofBranch 36, relaying information pro vided by the union’s national leadership, assured the striking lettercarriers that an agreement had beenreached with the administration thatseemed to meet nearly every demanddid the carriers and clerks in New YorkCity put down their picket signs andreturn to work. But no such agreementexisted, for what became known as the“phantom package” was simply NALC’sproposal—a retroactive 12 percent payincrease, fully paid health benefits, aneight-year pay scale, collective bargain-ing with binding arbitration, and fullamnesty for the strikers. Whether thiswas a deliberate deception, as many

The mail began to pile up

as letter carriers and

postal clerks went out

on strike in Chicago.AP Wide World Photos

believed at the time, or a misunder-standing, the effect was an end to thestrike. The New York carriers neverformally voted to return to work, butthe eight-day revolt was over. First togo out and last to go back, New YorkCity’s letter carriers had shown aresolve and courage that would notbe forgotten.

As soon as the New York strikersreturned to their jobs, Rademacherand other postal union leaders,assisted by the AFL-CIO, beganround-the-clock negotiations withthe Post Office Department. By April2, the parties reached an agreementthey believed would satisfy thedemands of the carriers and clerkswho, at great personal risk, haddefied both the federal governmentand their national leaders.

The “Memorandum of Agree -ment” expressed the postal unions’and the Department’s accord in fourbasic areas: pay increases totaling 14 percent—6 percent retroactive toDecember 27, 1969, and another 8percent effective whenever a postalreform bill was enacted; support forthe establishment of an independentpostal authority; collective bargain-ing over wages, hours and workingconditions with unresolved issues tobe settled through final and bindingarbitration; and “compression” of thetime required for postal workers toreach the top step of their grade levelfrom 21 years to eight.

Congress quickly approved the 6 percent retroactive pay increase,and this became law on April 15.Obtaining congressional approval of the remaining elements of theMemorandum of Agreement provedmore difficult, and it was not until

August 12, 1970, that the PostalReorganization Act became law.Letter carriers and other postalworkers had, at long last, achievedfull collective bargaining with theiremployer. Rademacher himselfwould be partly vindicated, for as the decades ahead proved, the postal reform legislation he had supported brought collective bar-gaining to postal employees, freeingthem from “collective begging”—the total dependence on the goodwishes and wisdom of their electedrepresentatives.

Still, only with the strike couldcarriers have achieved substantialeconomic and legislative gains. Thelong struggle of letter carriers fordignity and justice had taken a greatstep forward. The strike—what newsmagazines at the time termed the“Revolt of the Good Guys”—was anuncoordinated, spontaneous upris-ing of aggrieved workers, longing not only for economic justice but alsofor a voice and a recognition of their dignity and humanity.

For many letter carriers, it wasalso a protest against local andnational leaders whose concern fortheir members was outweighed bytheir understandable fear of what an all-powerful federal governmentcould do to their union and theirown liberty. As a result, they vacillat-ed while the anger and resentment of carriers in New York and elsewherein the country grew. In the end, thestrikers changed the Postal Serviceand their union. And yet the strugglefor dignity and justice would contin-ue in the years ahead—on differentbattlefields and with differentweapons.


The years of what some deemed “collective begging” were over.

1971-1978

In the Aftermath of Victory

Both the strike of 1970 and the passage of the PostalReorganization Act which soon followed jolted thecourse of NALC history. For whether letter carriersjoined picket lines or stayed on the job, their working

lives and their union lives would never be the same.Carriers now worked for a new employer. The old Post Office

Department had been put to rest, replaced by the U.S. PostalService. But more had changed than simply a name or the patchcarriers wore on their sleeves. Congress told the new employer tobe “business-like’’— to take whatever steps might be necessary to“break even” on the accounting ledger. For carriers this meantspeed-ups, harassment, over-supervision and, most important, arenewed dependence upon the union to combat management’smore aggressive style.The NALC, too, would never be the same, for the strike

released forces that would revolutionize the union from within.Local strike leaders did not quickly forget their successful chal-lenge to the NALC national leadership as well as to the courtsand the federal government. Nor did it escape their notice thatwhile they had been victorious on the picket lines, they were stillrelatively powerless within the union.

The wildcat strike had been led byrank-and-file members of Branch 36 inNew York. It was in New York that themovement to change the NALC—toreshape it into a modern union capa-ble of dealing as an equal with modernmanagement—was launched. NewYork carriers without influence inbranch affairs organized their ownparty with the slogan, “Get the leadersto change or change the leaders.” Theycriticized both the branch and nationalincumbent officers for failing to giveleadership to the strike, for lack of suc-cess in dealing with postal manage-ment and—what was at the heart ofthe matter—for retaining internalunion procedures and practices whichprevented average letter carriers frombecoming a political force within theirown union.In October 1970, candidates sup-

ported by a newly formed rank-and-file movement in New York City wereelected in 22 out of 24 contests for sta-tion delegates, as NALC stewards were

then called. Shortly thereafter, the rank-and-filers challenged the incumbentbranch president and other branchofficers in what was the first contestfor branch leadership in over 20 years.On December 2, 1970, the membershipof Branch 36 swept Vincent R.Sombrotto and the remainder of the20-man rank-and-file ticket into office.And, as was true of the strike earlier in1970, events in New York anticipatedthose throughout the country: duringthe next four months rank-and-fileslates won victories in Minneapolis,Philadelphia, Boston and other cities.This political upheaval at the local

level in early 1971 was taking place atthe same time the NALC and the otherpostal unions were entering into theunions’ first national contract negotia-tions with the new U.S. Postal Service.Letter carriers hoped their newly woncollective bargaining rights would leadto substantial improvements in wagesand working conditions. In New York,where the militance that had ignitedthe 1970 strike had not yet died, thesefeelings were transformed into actionon June 30, 1971. On that day, 12,000postal workers in the city rallied insupport of “a no contract—no work”position which was aimed as much atthe national leadership of the NALCand other postal unions as it was atmanagement itself.The collective bargaining agreement

that the NALC signed with the PostalService on July 20, 1971 fell short of theexpectations of many carriers in NewYork and elsewhere. Nevertheless, itwas in many respects a major accom-plishment, because not only did thecontract provide for wage increasesand a cost-of-living adjustment—thefirst ever for postal employees—it alsocontained a “no lay-off” clause whichprohibited the Postal Service from laying off carriers and other bargain-


NALC President JamesRademacher signs the first collective bargainingagreement with the PostalService in July 1971. Also shown (from left) are:Postmaster General WintonM. Blount and FederalMediator William Usery.

Branch Mergers

While to a great extent NALC was

first organized in large cities—

Detroit, Milwaukee, Buffalo, for

example—by the early 20th century more

and more of the union’s branches were

exceedingly small. Increasingly, branches

represented a single work station, with only

a handful of carriers. This provided a sense

of intimacy and loyalty, but it also resulted in

an enormous number of branches. By 1970,

NALC consisted of over 6,600 branches,

many of them with only one or two mem-

bers. Only those in the nation’s largest cities

could support full-time officers.

With the passage of the Postal Reorgan -

ization Act, the union intentionally set out to

modernize its structure. Recognizing that the

challenges of collective bargaining would

require a pooling of numbers and resources,

delegates to the 1970 National Con vention

in Hawaii approved an amendment allowing

branches to merge with one another.

This provision was rapidly implemented

throughout the country. In 1973, 103

branches on Long Island

came together to form

Long Island Merged

Branch 6000 with a com-

bined membership of

over 3,000. Across the

continent, 26 southern

California branches total-

ing 2,000 members

joined forces as Merged

Branch 1100. By the end

of that year, there were 23 mergers in New

Jersey, 13 in Texas, and 12 in Ohio. Merger

fever has continued ever since as more and

more branches recognized that mergers can

improve representation by making part- and

full-time officers more feasible and by giving

branches a greater opportunity to send

members to state and national conventions

and training sessions.

All in all, since the 1970 Hawaii conven-

tion, the union has gained thousands of

members, while reducing the number of

branches dramatically. By mid-2014, NALC’s

270,000 members belonged to approximate-

ly 2,052 branches, with almost 85 percent of

the members in the largest 337 branches—

those with at least 150 members. This sug-

gests that the union continues to consist of

a small number of medium to large-size “full

service” branches and a large number of

very small branches that do not have a local

dues structure and thus lack the resources

to represent their members on the workroom

floor and to take an active part in the NALC

legislative and political program as well

attend state and national events.

ing-unit employees “on an involuntarybasis.” Still, some carriers criticized theagreement’s failure to improve fringebenefits and to preserve strict craftlines between carrier and clerk duties.In addition, the wide disciplinary pow-ers granted management were soundlyattacked.One New York rank-and-file leader,

believing that the contract had givenunbridled authority to the new budget-conscious postal management, articu-lated what many dissenting carriersfelt: that the new contract would leadto “increased supervision and harass-ment of letter carriers; arbitrary discipline; increased productivity withno benefits; reductions in personnel;

elimination of carrier assignments;accelerated changes and additions to letter carriers’ routes; deterioratingservice which would bring unfair criticism from the patrons to the lettercarrier; and an overall and large-scaleproblem of low morale.”While prospects of a more authori-

tarian, more heavy-handed postalmanagement clearly concerned manyof the letter carriers associated withthe local rank-and-file movementsspringing up throughout the country,these carriers were equally troubled bywhat they perceived to be an authori-tarian, heavy-handed NALC nationalleadership. During the 1971 negotia-tions, the national union had placed

1971-1978


Branch 36—then in the early days ofVincent R. Sombrotto’s new rank-and-file administration—under trustee-ship. Although cut off from the uniondues which would normally haveflowed from national headquarters inWashington, Sombrotto and his teammaintained control of the union’saffairs for almost the entire six monthsof the trusteeship. This defiant show ofself-reliance strengthened the resolveof other rank-and-filers throughoutthe country who were already con-vinced that the national leadershipwas either uninterested in or perhapseven afraid of the mass participationof letter carriers in union affairs.At a conference of concerned letter

carriers in Minneapolis on October 13,1971, local rank-and-filers formedthemselves into the National Rank-and-File Movement with a permanentcoordinating committee. The confer-ence also set out three basic tenets.First, all national officers should be

elected directly by the membership.These “one-man, one-vote” referen-dum elections would replace the exist-

ing proxy system which allowed dele-gates to national conventions to castballots on behalf of the absent mem-bership—even on behalf of membersof branches not in attendance at aconvention. Second, the union’sregionally based national field direc-tors—precursors to the national busi-ness agents—should be elected onlyby members from the directors’ ownregions. Under such a provision, a letter carrier in California could nolonger vote for the regional represen-tative of a Massachusetts carrier.Finally, all nationally negotiated col-lective bargaining agreements wouldhave to be submitted to the member-ship for ratification.The rank-and-file movement

achieved all three of these goals during the next three years. Delegatesat the 1972 national convention inNew Orleans adopted the “one-man,one-vote” amendment when NALCPresident James Rademacher, recog-nizing which way the winds of changeswere blowing, acceded to the wishes ofthe membership and reluctantly

Top: President Emeritus William C. Doherty installs NALC national officers in January 1975 inWashington, DC following the first “one-man, one-vote” referendum election in the union’s history.

Left: NALC President James Rademacher (right) checks the 1973 tentative “WorkingAgreements” as they are placed in the mail to be sent to the membership for ratification.



endorsed the amendment. However,the other two democratizing measures—one providing for regionally electedrepresentatives in each of the 15 NALCregions and the other demandingmembership ratification of collectivebargaining agreements—were bothdefeated in New Orleans. But theseproved to be only temporary setbacksfor the rank-and-filers.In 1973, after the national leader-

ship had negotiated a tentative collec-tive bargaining agreement with thePostal Service, the NALC ExecutiveCouncil sent the agreement out to themembership for ratification—whichwas accomplished by a vote of morethan 2-to-1—even though there was no constitutional mandate. After this,incorporating membership ratificationinto the NALC Constitution was a formality which was accomplished in1974 at the Seattle convention. There,the delegates also approved the regional election of the regionallybased representatives—by then knownas national business agents or NBAs.In retrospect, these victories were

major milestones on the road to trans-forming the NALC into a modern unionbut not the culmination of the process.In fact, it was not until 1978 that themembers would take full advantage ofthe democratic procedures adopted atthe 1972 and 1974 conventions.Nevertheless, these earlier conven-

tion battles sent a message to postalmanagement that in the future itwould have to deal with the will of theentire NALC membership—a force theunion’s top leadership could not alwayscontrol as the 1970 strike had demon-strated. This message could not havebeen more timely, for the Postal Servicewas intent on making letter carrierspay for their union’s successes in win-ning wage rates comparable to thoseenjoyed by workers in the private sector.

‘Kokomois Dead!’

Almost from the beginning ofthe new, cost-cutting PostalService, postal management

had been determined to raise produc-tivity. Managers soon put car-riers under unprecedentedpressure to deliver theirroutes at break-neck speed.Unresolved grievances piledup in response to this newspeed-up. In fact, anger at theincreased workplace pressurewas at the heart of the opposi-tion to the 1973 NationalAgreement—which was reject-ed by 31 percent of those voting in the first membershipratification of a contract.The main test was yet to

come. In April 1974, postalmanagement announced it wouldbegin a pilot work measurement systemcalled LCRES—Letter Carrier RouteEvaluation System—which would make the scientific managementexperiments of Frederick WinslowTaylor and others prior to World War Iseem benign by comparison. To betested first at South Kokomo station inKokomo, Indiana, the “Kokomo Plan”

1971-1978

In April 1974, postal management announcedit would begin a pilotwork measurement sys-tem—LCRES––whichwould make the scientific management experimentsof Taylor and others prior to World War I seembenign by comparison.

From the earliest days of the NALC, many retired

carriers have retained their membership in the

union, thus passing along to future generations

the history and traditions of both the craft and the union

while also adding to the union’s collective strength

especially in the political and legislative arenas.

Like active carriers, retired letter carriers have long rec-

ognized that only through the union have they been able to

successfully fight for and defend their benefits. But active

members have also benefitted enormously from the contri-

butions retirees have made to the union. For the more

than half-century that the 1939 Hatch Act limited the politi-

cal rights of working carriers and other postal and federal

workers, retirees played an essential role in furthering the

union’s legislative objectives–a role they have continued

even after the 1993 reform of the Hatch Act substantially

relaxed restrictions on working carriers’ political activities.

The contributions of NALC’s retirees have long been

acknowledged by the union, and at the union’s golden

anniversary convention in Milwaukee in 1939, delegates

established the practice of presenting Gold Cards to carri-

ers with 50 years of membership. At subsequent conven-

tions, additional honors were created for carriers retiring

with between 55 and 75 years of membership. Moreover,

to encourage carriers to maintain their NALC membership

in retirement, delegates to the 1956 national convention

created a lower national dues structure for retirees.

But despite the historically high regard the union had

shown for its retirees, the advent of collective

bargaining following the 1970 strike led some retired mem-

bers to fear that the union might ignore their interests.

After all, since the Postal Service was not legally required

to bargain over retiree benefits and, as a conse-

quence, the union’s time and resources would be

devoted to negotiating the wages and working

conditions of its active members, who would speak

for retired letter carriers?

This line of thought led retired members to demand

their own voice in union affairs through an elected

national officer concerned solely with the needs of

retired members. The position of Director of Retired

Members limited to retired members was overwhelm-

ingly approved at the 1976 Houston convention. Three

primary duties were assigned to the newly created

position: to provide information and service to retired

members and those members nearing retirement; to

monitor legislative issues of particular concern to

retired carriers; and—as a national officer not covered

by the Hatch Act—to administer COLCPE, the union’s

political action fund.

In the decades since the position was created, the

Director of Retired Members’ responsibilities and con-

stituency have grown substantially. Today the Director

heads a Retirement Department serving more than 89,000

retired members, including more than 13,000 Gold Card

members and more than 8,500 women, a number that will

continue to grow due to the influx of women into the carrier

workforce in the previous half-century. The Department

maintains a toll-free number to provide retirees and sur-

vivors access to both general and individually based retire-

ment information, much of it obtained through regular con-

tacts with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and

other federal agencies. It also monitors retiree-related leg-

islative proposals and plays a leading role in the expansion

and operation of COLCPE. Retirees are kept up to date

through the Department’s page on the NALC website, the

Director’s Postal Record column, and informational pam-

phlets. Nonetheless, a substantial number of NALC mem-

bers, when retiring from the Postal Service and no longer

requiring protection on the workroom floor, do not continue

their union membership, failing to understand the union’s

role in preserving their benefits as retirees.


Retired Members


(as LCRES soon came to be known) was to be introduced in every station in the country—if judged a success bymanagement. The “Kokomo Plan” involved estab-

lishing work and time standards foreach letter carrier function. Thesewould be put into a computer whichwould then determine an eight-hourroute for each individual carrier. Twoletter carriers from Branch 36 who visited Kokomo after the Service begantesting the system in November 1974described what they saw:

The efficiency experts measured andtimed how far a carrier walks to andfrom the time clock, and how hewalks in pulling his case. The dis-tance the carrier’s arm moves in casing a letter was noted. They evenmeasured to the split second the timeit took for the carrier to move hiseyes from the letter to the case andthe time it took for the carrier tomove his eyes from the case back tothe next letter. At this rate, if yousneezed, you could be charged withdelay in the mail.

To letter carriers, the announcementof the “Kokomo Plan” was virtually adeclaration of war. At the NALC’snational convention in Seattle in August1974—three months before the testingat Kokomo was scheduled to begin—speaker after speaker rose to denouncethe plan. A delegate from Branch 343 inSt. Louis summed up the delegates’anger and fear: “Brothers, if this system is allowed to be imple-mented, letter carriers are going to be reduced to nothingbut automation, and letter carriers aren’t robots, they arehuman beings.” In the end, thedelegates—well aware that apostal strike would be illegal —voted to authorize NALCPresident Rademacher to call anationwide strike if the PostalService implemented LCRES and “if it isnot to the liking of the letter carriers.”The Service’s testing of LCRES soon

began, first in Kokomo in November1974, and then in Rose City Park stationin Portland, Oregon in February 1975.The situation at Rose City Park was

1971-1978

Branch 36 President

Vincent R. Sombrotto

at the microphone at

the Seattle Convention

in 1974. Below, a teller

counts delegates

standing for a vote.

especially appalling. After 38 letter car-riers had been tested for eight months,nine carriers had transferred, three hadretired, two were disabled and one haddied. In all, close to half of the originalwork force was gone in less than ayear—a situation which prompted onePortland carrier to write: “For 1976 wehope and pray that our national officerswill be successful in receiving a rulingby the arbitrator to have the Kokomoplan disallowed, so that carriers willagain be treated as humans instead ofrobots and we will have a return to better service.”The Portland carrier’s prayers were

eventually answered. NALC haddemanded arbitration of the LCRES dis-pute on September 9, 1975—one dayafter the Postal Service had announcedthat it was converting LCRES from atest to a permanent program at RoseCity Park station. A Memorandum ofUnderstanding which the postal unionshad negotiated with the Postal Serviceduring 1975 bargaining clearly permit-

ted the union to delay anyattempt by postal manage-ment to implement as a per-manent program new nationalwork and time standards untilan arbitrator had determinedthat the standards themselveswere “fair, reasonable andequitable.” And NALCPresident James Rademacherclearly believed that LCRES

was far from “fair, reasonable and equi-table.” Rademacher also reasoned thatif by some cosmic miscarriage of jus-tice, the arbitrator did rule against theunion, then the NALC could still call astrike to prevent the Postal Service fromimplementing the system.The arbitration hearings began in

November 1976. NALC counsel arguedthat by adopting predetermined timestandards for each work function, the Postal Service had unilaterallyincreased the work load of letter carriers, thereby violating the NationalAgreement. Moreover, the system itselfplaced carriers under unbearable physi-cal burdens. The arbitrator issued aninterim decision on July 8, 1976, pro-hibiting management at the Rose CityPark Station in Portland from forcingcarriers to work overtime. One monthlater, on the eve of the NALC’s nationalconvention in Houston, the full awardwas announced: LCRES was in violationof the National Agreement. The NALCposition was upheld, and convention


A Branch 82 carrier continues delivering hisroute in Portland, Oregonin 1975, ignoring thePostal Service’s time-and-motion expert who is recording the carrier’severy action as part of theService’s testing of theinfamous “Kokomo Plan.”


delegates roared their approval as President James Rademacherannounced, “Kokomo is dead.”

Rebuilding the LegislativeMachinery

The union’s attention to workplaceissues—a natural outgrowth ofboth the advent of collective bar-

gaining and the more aggressive stanceof the new, “business-oriented” PostalService—for a time masked the fact thatmany issues affecting letter carrierswere still being determined in the hallsof Congress. But in the somewhat headyand certainly contentious days immedi-ately following the PostalReorganization Act, this was not readilyapparent to many union leaders. Theleadership no longer systematically lob-bied the Congress, once the only meansof improving letter carriers’ wages andworking conditions, believing that

decent and secure working conditionscould be won through collective bar-gaining alone. No longer, as in the yearsbefore the Postal Reorganization Act,did NALC even attempt to mass lettercarriers together in giant pay rallies orgrind out thousands of pieces of mail tomembers of Congress. In fact, by themid-1970s, the powerful Doherty andKeating legislative machinery had allbut withered away.By this time, however, the national

leadership began to realize that legisla-tive issues were still of vital importanceto the union. Having negotiated twocollective bargaining agreements withthe Postal Service, they were now moreaware than ever before that the lack ofthe legal right to strike was a severerestraint on their ability to negotiate acontract that would be satisfactory to astill restive membership. Bills legalizingthe right of postal employees to strikeand granting the postal unions someform of union security—which at theminimum would require that even non-members pay the unions for the

1971-1978

NALC PresidentRademacher (backto camera, c.) testi-fies on the PostalSubsidy Bill in 1975.


representation theywere receiving—hadlanguished in theCongress as the NALCturned its back on thelegislative process.Furthermore, certainletter carrier benefitsand protections, suchas the workers’ com-pensation program,Federal Employees’Health BenefitsProgram, and the CivilService RetirementSystem, were federallaw and thus subjectto congressionalattack. Union leadersalso began to realizethat the collective

bargaining rights postal employeesenjoyed were themselves a product ofcongressional action—and whatCongress could give, Congress couldcertainly take away.Once union leaders recognized that

Congress would continue to be instru-mental in the fight for better pay,working conditions and benefits, theytook the first steps in what wouldprove to be a lengthy process—therebuilding of the NALC legislativemachinery. In March 1975, NALClaunched a Legislative LiaisonNetwork designed to build an exten-sive network of members who wouldwrite their congressional representa-

tives. The NALC Executive Counciltook an additional step on July 21,1975, when it formally christened thesmall political action fund the unionhad established the previous year asthe Committee on Letter CarrierPolitical Education—COLCPE—withthe aim of “determining and imple-menting programs to collect voluntaryfunds” and the responsibility of dis-persing these “contributions to, orexpenditures on behalf of, candidatesfor federal elective office.”In retrospect, it is clear that these

steps were just the beginning, for theresults were, at first, meager. Relyingexclusively on appeals at variousunion meetings and regular exhorta-tions in union publications, unionleaders were unable to convince themembership of the importance of con-tributing to the union’s political actionfund. In the 12 months ending March31, 1978, COLCPE raised only about$70,000. The Legislative LiaisonNetwork itself was more of a paperexpression of what should be donethan a smoothly functioning grass-roots operation. Appeals to writeCongress were issued—and respondedto—from time to time by a constantlychanging cadre of legislative liaisons,but during this period, NALC’s grass-roots efforts never reached beyond arelatively small number of activists.Most members of the union—andeven many local leaders—remainedindifferent to legislation.

NALC President J.Joseph Vacca (thirdfrom left) and otherpostal union negotia-tors face managementas bargaining for the1978 National Agree -ment begins.


Walking their routes daily on virtually every street in the nation,

letter carriers have often been the first to arrive at the scene

of an accident, disaster or crime—and the first to offer assis-

tance. They have also frequently been the first to notice and respond

to a community problem: families without food, senior citizens alone at

holiday time, substance abuse among neighborhood youth.

NALC established the Hero of the Year awards in 1974 to pay annual

tribute to letter carriers who risk their lives to save the lives of others.

A new award—the Humanitarian of the Year—was initiated in 1978 to

honor carriers who make sustained personal contributions to the

betterment of their communities. In 1986, the union announced the estab-

lishment of a Branch Service Award to recognize an NALC branch

involved in an on-going community service program. A fourth category—

special Carrier Alert Rescue—was created in 2002 to honor letter

carriers who, due to their alert observations of conditions and people

on their routes, save customers’ lives.

Judges representing the labor community, community service organiza-

tions, and emergency public services review items published in The

Postal Record’s “Proud to Serve” column and select the annual winners.

To focus public attention on not only the award winners but also the

thousands of other letter carriers who deliver more than the mail, the

NALC began in 1985 to honor the Heroes of the Year with an annual

reception in Washington, DC. NALC officers, members of Congress, the

postmaster general and other USPS officials, and AFL-CIO leaders

have joined the heroes, their families and their branch presidents at the

official ceremony.

Every effort is made to publicize the Hero of the Year reception as

well as the individual stories of the award winners. The event itself is

taped for transmissions to TV stations in the heroes’ home cities, and

local, regional and national print and broadcast media outlets are

informed. Voice and video interviews are also distributed to radio and

televison outlets.

Above, a member tends to a woman hehelped evacuate from a house fire in 1993.Rick Sforza, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

The 2013 NALC Heroes of the Year

1971-1978

Hero of the Year Awards


This combination of indifferenceand concern was generally unproduc-tive. The union was able to protect thePrivate Express Statutes guaranteeingthe Postal Service’s monopoly over let-ter mail and to stall efforts to bring allpostal and federal employees underthe Social Security system—but thesecongressional attacks on carrier bene-fits were rare and mounted with littleenthusiasm by their supporters. Onthe other hand, the union lost the onepercent addition to retirees’ cost-of-living adjustments and was unable to enact legislation which would keepthe public service subsidy, restrict theright of postal management to curtailservice, improve the retirement pro-gram, or amend the Hatch Act. Thesedefeats underscored the union’s inabil-ity to mobilize a politically sophisticatedarmy of grassroots volunteers. But the national leaders’ lack of

success in rallying the membership tosupport the union’s legislative agendawas not surprising. The internal politi-cal turbulence unleashed by the strikeof 1970 had not yet abated. Only whenthe reins of power had passed to a newgroup of union leaders would theNALC be able to fashion an effectivelegislative program.

Triumph of the Rank-and-Filers

By 1976, the forces of change letloose by the strike of 1970 hadchanged the NALC markedly.

The union had substantially strength-ened itself by adopting internal consti-tutional reforms. In its dealings withthe Postal Service, the union wasdeveloping new skills in grievancehandling and contract administration.

And the union was at least beginningto recognize the importance of estab-lishing a program to deal with themajor legislative issues of the day.These developments, as significant asthey were in the evolution of theunion, were not enough to heal thewounds the strike had opened.Tired of the continual turmoil,

President JamesRademacher announcedthat he would not seek re-election in 1976.Controversial during his term of office, Rade -macher nevertheless ledthe NALC through thetransition from an “asso-ciation” with few rights inthe workplace to a laborunion empowered to bar-gain collectively with itsemployer. He skillfullynegotiated three collec-tive bargaining agree-ments with the PostalService, thus setting thestandards upon which hissuccessors could build in the yearsahead. Moreover, Rademacher left a legacy of fairness and integrity, forhe oversaw the implementation of the democratic reforms which themembership had demanded. Recognizing that the forces for

change were, in the long run, irre-sistible, he graciously accepted whathe could not prevent and therebyeased the NALC’s transition into a newera. Upon his retirement, even thosewho had long opposed him paid himtribute, for none could deny JamesRademacher’s commitment to theworking letter carrier.Rademacher was succeeded by the

incumbent Executive Vice President J.Joseph Vacca, who, in the fall of 1976,defeated Branch 36 President Vincent


1971-1978

R. Sombrotto in a hotly contestedelection. Vacca’s narrow margin of vic-tory foreshadowed the difficulties hewould face as growing membershipcriticism of the union’s inability toredress workplace conditions ade-quately had now passed to his shoul-ders. For example, members andbranch officers were outraged by a

report that of the 3,022 grievancessubmitted to arbitration from mid-1975 through mid-1977, the NALC hadlost 87 percent. To many, this was asign of a lack of leadership on the partof the new administration. Adding tothe dissatisfaction of the rank and filewas a grievance backlog—itself aresult of continued managementharassment and workplace pressure—which was causing substantial delay inresolving workplace disputes. At thesame time, the union was experienc-ing a financial crisis which was, atleast in part, a result of the decline inthe number of letter carriers employedby the Postal Service.The union’s internal difficulties

were the backdrop against whichVacca faced his first major crisis—the

national negotiations between thepostal unions and the Postal Service in1978. Under pressure to gain substan-tial improvements in wages and work-ing conditions, Vacca faced a postalmanagement which came to the bar-gaining table with a number of “take-away” demands including the elimina-tion of the no-layoff clause that had

first been negotiated in 1971. In theagreement reached during the earlyhours of July 21, 1978, union negotia-tors settled for three annual wageincreases of two, three and five per-cent each plus a cost-of-living provi-sion which “capped” the payment ofthe cost-of-living adjustment (COLA)at the amounts payable during theprevious contract—regardless of howhigh inflation might actually rise.Despite a number of significantchanges in the provisions of the con-tract pertaining to working conditions—the guarantee of two 10-minute breaksand additional protections in routeexamination procedures, for exam-ple—the members were dissatisfied byboth the pay package and the cappedCOLA and, for the first time, used the

Branch 36 members picket in July 1978 inWashington, DC as partof a rally in support ofNALC’s negotiating team.

ratification procedure to reject anNALC-negotiated contract.The union resumed negotiations

with the Postal Service, but the talksquickly deadlocked. The parties thenagreed to bring two issues—the paypackage and the no-layoff clause—to a hybrid dispute resolution processcalled “mediation-arbitration” whichheld out the possibility that the partiesmight still reach a negotiated settle-ment. Harvard University ProfessorJames J. Healy functioned in this dualcapacity of mediator-arbitrator and onSeptember 15, 1978—after less than two

weeks of“mediation”failed toachieve a settlementamong theparties—Healyassumed therole of impar-tial arbitrator.In decidingthe twoissues, heclearly took

a middle of the road position. Healyremoved the cap on the COLA,increased the annual wage increasesslightly, and relaxed the no-layoff clauseto allow the Postal Service to terminateemployees with less than six years ofservice (although also providing life-time job security for those carriers and other postal employees who were working for the Postal Service when the decision was issued). While the arbitration award could

be viewed as an improvement overwhat the parties had originally negoti-ated, the entire collective bargainingprocess left considerable politicalwreckage in its wake. The rejection ofwhat the membership obviously con-

sidered an unacceptable agreement,the arbitration of only two issuesrather than the entire contract, and,finally, the fact that an outsider haddetermined the wages and the extentof letter carriers’ job security—all thisincreased the membership’s concernabout the effectiveness of the existingleadership. In the national electionheld during and after the “mediation-arbitration” process, Vincent R.Sombrotto, still the president ofBranch 36 in New York, defeated Vaccaby a vote of 75,137 to 43,407. The widemargin of victory helped propel intooffice most of the candidates runningon the Sombrotto slate, many of whomdefeated incumbent officers.Sombrotto’s victory, the culmination

of a process which had begun at leastas early as the 1970 strike, was the finaltriumph for the rank-and-file forces.Forged by the fires of militancy thestrike had ignited, these men andwomen fought throughout the 1970sfor the reforms and the issues whichmade the new president’s election pos-sible. Without the “one-man, one-vote”national elections, the membershipratification of collective bargainingagreements, and the emphasis uponmanagement harassment and speed-ups, Sombrotto and his supporterswould not have catapulted to nationaloffice in 1978.In another sense, however, the tri-

umph of the rank-and- filers was sim-ply the latest stage in the union’s con-tinuous struggle to improve the rightsof letter carriers. Sombrotto, himself astudent of NALC history, was aware ofthe union’s long heritage. But the newleadership also recognized that itwould be judged by its ability to shapethe future. Unified within, with a con-tinued commitment to the rights ofletter carriers, the NALC prepared toface the future with confidence.


1979-1989

Installed in January 1979 as NALC’s sixteenth president, Vincent R.Sombrotto took the helm of a union deeply affected—some would sayweakened—by the previous decade’s turbulence. With the uniondeeply in debt, Sombrotto immediately called upon the membership

to put the union back on a sound financial footing. Members respondedby approving overwhelmingly a monthly assessment on top of the regulardues. For its part, the new administration slashed expenses, cutting backseverely in virtually every area. This combination of additional revenuesand reduced expenditures turned the union’s balance sheets around, andby spring of 1980, the union was in the black. The union also suffered from internal divisions. The recent election had

swept from office a number of longtime national officers, and their sup-porters were, at the very least, dubious that the new president couldadminister the union as effectively as he had criticized those who had pre-viously held national office. Adding to the potential for continued divisive-ness was the fact that the new administration included officers who hadsupported first James H. Rademacher and then J. Joseph Vacca during the1970s. At the same time, a contentious lawsuit arising from the PostalService’s failure to observe the overtime pay requirements of the FairLabor Standards Act—New Deal legislation regulating private sectoremployment practices extended to postal employees in 1974—was pittingone group of members against another.


On the Cutting Edgeof Change

The new administration’s goal in theFLSA case was to find a solution thatwould treat all carriers equally, not aneasy task since only a portion of themembership, those who had joined theprivate lawsuits previously settled, hadreceived a financial benefit from thecase. In February 1979, NALC found alegal mechanism which allowed itsgeneral counsel to intervene in theongoing litigation to represent theinterests of the thousands of letter car-riers not part of the private lawsuits.After almost four years of legal maneu-vering, a federal judge in October 1982approved a comprehensive $400 millionsettlement of the case. The settlementfulfilled the union’s mission of achiev-ing “equal treatment” for all carriers bysecuring payments based upon thesame formula used earlier to settle theprivate lawsuits.

Internal divisions and financialwoes were not the only hurdlesfacing Sombrotto upon assumingthe presidency. The turmoil of the1970s had prevented the unionfrom developing the staff andadministrative resources neces-sary to meet its responsibilitiesto the membership in the morecomplex workplace environmentthat the Postal Reorga nizationAct created. This disarray was

symbolized by a back-log of 6,000 unre-solved national-level grievancesresulting fromdeterioratinglabor-managementrelations, theincreased workpressures pervasivein the reorganized,businesslike PostalService, and a cum-bersome grievanceprocedure. In fact, thegrievance procedure

was so cumbersome that during the1978 contract negotiations it wasreplaced by a new system.But the backlog survived the inau-

guration of that new procedure. Toreduce it, the new administrationinstructed the union’s national busi-ness agents to meet with their PostalService counterparts to resolve asmany as possible of the pending griev-ances, an effort that was only partiallysuccessful. In early 1980, the NALC andthe Postal Service entered into“Operation Shakeout,” a crash programin which specially appointed teams ofunion and management representa-tives reviewed the thousands of still-existing grievances to try to resolve asmany as possible and withdraw thoselacking any merit. Only those caseswhere the parties could not reachagreement were to be appealed toarbitration. By the summer of 1980,“Operation Shakeout,” plus anotherintervention by the national businessagents, had all but eliminated thenational-level grievance backlog. This grievance backlog was sympto-

matic of a larger problem confrontingthe NALC. The advent of collective bargaining, particularly the policing ofa nationally negotiated contract with amulti-step grievance-arbitration procedure, had added heavily to theburden of the union. Since grievancesalleging non-discipline violations ofthe contract could wend their way upto Washington, the national union was,to a large extent, functioning as anenormous local union.Concentrating its energies on what

were often local grievance problemsprevented the national union fromdoing what only it was in a position todo—focus on the institutional PostalService issues affecting all letter carri-ers. Most of these issues were beingdetermined in Congress where NALCwas no longer the force it had been inearlier times. The job confronting


Sombrotto and his fellow officers wasto determine which tasks and respon-sibilities could best be handled byNALC’s branches and regional offices.Then the national union could tacklenot only bargaining table issues, butalso those concerns of both active andretired carriers still determined by theCongress.

Legislation tothe Forefront

In the mid-1970s, NALC leaders hadrecognized that although theunion had acquired the right to

bargain collectively for its member-ship, a strong and influential presencein the halls of Congress was stillimperative. Attempts to rebuild thepowerful grassroots lobbying organiza-tion that had functioned during theDoherty and Keating years began atthat time. The union also formed itspolitical action committee—theCommittee on Letter Carrier PoliticalEducation, or COLCPE—to raise fundsfor contributions to friendly congress-men and senators. But these effortshad met with little enthusiasm from

the membership. By 1979, NALC’s legislative program was still an ideawhose time had not yet come.This changed dramatically during

the next few years. Recognizing thatthe effectiveness of NALC’sWashington-based lobbying effortsdepended heavily upon the union’s“grassroots” legislative activity, theSombrotto administration acted tomake a grassroots network a reality.The network was built from the bot-tom up. Active legislative volunteerswere recruited to work with anappointed legislative liaison in each congressional district. In turn,legislative liaisons reported to a statelegislative chairman—almost alwaysthe state association president. Thisentire network was coordinated by the national union, which providedtraining and communicated the latestlegislative developments to the field bymail and telephone. By the mid-1980s,the entire network numbered over10,000 volunteers capable of rapidresponse to calls from the nationalunion for assistance.Building an effective grassroots

lobbying network was only part of thetask confronting the union. By the late


Flanked by the massive legal record of the Fair Labor Standards Act litigation, still in process, NALC Pres-

ident Vincent R. Sombrotto explains to a 1980 press conference the union’s goal of “equal treatment for all

carriers.” Also shown are Executive Vice President Tony R. Huerta and Vice President Frank Conners (far right).

1979-1989


1970s, it was clear that influence innational politics required contribu-tions to Congressional campaignfunds. Since its creation in 1975, COLCPE, NALC’s political action com-mittee, had been noticeably unsuc-cessful in raising the amounts ofmoney necessary to do this. To raisemore money, the union turned todirect mail. Buoyed by its experiencein 1979 and 1980 when the union’sWAR (Win-A-Sure Retirement) cam-paign netted almost $900,000 in 11months to preserve the independenceof the Civil Service Retirement System,the union expanded and refined itstechniques for its first direct-mailCOLCPE campaign. That campaign—“Budget Battle ’81”—raised over$250,000. By the mid-1980s, COLCPE

was one of the most successfulpolitical action committees inthe country, raising more than$1 million nearly every year.Ironically, the effectiveness

of NALC’s legislative effortswas most evident in a cam-paign which was, in the end,unsuccessful. In late 1982 andearly 1983, Congress put on thefast track a bipartisan legisla-tive program to “reform” SocialSecurity. Among other actions,postal and federal employees—protected since 1920 by theCivil Service RetirementSystem—would be broughtunder the Social Securityumbrella. Concerned that thiswould leave working letter car-riers without adequate retire-ment protection while eroding

the CSRS benefits of those carriersalready retired, NALC pulled out allstops in an attempt to derail the “uni-versal Social Security” train. PresidentSombrotto testified before numerouscongressional committees, and theunion regularly delivered comprehen-sive background information to con-gressional offices. Advertisements presenting the union’s case were pur-chased in newspapers throughout thecountry, and NALC members wereasked by letter and telephone to urgetheir congressional representatives tovote against “universal Social Security.”This activity culminated in late

February 1983 in a giant legislativerally in Washington, DC. Nevertheless,a few weeks later, Congress passed andPresident Ronald Reagan signed theSocial Security Reform Act which,although leaving existing letter carriersunder CSRS, mandated Social Securitycoverage for postal and federal employ -ees hired on or after January 1, 1984.Despite this result, the magnitude ofthe union’s efforts convinced many inCongress and elsewhere in government

Thousands of NALC

leaders enter a

Washington, DC

hotel ballroom to rally

against “universal

Social Security” in

February 1983.


that the NALC had become a true political and legislative force—a forcewhich could not be ignored. This per-ception would serve the NALC wellduring the remainder of Reagan’s first term and throughout his second.Time after time, the union successfullyrepelled attempts to increase the costof health benefits for both active andretired letter carriers; to reduce carri-ers’ retirement benefits; and, with oneexception, to eliminate the cost-of-living adjustments retirees received.

Labor- ManagementConflict—andCooperation

Vincent R. Sombrotto faced hisfirst round of national collec-tive bargaining in 1981 under

pressure to negotiate a contractacceptable to a membership whoseexpectations he had helped to raiseduring the previous decade. He was

also confronted by a postal manage-ment emboldened by the anti-laborposturing of the Reagan administra-tion. Management’s “get-tough”stance was revealed immediately. Inmid-April, one week prior to theopening of the 1981 negotiations,the Postal Service, contending thatthe existing multiple craft structuremade bargaining too “complicated,”asked the National Labor RelationsBoard to determine the “appropri-ate” bargaining unit or units beforeit would begin negotiating. Finally,in June, the full Board upheld anNLRB regional director’s earlierrejection of the Service’s move, andnegotiations began—two monthslate and in an atmosphere poisonedby the Service’s machinations.Against this backdrop, the NALC

committed itself to retaining the“uncapped” cost-of-living adjust-ments—since the “capping” ofCOLA in the 1978 negotiations hadbeen the major reason letter carri-ers had rejected that negotiatedcontract. Late in the 1981 process,

1979-1989

With the 1981 negotia-

tions deadline only a

few weeks away, letter

carriers picketed post

offices throughout the

country in response to

management’s stalling

tactics.

management proposed freezing wagesand capping COLA. In response, theNALC and its bargaining ally, theAmerican Postal Workers Union, pick-eted post offices throughout the coun-try and then augmented local actionwith a rally in Washington, DC. Therethe leaders of the unions made it clearthat the membership should be pre-pared for any eventuality if a satisfac-tory agreement was not reached by thecontract deadline. Finally, manage-ment relented. In the early hours ofJuly 21, 1981, the unions and thePostal Service reached an agreementwhich retained the uncapped COLA,provided wage increases and eliminat-ed mandatory route inspections, along-sought goal of the union. Lettercarriers throughout the country regis-tered their overwhelming approval ofthe contract, ratifying the pact by a 6-to-1 margin.Despite NALC’s success at the bar-

gaining table, relationships betweenthe union and the management were indisarray at all levels of the system. Theworkplace pressures which had eruptedin the 1970s continued as grievances

protesting harassment and violations ofthe contract by management mounted.Even outside observers were depictinglabor-management relations within thePostal Service as unnecessarily adver-sarial and postal management as rigidly authoritarian.Joint recognition by top postal man-

agement and NALC’s national officersof the necessity to improve relationstook concrete form in the spring of1982 when the parties established acommittee to devise a joint process toreach the workfloors of postal facilitiesthroughout the country. Taking its cuein part from similar cooperativeprocesses in the private sector, thecommittee—now called the NALC-USPS National Joint EmployeeInvolvement Committee—agreed thatits goal should be to improve the quali-ty of the working lives of both carriersand their supervisors. It then created astructure revolving around facility-based, 8- to 10-member work teams ofcarriers and their supervisors whichwould meet regularly to discuss work-place problems and possible solutions.In September 1982, Sombrotto and

An Employee Involvement

work team of carriers and

their supervisors discusses

work-related problems.


Postmaster General William F. Bolgersigned a joint statement setting forththe goals of this new joint EmployeeInvolvement—or EI—process. The firstwork teams and EI facilitators weretrained in early 1983, and by the end ofthe year, work teams and local jointsteering committees—NALC-USPS localoversight committees—were function-ing in 17 localities. EI was clearly plant-ed and growing. What impact it wouldmake was still an open question.It soon became clear that EI was

neither a panacea for all the ills of thePostal Service nor had the emergingspirit of cooperation on the workroomfloor affected the relationships betweenthe NALC and the Postal Service at thehighest levels. Even before the 1984national negotiations began, the postalBoard of Governors—the Service’s policy-making body of part-time politicalappointees—indicated that the Gov -ernors and not postal managementwould be calling the shots. These shots,the Reagan-appointed Board majoritymade clear, would be aimed at the payof letter carriers and other craftemployees. Once negotiations began,the Postal Service proposed freezing or reducing virtually every benefit andestablishing a “two-tier” workforce. Thisnew tier was to be composed of low-paid employees who would receive onlya few benefits. When managementrefused to budge from its hard-linestance, successful negotiations weredoomed. Shortly after midnight on July21, 1984, negotiations broke down. Forthe first time since postal reorganiza-tion, a third-party arbitrator woulddecide the terms of an entire contract.The arbitration hearing was held in

Washington, DC in December 1984.Scores of witnesses were examined andcross-examined, hundreds of exhibitswere introduced and thousands ofpages of testimony compiled. Finally,on December 24, impartial arbitratorClark Kerr and four “arbitrator advo-

cates” resolved the largest interest arbitration case ever conducted in theUnited States. The decision granted sig-nificant wage increases, retained the“uncapped” cost-of-living adjustment,and rejected the Service’s call for reduc-tions in benefits in almost every area inthe contract. However, in rejecting theService’s proposal for a “two-tier” wage structure, the arbitration panel


1979-1989

The arbitration panel

which resolved the

1984 contract dispute

deliberates prior to

issuing its award. At

far right is impartial

arbitrator Clark Kerr.

To Kerr’s right is

NALC General

Counsel Bruce H.

Simon.

stretched the single structure to includelower “steps” for new workers. For the unions, the arbitration award

was as great a victory as could reason-ably have been expected. Still, theNALC recognized that the panel hadadded lower rungs to the pay ladder.Equally important was the fact that the contract had been fashioned by anarbitration panel, and not the partiesthemselves. This was a blow to the

collective bar-gaining processthat the NALCdid not want tosee repeated.But if the

stalemated bar-gaining and sub-sequent arbitra-tion of the 1984contract was thelow point of laborrelations in theperiod followingthe PostalReorganizationAct, there werestill reasons foroptimism. First,the Postal Servicewas now wellaware that the

arguments it had made with unre-strained confidence at negotiations hadnot persuaded an impartial third party.Arbitration had been a costly experi-ence for the Service—one the Serviceitself would try to avoid in the future.Second, the NALC-USPS EmployeeInvolvement process had survived theacrimony and name-calling that hadpervaded both negotiations and thearbitration. In fact, the entire EI apparatus—work teams, steering committees, facilitators—functionedwith only occasional interruptionsthroughout the last half of 1984.That EI had outlasted the bitter

process of creating the 1984 contractsuggested that perhaps the next roundof bargaining might be conducted withmore candor and less hostility. Suchproved to be the case in 1987 when the Postal Service bargained far less contentiously than it had previously. Despite substantial differences betweenthe Service and the unions—chiefly over postal management’s call for thecreation of a low-paid, part-time work-force—the parties reached agreementjust hours after extending the deadline.NALC members ratified the proposedagreement overwhelmingly. Collectivebargaining in the Postal Service was still viable.


NALC and American

Postal Workers Union

leaders march in front

of Postal Headquarters

in Washington, DC dur-

ing the closing days of

the 1987 negotiations.

1979-1989

Preparing forNALC’s Second

Century

The final years of NALC’s firstcentury saw the union grapplingwith how best to fulfill the

union’s historic mission of serving theinterests of letter carriers in the yearsahead—years that would begin NALC’ssecond century. This process of self-definition was in part a continuation ofactivities and processes begun earlierin the 1980s. Yet the union was alsoacknowledging that the challengesahead were of a different order—andthus demanded different responses.The central problems confronting

the NALC at the end of the decade werethe very same as those confronting thePostal Service. To a degree unprece-dented in the Postal Service’s history,the belief that the United Statesrequired a nationwide public institu-tion to provide uniform mail service atuniform rates came under attack. Someof those leading the charge were ideo-logical advocates of one or more “pri-vatization” theories. These individualswanted to reduce the size and scope ofa public Postal Service, if not eliminateit altogether, on the assumption thatthe private sector of the economycould always outperform the publicsector.

Othercritics of thePostalService—many ofthemspeakingfor largebusinessmailers—were lesssweepingand more

targeted in their attacks. In their minds,rates were too high and rate increasestoo frequent, postal managementbloated and incompetent—and postalemployees overpaid and underworked.For the NALC, these criticisms—

whether motivated by ideology or self-interest—focused attention on whatthe union’s role should be when thevery legitimacy of its sole employer wasunder intense scrutiny. The union’sresponses were several: first, by the late

1980s, it was clear that improved labor-management relations were essential.Recognizing that adversarial relation-ships and practices persisted at thelocal level despite the beneficial impactof the Employment Involvementprocess, Sombrotto and PostmasterGeneral Anthony M. Frank agreed in1988 to push the joint effort to improvethe quality of work life more directlyinto the arena of labor-managementrelations. Union and management rep-resentatives were directed to reducesubstantially the kinds of behaviorleading to grievances and relatedadversarial activity during the comingfiscal year. By mid-1989, the partieswere well on their way to reducing the grievances themselves. Whethercarriers and their supervisors would,through the EI process, be able to

NALC President

Vincent Sombrotto

(right) and Postmaster

General Anthony M.

Frank sign a document

in 1988 committing

both parties to reducing

grievances and other

adversarial activity.

USPS photo


change the kinds of behavior that hadprompted grievance activity was still anopen question.By this time, it had become obvious

that if the Postal Service were to surviveand prosper, the NALC and the PostalService at the highest levels of bothorganizations would have to worktogether on a variety of workplace andnon-workplace issues. That this mightbe achieved had been demonstratedwhen the parties successfully conduct-ed a joint legislative campaign inDecember 1987 and early 1988. The Reagan administration and theCongress had agreed to a budget resolu-tion which, while preventing the Servicefrom raising rates, would force the USPSto cut services and all but halt its capitalspending program. NALC and the PostalService, joined by other postal organiza-tions, pulled together to fight this move.Together Sombrotto and PostmasterGeneral Preston R. Tisch visited con-gressmen and senators to explain thepostal community’s positions. As aresult, Congress scaled back the Reaganadministration’s proposals substantially,although still forcing the Postal Serviceto reduce services and postpone someconstruction projects.Less visible than this union-manage-

ment legislative effort was NALC’s recog-nition that if letter carrier work was tochange because of the automation ofpostal operations, the NALC should be apartner in redesigning and restructuring

A striking example of letter carriers’ strong commit-ment to serving their fellow Americans beyond justdelivering the mail is NALC’s decades-long efforts

to raise funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association—anonprofit organization combating neuromuscular diseasesthrough programs of worldwide research, comprehensivemedical and support services, and education.NALC became MDA’s first national sponsor in 1953.

That fall the union conducted the “Letter Carriers’ Marchfor Muscular Dystrophy” featuring the union’s “porchlight brigade,” the name attached to those carriers whorepeated their appointed rounds late at night. Letter car-riers collected $3.4 million, and ever since have raisedadditional millions for MDA. For many years, the highlight of NALC’s participation

was the union’s live appearances on the annual JerryLewis MDA Labor Day Telethon, with a top nationalNALC officer in the spotlight. From 1986 through 2011,the Telethon also recognized the most successful fund-raising branches in different membership categories,and, for a number of years, an Auxiliary representative. After the 2011 Telethon, MDA changed the name of

the broadcast to “Show of Strength,” shortened thelength of the broadcast, and began to air taped seg-ments provided by its sponsors. NALC has used thisopportunity to call attention the union’s commitment toMDA and to recognize the top fund-raising branches.The dollar amount NALC announces on television each

September is the product of such branch activities as raffles,golf tournaments, bingo nights. The union has also devel-oped nationwide programs. In 2009, the union began anannual “Bowlathon,” and in 2011, NALC initiated anannual “Fill the Satchel” fund-raiser where carriers,often in uniform and carrying their satchels, standat busy streets, holding signs and accepting dona-tions from people in passing cars and pedestrians. In recognition of the role branches playing in

raising funds for MDA, the national union andMDA each year take representatives of the topfund-raising branches on an MDA-related trip.

From 1986 until 2011, NALC members from the top fund-raising

branches in various membership categories appeared live on the

MDA Labor Day Telethon, often along with the NALC president.

NALC and the MuscularDystrophy Association


the work of carriers. An outgrowth of the1987 negotiations, a joint task force tostudy all aspects of carrier work—fromequipment to the design of routes to themethod of determining compensation—began work in the spring of 1989. Withthe task force’s recommendations per-haps months, if not years, away, carrierscould at least be assured that for thefirst time their union would be a partnerin managing and directing change—rather than simply reacting to it.But cooperation with the Postal

Service, both on the workroom floor andon Capitol Hill, was only one of NALC’sstrategies to preserve the Service and, asa result, the jobs and benefits of lettercarriers. By the end of the 1980s it wasobvious that only a strong, stable andprofessional organization could suc-cessfully repel challenges to members’rights and interests by the ExecutiveBranch, Congress or the Postal Servicewhile simultaneously working withpostal management to improve labor-management relations and defend the Service from external attacks.Fortunately, the NALC had already taken steps to prepare for this task.Attempts to achieve internal stability

began soon after Sombrotto assumedoffice in 1979. At the 1980 NationalConvention in Atlanta, the NALCExecutive Council proposed extendingthe terms of national officers from twoto four years. Although the conventiondelegates defeated the proposedamendment—reminding Sombrottothat he had opposed similar amend-ments when vying for national leader-

ship—delegatesto the SanFrancisco conven-tion two years laterpassed an identi-cal amendment.No longer wouldofficers begincampaigning fortheir next termimmediately uponassuming office.For Sombrottoand his fellow offi-cers elected withonly occasionalopposition duringthe decade, theamendment re-created the stabili-ty that hadmarked NALC politics before the 1970s.But whether stability would lead to stag-nation as the amendment’s opponentshad charged remained an issue only timewould decide.Sombrotto and his administration

now turned to the task of achievinglong-run financial stability. After acri-monious debate, delegates at the 1984convention in Las Vegas, Nevada,approved an amendment establishing a“minimum dues structure.” Dues wouldnow increase as carriers’ wages rose.Thus NALC presidents would not beforced to ask convention delegatesevery two years for additional funds topay for the union’s increasing expenses.But a growing NALC bank balance

would be worthless unless the union

1979-1989


could improve its capacity to respondto the critical issues facing both thePostal Service and letter carriers. Thisthe union did during the remainder of the 1980s. Staff was added in suchareas as contract administration, legislation, legal, communications,economic research, information serv-ices, computers, retired members services, and public relations, and theunion’s Washington, DC headquartersbuilding was renovated to accommo-date the new personnel. New publica-

tions were created, existing onesimproved, and the union began to usevideotape to communicate with themembership. With the talents of addi-tional professionals, the union’s opera-tions became more sophisticated andeffective, and the union’s status withinthe labor movement grew.The NALC had been represented on

the AFL-CIO Executive Council since1981 when Sombrotto’s election as aFederation vice president gave theunion a seat on the country’s mostimportant labor body for the first timesince William C. Doherty served on theCouncil in the 1950s and early 1960s.But participation in the Federation wasonly one aspect of NALC’s greater visibility in the labor movement.Internationally, the union becameincreasingly active during the decadein Postal Telegraph and Telephone

Participation in the

nation’s political

process has been

essential for the NALC

to continue to protect

the rights, benefits

and economic secu rity

of letter carriers.


1979-1989

If history is a continuous, if zigzagging,record of human existence, then fromtime to time there are markers that organ-

ize the past and give cause for celebration.NALC's Centennial in August 1989 inMilwaukee, Wisconsin, where the union hadbeen founded 100 years earlier, was such anoccasion. There, more than 5,000 letter carri-ers, retirees, auxiliary members, families andfriends attended four days of commemorativeactivities to honor the past and learn from it.Highlights of the event were the arrival at

the opening ceremonies of a giant Centennialenvelope sent during the preceding monthsto each of the 50 states in the union for cere-monial postmarking; a 12,000-square-foothistorical exhibit that displayed nearly athousand documents, artifacts, photographs,vehicles and uniforms evoking key events in

letter carrier and union history; educationalseminars highlighting the past and the futureof letter carriers; “The Letter,” a 90-minutemusical tour through NALC history thatblended real events with elaborate fantasiesand thought-provoking commentary on therole of the NALC and letter carriers inAmerican society; a first day of issue ceremony unveiling a new stamp honoringletter carriers; and the dramatic close of thefestivities directly across the street from thesite of NALC’s founding meeting where abronze statue commemorating America’s letter carriers was unveiled.Specifically designed to be festive, the

Centennial Celebration was also educationaland reflective because only by understandingthe past can the union properly prepare forthe challenges ahead.

Centennial Celebration

International—the Geneva-basedgroup uniting worldwide unions rep-resenting postal and other communi-cations workers which later, throughmergers, became part of the larger,more broadly based Union NetworkInternational, or UNI. Closer to home,the union took a leadership role inboth a union-dominated coalitionwhich in 1985 and 1986 mounted asuccessful effort for tax reform, andthe development of the Fund forAssuring an Independent Retirement—or FAIR—a group of postal and feder-al unions and employee associationswhose legislative interests were farbroader than its name would suggest.That NALC’s increasing promi-

nence in the labor movement waslargely in the area of legislation washardly surprising since by the mid-1980s, the NALC had developed oneof the labor movement’s most effec-tive grassroots lobbying organizationsand arguably the most successfulpolitical action fund. But beginning inApril 1987, the union took a giant stepforward by establishing an educationalprogram—“WIN,” for “We’re InvolvedNow”—to teach grassroots lobbyingand politics to thousands of NALCand Auxiliary members throughout

the country. The 152 WIN workshopsconducted by November 1988 alsomobilized NALC members, principallyretirees and Auxiliary members, totake an active part in the 1988 presi-dential campaign, and for the firsttime NALC members won delegatepositions to a national political partyconvention.Although still hampered severely

by the 50-year-old Hatch Act’s limita-tions on partisan political activity ofpostal and federal employees—limita-tions the union made substantialprogress toward overturning duringthe late 1980s—carriers neverthelessrecognized that participation in thenation’s political process was essen-tial if the National Association ofLetter Carriers were to continue toprotect the rights, benefits and economic security of letter carriers.

1990-2002

FacingRevolutionaryChange

For well over a century, the job of a city carrier hadhardly changed at all. True, carriers had switched from horse and buggy to motorized vehicle in the years since the beginning of city delivery in 1863.

Nonetheless, by the end of the 1980s, carriers still cased all of their mail in the office before going out on the street.Changes in mail processing in the preceding decades, impor-tant in increasing the overall efficiency of the Postal Service,had largely bypassed the working lives of letter carriers. As NALC began its second century, carrier work was revolu-

tionized as optical character reading and bar code scanningtechnology allowed the Service to arrange the mail in thesequence of delivery. By the beginning of the 1990s, deliverypoint sequence mail, DPS for short, began to arrive at the car-rier’s case, resulting in the reduction of the amount of timecarriers spent in the office while conversely expanding carri-ers’ time on the street. Although the revolutionary changes inhow carriers performed their work did not take placeovernight and did not affect every delivery unit simultaneous-ly, they affected labor relations on the workroom floor and atthe negotiating table both positively and negatively. In fact,virtually every aspect of the relationship between the unionand postal management felt the impact of DPS mail.


For the NALC, there were two keyissues: how would routes be structuredas DPS made its slow but relentlessentry into the workplace, and whatrole would the union have in shapingdecisions concerning DPS before thesedecisions were made. These questionswere answered almost immediately, asmanagement adopted, without theunion’s involvement or consent, a pro-gram ironically called “route stabiliza-tion”—or “6 and 2.” Under “route sta-bilization,” management planned toreadjust, prior to the implementationof automation, all the routes in anoffice to conform to what managementbelieved would be the workload bothin the office and on the street once theamount of DPS mail arriving in thefacility reached management’s target

figure. As a result, carriers’ street timewould be extended and office timereduced—as would be the number ofregular routes in the delivery unit.Carriers would no longer case all themail they delivered—“routers” wouldcase a sizeable portion of the mail theregular carrier would then deliver.

As soon as “6 and 2” was introducedin test sites around the country in thelate 1980s, NALC strongly objected,informing management that route stabilization would delay the mail, disrupt operations and create chaosand low morale on the workroom floor.This proved to be the case as startingtimes were moved back and carrierswere compelled to deliver more andmore mail later in the day or eveningto increasingly disgruntled customers

In response to man-

agement’s unilateral

readjustment of routes

prior to the implemen-

tation of automation,

NALC formed “truth

squads” twice in the

1990s to monitor the

changes and ensure

that branch represen-

tatives filed grievances

whenever the adjust-

ment did not conform

to the contract.


More than 1,000 NALC

members participated in

the AFL-CIO’s massive

1991 Solidarity Day rally in

Washington, DC in support

of the American labor

movement’s goals.

unhappy with the reliability of theirmail service.

As management proceeded toimplement route stabilization over theunion’s objections and in the face ofcustomers’ complaints, the NALC real-ized it was time to draw a line in thesand. In December 1990 at his installa-tion to a fifth term as NALC nationalpresident, Vincent R. Sombrottoannounced that the union was form-ing a cadre of “truth squads” through-out the country to monitor routeadjustments and ensure that branchrepresentatives filed grievances anytime management adjusted routeswithout conforming to the contract orthose USPS manuals and handbooksthat regulated route adjustments. Theprogram itself—labeled “Best Efforts”as an offshoot of Sombrotto’s remarkthat carriers should give the PostalService their “best efforts” but no moreand no less—spread throughout thecountry during 1991 and the first partof 1992.

Despite the success of “Best Efforts”in giving branch representatives andrank-and-file carriers the tools to resistmanagement’s efforts to deploy “6 and2,” no amount of logic or persuasion—or customer complaints—could determanagement from proceeding withthe program. Not until the issuance inJuly 1992 of a national-level arbitrationaward in a Hempstead, New York casedid the dispute over route stabilizationbegin a slow and tortuous path towardresolution. The decision held thatmanagement could not re-adjustroutes solely to anticipate the futureimpact of delivery-point sequencing.Yet the arbitrator’s decision explicitlyleft critical issues for the parties toresolve themselves. This they success-fully achieved in September 1992 by agreeing to six memorandums thatestablished criteria for dealing withgrievances involving past “Hempstead-type” route adjustments. At the core of

the memorandums were provisionshalting all route adjustments basedupon the anticipated impact ofautomation and an agreement thatlocal management and NALC branchesshould reach decisions jointly on suchkey issues as case configurations dur-ing route inspections, the creation ofso-called “X-routes” to be phased outwhen a set amount of mail prepared indelivery point sequence arrived in thedelivery unit, and the hiring of transi-tional employees. This new category of worker was inserted over the union’sobjections into the 1990 contract by an arbitrator after management hadclaimed the need for temporaryemployees during the introduction of delivery point sequencing.

Sombrotto andmanagement alsoagreed in late 1992 togive the approximately30,000 part-time flexi-bles then on the rollsthe opportunity toconvert to full-timestatus. In the summerof 1993, the union andmanagement againdemonstrated the abil-ity to work together bygiving the more seniortransitional employees an opportunityto acquire career status. The partiesalso incorporated what they hadlearned in the field about DPS imple-mentation into a single memorandumthat also provided that the union andmanagement would jointly test modi-fied route inspections and adjust-ments at selected sites already receiv-ing mail in delivery point sequence.Building on an extensive trainingeffort, joint route inspections wereimplemented throughout the countryduring the fall of 1993. Simultaneously,NALC and management met at thenational level to resolve a number ofissues of critical importance to the

1990-2002


At the 1993 Rap Session

in Chicago, President

Sombrotto and other

national officers answer

questions raised by carri-

ers on automation issues

including delivery point

sequencing, part-time

flexible conversions and

the use of temporary

employees.

From the inception of city deliv-

ery in the nineteenth century,

letter carriers have always

demonstrated compassion toward

their customers and their communi-

ties. Perhaps the most visible and

far reaching example has been

annual NALC National Food

Drive—a venture the union

launched in the early 1990s, and

which quickly became one of the

most significant examples of volun-

teerism in America.

Prior to the union inaugurating a national drive, a number of

NALC branches had collected food for the needy locally on dif-

ferent days during the year. Drawing in part on lessons learned

from Phoenix Branch 576’s highly successful drive, the national

union decided to hold a pilot drive in October 1991 on the same

day in 10 cities. This proved so successful that it was expand-

ed into a nationwide effort. Input from food banks and pantries,

however, suggested that late spring would be a better time

because most food banks start running out of the donations

received during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday peri-

ods. A revamped drive was organized for May 15, 1993—the

Second Saturday in May—with amazing results. More than 220

branches collected over 11 million pounds of food as letter car-

riers from Alaska to Florida, from Maine to Hawaii, collected the

donations while delivering their routes.

Over the years, the NALC Food Drive has been benefitted

greatly from the support of many groups, especially Campbell

Soup Company, the Postal Service, Feeding America (formerly

America’s Second Harvest), United Way of America and local

United Ways, the AFL-CIO Community Services network, and,

more recently, AARP. In addition, noted cartoonist Bil Keane

and, later, his son Jeff, have donated artwork based on their

famous “Family Circus” cartoon characters to promote the

NALC Food Drive.

In a typical year, letter carriers in well over 1,000 NALC

branches in more than 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states

and U.S. jurisdictions typically provide at least 70 million pounds

of food to over 5,000 community food banks and pantries, mak-

ing the NALC National Food Drive the nation’s largest annual

one-day drive.

By 2014, twenty-one years after the inaugural NALC

National Food Drive, letter carriers had collected a total of

more than 1.3 billion pounds of food to be distributed to the

nation’s needy, underscoring the union’s historic commitment

to serving their customers and communities.


implementation of DPS,including the question ofhow many bundles certaincarriers could carry.

Unfortunately, theService’s duplicity soonbecame evident as manage-ment abandoned agreementsit had previously reachedwhile also crafting new pro-posals the union could neveraccept. First, the Servicewalked away from its agree-ment to give career opportu-

nities to transitional employees and then triedto force NALC to accept additional transitionalemployees in the city carrier craft. Not only didthe union aggressively resist management’sefforts, but the bad feelings the Service engen-dered led to a breakdown of the ongoing negoti-ations over the rules and guidelines to governthe introduction of delivery point sequencinginto the carrier workplace. In fact, once manage-ment fully understood the union would notagree to an expansion of the transitionalemployee workforce, it reversed itself on a num-ber of other DPS-related issues where agree-ments had been reached, including the jointdetermination of which routes would be elimi-nated due to automation. Management alsosent to the field in March 1994 DPS implemen-tation instructions that unilaterally changedjointly agreed-upon interpretations of the sixSeptember 1992 memos and also unilaterallychanged, without proper notice, specific hand-books pertaining to work practices. In sum,management decided to implement DPS with-out the NALC’s participation and partnership.

The NALC immediately responded by filingnational-level grievances challenging theService’s implementation instructions and alsoannouncing the creation of new “Truth Squad”training to update the successful 1990 “TruthSquad” route inspection program aimed atmonitoring and challenging management’sactions in the field. Moreover, the union con-tinued to maintain that to reduce, if not virtually eliminate, missed deliveries and“non-deliveries” inevitably resulting from an imperfect mail processing automation

NALC Food Drive

program, carriers should case DPS mailuntil the volume was such that it wouldbe inefficient and counter to the thrustof the Service’s automation program forthe carrier to continue casing this mail.

Management refused to deal withthis issue, and in late February 1996ended abruptly and emphatically anydiscussions with the NALC about howbest to shape the USPS automationprogram. The Postal Service’s disdainfor the contributions of the union andits members was hammered homejust two months later when manage-ment unilaterally withdrew from the14-year joint Employee Involvementprocess, an act NALC protested toboth the Postal Service and Congress.

Management’s increasingly hostile attitude toward the union, cou-pled with its “go-it-alone” practices inadapting carrier work to the automa-tion of mail processing, continued intothe mid- and late 1990s. In fact, in 1996,the Postal Service laid the groundworkfor a massive violation of the collectivebargaining agreement by unilaterallybeginning to plan, and in some casesimplement, a number of test studiesand pilot programs.

Although employing different namesand different statistical methods, theentire effort was most commonlyreferred to as “Delivery Redesign” andfocused on three related goals: how carriers should be managed, how aneight-hour day should be defined andhow letter carrier work should beorganized. Essentially, the Servicewished to combine old-fashioned time-measurement studies designed todevise a time value for every possiblephysical movement of a letter carrier inthe office and on the street—an updat-ed version of the ill-fated Kokomoexperiments of the 1970s—with a relat-ed approach that derived numericalvalues from existing data on carrierperformance and route structures inorder to reorganize carrier work. The

NALC immediately recog-nized that management wasattempting to divide themembership and weaken theunion by testing and unilat-erally polling carriers toobtain information thatcould eventually speed upcarrier work and undercutthe union’s ability to defendits members. Immediatelythe union responded,informing both branch leadership as well as rank-and-file members of management’s plans and en couraging carriers, espe-cially those who were being tested, toband together to resist any attemptsby their supervisors to prod them toviolate safety regulations or otherwiseignore the “fair day’s work for a fairday’s pay” principle enshrined in thecollective bargaining agreement.

Largely in reaction to the union’sresistance, management stepped backfrom its plans to unilaterally introducenew work standards and practices. InOctober 1997, the NALC and the PostalService agreed to jointly test how tochange carrier work to meet the futureneeds of the Service and the inevitablechanges in the mail environmentresulting from the explosion in elec-tronic communications and commerce.Although specifically stating that theunion was not approving manage-ment’s Delivery Redesign programs orany tests management was implement-ing unilaterally, the compact recog-nized that for the Service to be efficient,productive and competitive, “it is in theinterests of both management and theunion that the parties work coopera-tively.” Two months later, the NALCExecutive Council appointed branchpresidents and rank-and-file carriers toa joint union-management task force toexplore possible changes in the struc-ture of letter carrier work.

1990-2002

The Service’s disdainfor the contributionsof the union and itsmembers was ham-mered home in 1996when managementunilaterally withdrewfrom the 14-year joint EmployeeInvolvement process.



Letter carriers delivered an

urgent message to the public

nationwide on June 19, 1996:

Mismanagement is ruining the

Postal Service. Above,

President Sombrotto joined

Washington, DC Branch 142

members in an informational

picket. Top right, Branch 36

members ignored wind and

rain to demonstrate in New

York City.

If the October 1997 accord demon-strated the willingness of the PostalService at the national level to cooper-ate with the union, managers in thefield continued to resist including theunion in decisions affecting how lettercarrier work would be adapted to thenew realities of DPS. This became obvi-ous when, with carriers now wrestlingwith separate bundles of DPS mail andthe mail they still cased, a national arbi-trator ruled in the NALC’s favor by limit-ing the number of bundles carriers incertain circumstances would have tocarry but left to the parties the responsi-bility of implementing the award. Inresponse, NALC and managementagreed to jointly study the relative effi-ciency of various work methods.Recognizing it would take time to com-plete the study, the parties directedlocal union leaders and their manage-ment counterparts in the interim toselect the most efficient approach tohandling the problem, but local man-agers ignored the agreement andrefused to work with NALC branch

leaders to reach mutually agreeablelocal solutions. Only after headquartersmanagement intervened and the NALCfiled grievances did local managers toethe company line and cooperate withlocal union leaders.

ResolvingConflictat the

Workplace

If during the 1990s, USPS Head -quarters management occasionallyreached out to NALC’s national

officers to ease the introduction ofautomation in the carrier workplace,local postmasters and supervisors inmany units remained autocratic andadversarial. Management abuse, longpervasive in many facilities, onlyincreased as pressure to “make thenumbers” to recoup the outlays forautomation grew. As a result, the vio-lence of historic proportions thatbegan in the mid-1980s continued intothe early 1990s, with the 1991 tragedyin Royal Oak, Michigan that took thelives of four supervisors and seriouslywounded four craft workers having thegreatest fallout. Partly this was a mat-ter of timing, since it was the latest ina string of tragedies. More important,supervisory harassment in Royal Oakhad clearly been intolerable, as eventhe most disinterested observer wasforced to admit.

The Postal Service finally, if reluc-tantly, admitted that no matter how

Although the NALC was founded in

1889, the union’s first official national

convention was not held until the fol-

lowing year when almost 70 carriers from

48 different branches gathered in Boston as

a single nationwide letter carriers’ organiza-

tion. Until 1903, the union held national

conventions annually, but since 1905 con-

ventions have been held biennially. The only

exception was the 1945 convention, which

was postponed because of World War II.

Biennial conventions resumed in 1946 and

the 2014 national convention in Philadelphia

was the union’s 69th convention.

National conventions serve several pur-

poses. First and foremost, the convention

is the union’s supreme governing body

since delegates debate key issues, adopt

resolutions and amend the national, state

and branch constitutions. Convention

debates have shaped the course of the

union—for example, to affiliate with the

American Federation of Labor, to prohibit

racially segregated branches and, in 1972,

to provide for “one person, one vote” mail

election of national officers instead of

conven tion election and installation of offi-

cers, the union’s practice until that point.

Delegates also set the union’s legislative

agenda and, since the advent of collective

bargaining in 1971, its negotiating priorities.

Finally, although conducting NALC busi-

ness is the convention’s most important

activity, it is also a social gathering for the

NALC family where delegates make new

friends and renew old acquaintances.

The NALC’s 69 conventions through 2014

have been held in 39 different locations,

ranging in size from small cities such as

Scranton, Pennsylvania, Canton, Ohio, and

Grand Rapids,

Michigan in the early

days of the union,

when only a few hun-

dred delegates were in

attendance, to the

country’s largest cities

today. As the union has

grown, so has the num-

ber of delegates, a natu-

ral result of the constitu-

tional provision in effect

since at least 1894 that

allows each branch to

send one delegate for

each 20 members

—a provision which has been interpreted to

allow one delegate for those branches with

fewer than 20 members and an extra dele-

gate each time the 20-member bar is

crossed. With over 8,000 delegates

attending recent conventions, only a limit-

ed number of cities can accommodate

the union, with even fewer having union

facilities, a concern of the NALC

Executive Council that now selects con-

vention sites.

Today, NALC’s national conventions

are large and complex affairs held in enor-

mous convention centers utilizing state-of-

the-art audio-visual technology. In addition

to the general sessions, educational work-

shops and social events enhance dele-

gates’ convention experience.

National Conventions

emotionally unstable the perpetratorsof violence might be, the undue stressand tension in too many postal facili-ties had contributed to the violencethat had erupted over the previousseveral years—and that could occuragain. As a result, in late 1991, theNALC, the Service, two of the threeother postal unions and all threesupervisory organizations began meetings that led to an agreement thefollowing May to issue a statementSombrotto had essentially drafted con-

fronting head-on the underlying prob-lem of management abuse. By signingthe “Joint Statement on Violence andBehavior in the Workplace,” manage-ment acknowledged in black and whitethat it would take direct action toremove from their positions thoseindividuals—management and craftemployee alike—responsible forharassing, threatening or bullyingemployees.

The lofty words of the JointStatement and those of subsequent

1990-2002

agreements had limited impact, for thePostal Service refused to take actionagainst supervisors and postmasterswho threatened carriers and othercraft workers. Although at first theNALC could do little to rid postal

workplaces of abusive,if not necessarily vio-lent, supervisors andpostmasters, in August1996 a national arbi-trator ruled that byagreeing to the “JointStatement on Violenceand Behavior,” man-agement had assumeda contractual obliga-tion subject to thegrievance-arbitrationprocedure. As a result,in appropriate cases ofmanagement miscon-duct, arbitrators couldorder the Service toremove supervisors

from positions where they supervisedcarriers or other craft workers. In theyears that followed, NALC branchesfiled scores of “violence and behavior”grievances at the local level, and anumber of arbitrators directed theUSPS to remove supervisors from posi-tions supervising carriers and othercraft workers.

The NALC recognized that moder-ating the behavior of abusive man-agers was only one element, admitted-

ly an important one, in creating a lesscontentious and stressful work envi-ronment. Another was that in toomany facilities, management violatedthe collective bargaining agreementrepeatedly, forcing NALC branches to react by filing grievances. In theseworkplaces, grievances usually werepushed up the ladder, often to arbitration, thus creating backlogs ofthousands of grievances. Justice wasdelayed and thus denied, simultane-ously infuriating letter carriers andemboldening managers.

Resolving workplace disputes at thelocal level quickly—as well as prevent-ing them from surfacing in the firstplace—had long been a union objec-tive. From the late 1980s on, the unionencouraged joint experiments in thefield to create new dispute resolutionsystems to resolve grievances fairlyand expeditiously with the hope thatthe local parties would learn how toavoid problems in the future and thusdevelop a better relationship. An alter-native dispute resolution process—theoutgrowth of both the earlier experi-ments and top-level union-manage-ment discussions prompted by a 1994Government Accounting Office reportcritical of postal labor relations—wastested beginning in the late 1990s and,with then-Executive Vice PresidentWilliam H. Young shepherding andshaping the process for the union,more than met the expectations of itsproponents.

The process had two major goals: toresolve grievances more quickly, thusreducing the number of arbitrationsclogging up the system, and to achievegreater contract compliance, therebydecreasing the number of incidents oroccurrences giving rise to grievances. Inessence, the grievance-arbitration pro-cedure was reduced to two resolutionsteps prior to arbitration, with jointNALC-USPS dispute resolution teamscharged with resolving grievances once

By signing the “JointStatement on Violenceand Behavior in theWorkplace,” manage-ment acknowledged inblack and white that itwould take direct actionto remove from theirpositions those individ-uals responsible forharassing, threateningor bullying employees.

Efforts to end management’s

repeated violations of the col-

lective bargaining agreement

were a major focus of the

1997 Rap Session in Chicago.



1990-2002

the local parties had failed to do so. Thesuccess of this system was notinevitable, for without a commonunderstanding of the collective bargain-ing agreement, management and theunion could find themselves miredonce again in the grievance-arbitrationprocedure. In 1998, the parties pro-duced the Joint Contract AdministrationManual—JCAM for short—containingauthoritative, agreed-upon interpreta-tions of the National Agreement thatclarified contract language previouslymisunderstood and helped the jointresolution teams as well as NALC stew-ards and front-line managers resolvemany disputes that earlier would haveblossomed into grievances. However, itwas only when the alternative disputeresolution system was transformed intoa new Article 15 in the 2001-2006National Agreement that the unionreached the culmination of its lengthystruggle to ensure that justice was neither delayed nor denied.

At theBargaining

Table

The impact of automation on theletter carrier workplace alsodominated collective bargaining

during the 1990s—with the NALC, ledagain at the negotiating table byVincent R. Sombrotto, committed toprotecting the working conditions of

letter carriers in a more stressful envi-ronment while also ensuring that car-riers were fairly compensated for theadditional physical and mental bur-dens they carried. For management, alower-paid workforce with more part-time, short-term employees receivingfewer benefits was the goal. At each ofthe decade’s three rounds of negotia-tions, all resolved by an interest arbi-tration panel after the parties wereunable to reach agreements across thebargaining table, the Postal Serviceadopted a calculated strategy in sup-port of its position on how automationshould be implemented.

At the 1990 negotiations, manage-ment first tried to use automation as aclub to beat down the wages and bene-fits of bargaining-unit employees andweaken NALC and its long-time bar-gaining partner, the American PostalWorkers Union. As its “final offer,” theService put on the table proposals toincrease the number of part-time flexi-bles in large offices and expand the useof casuals—both part of its “flexibilityproposal”—and create a two-tier wagesystem by slotting new hires into atotally separate pay schedule with astarting wage—when inflation wastaken into account—that equaled

Top: President Vince

Sombrotto and

Postmaster General

Anthony M. Frank

exchange contract

proposals as

negotiations for the

1990 National

Agreement begin.

When talks failed

and the contract

went to arbitration in

1991, then-Assistant

Secretary-Treasurer

Bill Young helped

make NALC’s case

(bottom).


postal wages in the late 1940s. In addi-tion, management proposed reducedcost-of-living adjustments, one-timelump-sum payments instead of basicwage increases, and a cap on theService’s share of health insurance premiums. The NALC and the APWUimmediately rejected these proposals.

Although the arbitration panel thatultimately resolved the contract thefollowing year did not accept manage-ment’s most onerous wage proposalsfor existing employees, the panel clearly demonstrated its sympathy for management’s desire for greaterflexibility to accommodate theautomation of mail processing byexpanding the allowable number ofpart-time flexibles, and, more signifi-cantly, creating an entirely new category of temporary employee—transitional employees—to act as a“buffer” workforce until automationhad progressed to the point that theService could reduce its workforce.

The 1994 negotiations and the ensuing arbitration was a turning pointin the NALC’s bargaining experience,for postal automation was creating an

insurmountable wedge between theunion and the APWU, leading tosharply diverging positions on keyworkplace issues. At NALC’s AtlanticCity convention in 1994, delegatesdecided the union should “go it alone”at negotiations, then just days away.

The wisdom of the delegates’ deci-sion was validated at the 1995 arbitra-tion that inevitably followed the breakdown of negotiations when man-agement insisted on eliminating cost-of-living adjustments, replacing wageincreases with small one-time pay-ments, eliminating step increases andother regressive and totally unaccept-able proposals. At arbitration, theNALC not only vigorously opposed theService’s “give-back” proposals butalso called upon the panel to settle thecontract “on the basis of those criteriathat applied specifically to the lettercarrier craft,” arguing that deliverypoint sequencing—and especiallymanagement’s refusal to allow carriers

Letter carriers gave the 1999 arbitrators a crash

course in the “real world” of mail delivery in the

automated Postal Service, including casing mail in

delivery point sequence versus pre-DPS (right) and

the challenge of handling multiple bundles of mail

dressed for winter weather. Below, NALC members

testified about USPS on-the-street observation.

to case DPS mail—had made the job ofa letter carrier far more difficult, and,as a result, carriers should be upgrad-ed from Grade 5 to Grade 6 on thewage structure.

The arbitration panel was persuad-ed by many of the union’s arguments,but unfortunately sidestepped a num-ber of automation-related issues. Thepanel rejected most of management’sdemands, including those for lowerstarting salaries and the increased use of transitional employees whilegranting carriers wage increases inaddition to one-time payments andcontinuing cost-of-living adjustments.Unfortunate ly, the panel denied carri-ers Grade 6 pay. Tellingly, the paneladmitted that an upgrade should befavorably considered when DPS wasfully implemented, itself an issue incontention between the union andmanagement. Four years later the truesignificance of this language becameapparent—significance far greater thanwas fully appreciated at the time of thepanel’s award.

In 1998, the union again bargainedalone. Negotiations between the NALCand the Postal Service were cordial, butin the end money ruled, as manage-ment refused to grant the carriersappropriate wages increases. Yetdespite the formal expiration of theexisting contract, the parties continuedbargaining for an additional 90 daysand then entered into voluntary media-tion. Still, management could not bepersuaded to reward carriers adequatelyfor what the union argued was aunique contribution to the PostalService’s bottom line performed underincreasingly adverse circumstances.

As the mediator labored through thewinter and into the spring of 1999 topersuade the union and managementto resolve their differences over theeconomic package, Sombrotto sent amessage to the Postal Service. Hereached out to the union’s members

who, in response, loudly endorsedNALC’s position that, as a result ofautomation, they were working harderand under harsher conditions thanever before.

Once the mediator acknowledgedthat he was unable to bridge the dif-ferences between the parties, thus set-ting the stage for interest arbitration,the union took the next step—mount-ing a nationwide “in your face” publicrelations campaign that culminated ininformational picketing in front ofpost offices throughout the country.The union’s message, aimed at boththe public and management, wasdirect: due to automation, carrierswere working harder than everand deserved to be paid fairly fortheir efforts.

When the arbitration hearingsbegan in June, the union built itscase around the language in the1995 arbitration award suggestingthat an upgrade to Grade 6 shouldbe favorably considered whenDPS was fully implemented—which NALC argued had nowbeen achieved. Moreover, theunion argued that carrier wagescompared unfavorably with thoseof workers performing similarwork for the Service’s major competi-tors. The union’s case, however, restedmainly on the contention that DPSplaced greater physical and mentaldemands on letter carriers —which theunion effectively proved through thetesti mony of a variety of outsideexperts, national officers and keystaff, but especially the first-handaccounts and hands-on demon-strations of rank-and-file carriers.

Together these letter carriers edu-cated the arbitrators about the physi-cal wear and tear of extended time onthe street, the great likelihood ofinjury—especially in inclement weath-er—the difficulties of balancing multi-ple bundles and carrying heavier loads

1990-2002

Informational

picketing in

June 1999

demanded a

fair contract.


as well as additional problems—all aresult of DPS.

Sombrotto himself testified twicebefore the panel, highlighting much ofthe previous testimony and arguingthat the panel should “de-link” carriersfrom “inside” workers represented byother unions. “Historic parity mustyield to present reality,” he said,adding that “otherwise you shackle onegroup of employees unfairly to the dif-ferent problems faced by a differentgroup of employees.”

Finally, in mid-September 1999, thepanel issued an award that in additionto granting basic wages, continuingcost-of-living adjustments and improv-ing health care benefits, elevated allGrade 5 carriers to Grade 6. Thus forthe first time since city delivery beganin 1863, the pay scales of carriers weredivorced from those of postal clerks.NALC’s advocates, officers, staff, expertwitnesses and especially rank-and-fileletter carriers had convinced the panelthat as a result of delivery pointsequencing, carriers were workingboth harder and smarter under moredifficult conditions than ever—andcertainly hard enough to deserve anhistoric pay upgrade.

Perhaps as a result of the Grade 6decision, in 2001 managementapproached negotiations for a newcontract appearing to understand thatinterest arbitration was not withoutrisks. Or perhaps a more cooperativeattitude was prompted by the crum-bling of the World Trade Towers onSeptember 11, only a little more than


9/11/01Like all Americans, letter

carriers were deeply

affected by the terrorist

attacks of September 11,

2001. Although none of

the NALC members with

World Trade Center routes

were injured, all had to

cope with the knowledge

that they would never see

most of their customers

again. At left, a Branch 36

member opens a relay box

covered with homemade

fliers posted by New

Yorkers seeking word of

missing loved ones.

AP/WideWorld photo by Kathy Willens

Postal Recordcover at left cele-

brated historic

1999 arbitration

decision that

awarded Grade 6

pay to letter carri-

ers. Above, con-

tract talks for a

2001 National

Agreement began

with calls for a

negotiated accord.

1990-2002

two months before the expiration ofthe contract, as well as public anxietyabout the safety of the mail streamafter letters laced with anthrax, apotentially lethal bacteria, caused anumber of deaths and illnesses only afew weeks later. Moreover, with DPSfully implemented and with automa-tion no longer taking center stage, themost contentious issue of the 1990swas now quite literally off the table.Then too, the parties faced a commonthreat: the impact of the digital revolu-tion cutting into mail volume and, toan even greater extent, revenue.

Whatever the reasons, bargaining for a new contract was by far the most productive in years, if not decades,and, after negotiations had been post-poned for several months because ofthe anthrax attacks, in April 2002 theNALC and the Postal Service reachedan agreement that not only included afair economic package but also “codi-fied” the alternative dispute resolu-tion system the parties had beenshaping and refining for several years.Equally significant, the contract’sterm would run for an unprecedentedfive years, both an overt bid by theparties to create a period of stabilityduring which they could work tostrengthen the USPS’ long-term via-bility and a model for the other postal

unions that soon built upon theNALC’s accomplishment.

FromPrivatization to

Reform

By the time Vincent R. Sombrottobegan his second decade asNALC president, the union had

in place a sophisticated grassroots leg-islative and political network as well asa highly effective political action com-mittee—the Committee on LetterCarrier Political Education, betterknown as COLCPE. To the extent possi-ble within the limitations of the 1939Hatch Act restricting active postal andfederal employees’ participation innational politics, the union’s grassrootsoperation worked to elect letter carrier-friendly members of Congress andcommunicate to elected representativesNALC’s views on legislation under con-sideration on Capitol Hill. COLCPE, too,was a remarkably powerful politicalweapon, drawing upon the voluntarycontributions of active and retiredmembers to contribute to political campaigns and thus gain a voice in theCongress when letter carrier interestswere at stake. The entire legislative and


NALC’s legislative and political prowess beat back constant

political attacks in the 1990s to undermine the Postal

Service and decimate postal benefit programs. NALC

President Sombrotto is shown testifying before the House

Government Reform and Oversight Committee in 1995.

political operation was spear-headed by the union’s nation-al officers and staffed by threeWashington-based legislativeand political professionals,supplemented by five rotatinglegislative instructors whoorganized the union’s grass-roots field operations andtrained activists. This blend ofa Washington-based nervecenter with vigorous mem-bership support had enabledthe union in the precedingdecade to repel the vastmajority of legislative attackson carrier benefits and programs set by law.

Despite the union’s suc-cesses, constant politicalattacks on the Postal Service thatundermined its finances and chal-lenged its status as a public serviceand legislative threats to federal andpostal benefit programs, especiallythose affecting retirees, prompted the

union to renew its cam-paign to free active car-riers from the 1939Hatch Act limitingactive postal and feder-al employees’ partici-pation in the nation’spolitics. Althoughactive carriers couldvote, Hatch Actrestrictions preventedthem from engagingin virtually all otherpartisan activities.The NALC had longchampioned reform,if not outright repeal,of the Hatch Act andhad almost achievedthis goal in 1976. Theunion’s next bestshot came in 1990when, after

President George H.W. Bush vetoedreform legislation and the House hadoverridden his veto, the Senate felltwo votes short. Not until 1993 wasthe union able to mount another seri-ous run at Hatch Act reform. InSeptember of that year, both housesof Congress approved legislationgranting active carriers the right towork in partisan campaigns, holdparty office, serve as delegates topolitical conventions and speak outfor the candidate of their choosing. Afew weeks later, President William J.Clinton signed the bill and Hatch Actreform was, at long last, a reality.

In retrospect, Hatch Act reform wasjust one step, although a significantone, in the continued development ofthe NALC’s legislative and politicalapparatus, allowing the union to moreeffectively resist a revival of earlyassaults on the health and retirementbenefits of postal and federal employ-ees. “Un-Hatched” active membersalso helped the union combatrenewed efforts to siphon off USPSfunds to mask the ballooning federaldeficit—a maneuver NALC, the PostalService and other postal groups had

In 2000 The Postal Recordpublished a five-part series

examining the challenges

facing the Postal Service in

the 21st century. The series

was compiled into a booklet

distributed at NALC’s 62nd

Biennial Convention in

Chicago.


been only partially successful inresisting. Although by the end of thedecade, the government’s budget wasin the black and Congress had lessreason to deplete USPS revenues, thePostal Service remained an easy tar-get. Fortunately, NALC’s legislativeand political prowess beat backrepeated efforts in the late 1990s bycongressional representatives alliedwith the USPS’ competitors to compelthe Service to raise its prices as wellas refrain from offering specific prod-ucts to the public.

The passage of Hatch Act reformalso enabled the union to turn its legislative attention to other issuesbesides combating repeatedonslaughts by those hostile to workerinterests, the USPS itself, or both.President Sombrotto was convincedthat for the Postal Service to survivewell into the 21st century, reform ofthe outdated Postal ReorganizationAct of 1970 was a necessity. In 1994,he publicly called for new legisla-tion—“Postal Reorganization II”—to replace the existing statutory

structure and grant the Service thecommercial freedom to compete fairly with the private sector and sufficient regulatory flexibility toreact to changing economic andcommercial conditions.

Beginning in 1996 and continuinginto the new century, various reformbills were introduced in the Congress,all sharing the common goal of pro-viding the USPS with the pricing andproduct flexibility necessary to sur-vive in an economy characterized bythe rapidly increasing ability of citi-zens and businesses to communicateelectronically and thus bypass thePostal Service entirely. Unfortunately,however, the Service’s competitorsand others hostile to the survival of apublic postal service successfullyblocked reform efforts.

In December 2002, as Vincent R.Sombrotto concluded his 24-yearcareer as NALC’s national president,the postal reform legislation he hadfirst advocated and long championedremained an idea whose time had notyet come.

1990-2002

In honor of President Vincent R. Sombrotto’s

retirement, a special display of memorabilia

surveying his career was on exhibit during

the 2002 convention in Philadelphia. Right, a

group of delegates shows their appreciation

for his years of service to letter carriers.


2003-2014

MEETING THE CHALLENGESOF A DIGITAL AGE


T hat the digital revolution was destabilizing the Postal Service andthe union was obvious when William H. Young was installed asthe NALC’s 17th National President in December 2002.Beginning in 1998, electronic mail and electronic commerce

were diverting high-revenue first-class mail volume from the postal mailstream. Yet with the Postal Service delivering to new addresses each year,additional strains were being placed on the Service’s resources—and onletter carriers. What was crippling the Service, however, was the outdatedPostal Reorganization Act of 1970 that limited the USPS’ ability to competefairly with corporate rivals. The union’s support for legislation granting thePostal Service more flexibility and commercial freedom had not borne fruitwhen Young took office, and the future of the reform effort was uncertain.NALC was presented with a new challenge when George W. Bush createdthe President’s Commission on the Postal Service days before Young’sinstallation. Fearing the Commission would advocate the privatization ofthe Postal Service, the elimination of private express statutes and even theabolition of collective bargaining, Young drew a line in the sand in early2003. He informed the Commission that NALC’s support for reform legisla-tion required the Service’s gaining commercial freedom to survive in achallenging environment, while leaving intact the collective-bargainingprocess and the Postal Service’s universal mandate to provide delivery toevery household and business in America six days a week. When theCommission’s report attacked the pay, benefits and collective-bargainingrights of carriers and other craft employees, the NALC quickly and loudlyopposed the Commission’s regressive proposals while acknowledging thereport contained positive recommendations.

In early 2003, as the NALC parriedwith the President’s Commission, theU.S. Office of Personnel Management,acknowledging the Service had been“overpaying” its obligations to the CivilService Retirement Fund, drafted legisla-tion to recalculate the USPS’ fundingrequirements. In support, NALC securedthe assistance of its allies in the postalcommunity, including postal manage-ment and organizations representinglarge mailers. The union also mobilizedits grassroots legislative network to letCongress know its views. As a result, afunding reform bill estimated to save thePostal Service $77 billion over 40 yearsemerged from Congress in late winter of2003 and was signed by Bush that April.Postal reform legislation did not

gain the full attention of Congress until2004. Young testified before House andSenate committees, but bills thatpassed both committees unanimouslyin the spring were never brought to thefloor of the House or the Senate.Legislation was re-introduced in bothchambers in early 2005, with the NALC,its grassroots legislative network andpolitical action fund revitalized, well-positioned to influence the debate. Ironically, electronic mail, one of the

major threats to the Postal Service,proved to be a lifeline for the union. In2003, soon after he assumed the presi-dency, Young created an electronic leg-islative network of “e-Activists” to receivee-mail messages on legislative develop-ments. Through links to congressionaloffices, the network also enabled e-Activists to communicate the union’spositions on key legislative issues totheir representatives and senators. Inthe two years prior to the summer of2006, Young sent 24 messages, mainlyabout postal reform and NALC-endorsedcandidates, to over 72,000 e-mailaddresses, with another 70,000 legisla-tive activists mobilized by postal mail.As committed as he was to employ-

ing technology to further the union’s

legislative goals, Young recognized the value of “boots on the ground.” In January 2006, he unveiled a newgrassroots infrastructure—a “Field Plan”to enhance the legislative program theunion had created in the early 1980s.Marrying NALC’s grassroots lobbyingwith political activism, the union wouldwork with elected officials on pendinglegislation and with candidates pledgedto support the NALC. Like the earliereffort, the Field Plan placed congres-sional district liaisons, appointed by thestate legislative chairs, in every congres-sional district. Under the new plan,liaisons would work with NALC’sNational Business Agents and statechairs on a broader agenda—organ-izing phone banks, recruiting volun-teers for precinct walks, and manag-ing get-out-the vote campaigns withstate political parties and otherunions. When the need arose, thenetwork would mount demonstra-tions to call the public’s attentionto letter carrier concerns. Since in politics money talks,

Young understood that intermit-tent direct mail solicitations for theunion’s political action fund—theCommittee on Letter CarrierPolitical Education, or COLCPE—did not provide a consistentstream of contributions. Beginning in2003, members could choose to con-tribute to COLCPE by payroll andannuity deduction and directly fromchecking accounts. A better-fundedCOLCPE would prove invaluable asCongress struggled to craft legislationsatisfactory to the postal communityand the Bush administration. By late July 2005, the full House of

Representatives had passed a reformbill, and a similar bill had been votedout of committee in the Senate.Although USPS’ Board of Governorsdelayed Senate action with last-minuteobjections to a number of governanceprovisions, the Senate unanimously

2003-2014


In 2003, NALC created an “e-Activist” network to quicklygenerate e-mail messagesupdating legislative activists onthe latest developments onCapitol Hill and to allow e-Activists to communicateNALC’s positions electronicallyto their elected representatives.As of mid-2014, approximately54,000 e-Activists were receiv-ing some 30 messages a year,with approximately a quarter ofthe e-Activists contacting theirrepresentatives and senatorswhen asked.

passed a reform bill in February 2006. Yetthe union was not satisfied with either theHouse or Senate bills because the rate-set-ting mechanism limited future rate hikesto the rate of inflation. Because the billshad to be blended into one bill that couldpass both houses of Congress and meetNALC’s concerns, the union worked withHouse and Senate staff, mailer representa-tives and other stakeholders to forge bythe end of September a compromise thatincluded a process for implementingemergency rate increases above the rate ofinflation and a one-time special proceed-ing to adjust postage rates before theinflation index went into effect. The Bush administration then pro-

posed provisions to tilt the interest arbi-tration process toward management’sfavor. Although these were defeated, theunion rejected the bill because two provi-sions in the Senate bill unfairly singledout postal employees receiving workers’compensation. When one provision wasdropped after the November elections,Young reluctantly decided neither toendorse nor oppose the compromise bill,and the Postal Accountability andEnhancement Act became law in lateDecember 2006. Despite its limitations,the bill protected bargaining rights for let-ter carriers and other postal employees,preserved the USPS in the public sectorand retained universal service for theAmerican people, funded by a regulatedpostal monopoly. The NALC presidentalso assumed, as did Congress and virtu-ally the entire postal community, that thelegislation’s limited pricing and productflexibility provisions would stabilize theService’s finances. Unanticipated circum-stances and a largely overlooked provi-sion dashed these modest expectations.

Preserving carrier jobs

While Young was aggressively champi-oning postal reform legislation, he was

COLCPE

The evolution of NALC’s activities

since 1974, soliciting voluntary

political contributions from the

union’s members, tracks the explo-

sive growth and sophistication of

political fundraising in general.

Spurred by the 1974 amendments

to the Federal Election Campaign

Act defining how political action

committees could operate, NALC

formed a small political fund that

year to raise voluntary funds to

contribute to House and Senate candidates. The fund was formally

named the Committee on Letter Carrier Political Education, or COLCPE, the

next year. At first, the union solicited contributions largely through announce-

ments in the NALC Bulletin and The Postal Record as well as collections at

NALC events, raising only a small amount of money—a solicitation in the

August and September 1977 Postal Records garnering $34,000 was COLCPE’s

most successful effort to that point. Normally, individual checks and envelopes

with cash would arrive at Headquarters, where they would accumulate for

weeks before being deposited.

It was not until 1981 that the union initiated its first direct-mail COLCPE cam-

paign—“Budget Battle ’81”—which raised over $250,000. Subsequent direct-mail

campaigns soon followed, and by the mid-1980s, COLCPE was raising more

than a $1 million nearly every year. But in July 2003, with political campaigns

increasingly expensive and fundraising more sophisticated, the union was able to

put into effect what it had first proposed at 1978 negotiations—a system for

allowing voluntary contributions to be deducted automatically from active mem-

bers’ paychecks. This was followed the next year by provisions for automatic vol-

untary deductions from retirees’ annuities as well as contributions directly from

members’ checking and savings accounts through electronic funds transfer.

Since 2003, the amount of money raised for COLCPE as well as the number

of members contributing have both increased dramatically. Close to $7 million

was projected to be raised in the 2013-14 election cycle (calendar years), com-

pared with $1,390,000 in the 2001-2002 cycle, the last full election cycle before

automatic contributions became available to NALC members. During the 2001-

2002 cycle, over 17,500 active and retired members contributed to COLCPE,

but for the 2013-2014 cycle, at least 30,000 members were projected to con-

tribute to the union’s political action fund, with well over 90 percent of the con-

tributors utilizing one of the automatic contribution methods.

Of those members contributing to COLCPE, the percentage contributing via

automatic deductions has increased every election cycle since 2003-2004, as

has the average contribution, with more and more members embracing the

union’s “Gimme Five” program, created in early 2006, to encourage members

to contribute $5 each pay period. Nevertheless, for COLCPE to raise the ever-

increasing amounts of money necessary to further the union’s legislative goals,

many more active and retired members must contribute automatically through

payroll and annuity deductions as well as directly from their checking and sav-

ings accounts.


faced with workplace issues arising fromthe impact of the digital revolution onUSPS finances. As revenue decreased,management cut the number of postalemployees, including city carriers whowere delivering to more addresses.Routes became longer, overtime bal-looned, and the carrier’s job grew muchmore difficult—leading to heightenedworkplace tensions. Fortunately, the2001-2006 National Agreement hadincorporated the alternative dispute res-olution process Young had earlier nur-tured. By streamlining the grievance-arbitration procedure and giving thelocal parties the tools to resolve the bulkof their disputes themselves or with theaid of joint dispute resolution teams,arbitration became an alternative foronly the most intractable problems.Nonetheless, in some post offices,

animosity on the workroom floor andbetween branch leaders and manage-ment created “war-zone” workplaces.Young recognized a more directapproach was needed. In 2003, theunion and the Postal Service designedan “intervention” process that by theend of 2005 was helping local partiesreduce workplace acrimony.Historically, arguments about over-

burdened routes and whether routeinspections and adjustments were con-ducted fairly had been the majorsources of workplace tensions and localunion-management conflict. As thenumber of routes declined because ofpostal automation and, beginning in thelate 1990s, eroding mail volume, fair and

appropriate route inspections andadjustments were crucial. In early 2003,a national joint route inspection taskforce was formed to improve routeadjustments and inspections. Althoughthe task force reached tentative agree-ments, by early 2004 NALC had conclud-ed local management was a roadblockto progress, and in April, Young negotiat-ed an agreement to halt route inspec-tions for five months so local partiescould verify counts of cased mail.With much of the mail arriving at

the carrier’s case in delivery pointsequence, the union believed an entire-ly new method for inspecting andadjusting routes was necessary and thatunion must be involved in shaping andimplementing the new method. At theunion’s National Convention inHonolulu in July 2004, delegates author-ized NALC’s Executive Council to buildupon Young’s idea that route adjust-ments be based on the average of lettercarrier’s street and office times over aspecified period of weeks or monthsselected by the local union.Although not endorsing NALC’s

approach, management agreed towork with the union to develop afair process. In early August, theparties extended for a year the jointtask force and the April moratori-um on traditional inspections toallow local parties to develop jointmethods to adjust routes as thenational parties created a newUSPS-wide system. Unfortunately,in December 2004 the Service

In testimony before thePresident’s Commission onthe Postal Service in late April2003, NALC President WilliamH. Young addressed laborrelations and collective-bargaining rights.

2003-2014

terminated the 21-month joint effort,reaffirming its positionthat any new processmust incorporate theDelivery OperationsInformation System(DOIS), a highly subjective computer-ized mail measurement system theunion had already rejected. In response,the union created a “Route ProtectionProgram”—a reprise of the “Truth Squad”initiatives of 1991 and 1994—to helpbranch officers and stewards monitormanagement’s actions. Simultaneously,Young tried to revive negotiations for afairer route evaluation system, but man-agement rebuffed his efforts throughout2005 and into 2006. As a result, whenthe parties opened negotiations in latesummer of 2006, whether an agreementcould be reached accommodating theadditional physical and mental demandsplaced on letter carriers by automationand the digital revolution’s impact onUSPS finances remained in doubt.

NALC’s main bargaining goals wereclear: Win wage increases to reward car-riers for their contributions to the USPSand find a way to evaluate and adjustroutes accurately. The union also want-ed to address the growing threat ofContract Delivery Service, a more insid-ious version of Highway ContractRoutes. Young was blunt: If the Servicewanted good relationships with theunion, management would have toagree to substantial improvements inthe contract’s outsourcing provisions.But NALC also understood manage-ment wanted relief from skyrocketing

health care costs andoffered to discuss the cre-ation of a letter carrier-only health plan withinthe Federal EmployeesHealth Benefits Program. As talks progressed dur-

ing the fall and progresswas made on several routeinspection issues, the par-ties recognized the stickingpoint was subcontracting.As an alternative to out-sourcing, to accommodatemanagement’s desire tocut costs, the union pro-

posed moving most carriers to a Monday-Friday schedule while creating a Saturdayworkforce of new carriers and retired let-ter carriers. It appeared a deal could bereached, but the Postal Service’s govern-ing body—the Board of Governors—rebuffed any subcontracting limitations.Negotiations were extended briefly, butby early December, negotiations had bro-ken down, and the union prepared forinterest arbitration while informing themembership of the stakes in the out-sourcing battle.In late January 2007 in Los Angeles,

1,500 NALC activists heard Young describehow management had expanded out-sourcing by increasing the use of HighwayContract Routes in 2005 for delivery workand then re-branded the program in 2006


Hundreds of NALC members, joined by a contingent of rural carriers, marched through Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2007,to USPS’ headquarters to protest the practice of contracting out.

as Contract Delivery Service to insert low-paid delivery into growing urban andsuburban areas. Young announced theunion would respond by aggressivelyenforcing contract provisions restrictingsubcontracting, strengthening theserestrictions through interest arbitration ofthe new contract, and using congression-al allies to pressure management toreverse course.During the late winter and spring of

2007, waves of letter carrier activistsswarmed Washington, D.C., bringing theunion’s messages to their elected repre-sentatives. The union also cranked upits relatively new e-Activist program togenerate letters, e-mails and phone callsasking legislators to oppose USPS out-

sourcing. Young testified beforeCongress, and the union rallied in frontof postal headquarters in Washington,sparking waves of rallies and protestsaround the country. This activism led tothe introduction in the Senate of an out-right legislative ban on, and bi-partisanmajority support for a sense of theHouse Resolution opposing contractdelivery. Facing massive political oppo-sition on Capitol Hill and waves of nega-tive publicity throughout the country,the Postal Service sued for peace and inJune returned to the bargaining table.Within weeks, the parties agreed to a

five-year tentative contract that main-tained the traditional pattern of wageincreases and semi-annual cost-of-liv-


LeadershipAcademy

To equip the next generation of union lead-

ers with the skills and knowledge necessary

to meet the union’s future challenges as

well as enhance the capabilities of those already

holding branch and state association leadership

positions, the NALC initiated a national

Leadership Academy in the summer of 2005. The

first class consisted of 30 branch activists select-

ed from a pool of more than 300 applicants, each sponsored by a

local mentor—in most cases, their branch presidents.

Since that initial class, the union has brought two classes each year

to facilities in the Washington, D.C.-area for three separate weeks of

classroom learning spread over a sixth-month period. Between the ses-

sions, students are expected to spend at least 80 hours of their time

pursuing take-home assignments and special projects back home under

the tutelage of their mentors—established NALC leaders such as

branch presidents and national business agents who continue monitor-

ing them after the conclusion of the formal program.

Retired national officers have coordinated the Academy’s program

and curriculum, tapping into the expertise of a number of NALC resi-

dent officers, Headquarters staff, and outside experts to teach class-

es on a variety of topics during the three weeks of formal instruction.

Although the subjects have changed over time, staples include labor

history, group dynamics, negotiating techniques, union finance and

administration, effective teaching, postal economics, workers’ com-

pensation, contract interpretation, and strategic planning.

Although each week also emphasizes effective written and oral com-

munication skills, the second week especially hones these skills, requir-

ing written reports and oral presentationsfrom students about their take-

home projects. In addition, students are required to make repeated oral

presentations to prepare them to perform in such forums as membership

meetings, awards ceremonies and dinners. Although challenging for

many participants, public speaking is a key skill for future union leaders.

The 16th Leadership Academy class graduated in December

2014, and the 17th class in June 2014, with additional classes

scheduled for the future. In all, approximately 500 activists had

graduated from the Leadership Academy by mid-2014.

Although many graduates have filled leadership roles both as offi-

cers at all levels of the union and in other union capacities, the

Academy’s main purpose is to provide students with the tools and

information necessary to assist their local leaders in fulfilling the

goals of the branch.

2003-2014


ing adjustments.NALC reluctantlyaccepted a reducedemployer contribu-tion for health bene-fits based on the

pattern previously set by two sisterpostal unions. The contract alsoreplaced casuals with bargaining-unittransitional employees to facilitate theimplementation of the flats sequencingsystem, and it set the stage for the jointdevelopment of a new route evaluationsystem. But for Young, the most impor-tant accomplishments were the newprotections against subcontracting,specifically a Memorandum ofUnderstanding prohibiting contractingout of existing letter carrier work for thelife of the contract and a ban on out-sourcing new delivery in offices whereonly city carriers work. A second mem-orandum created a task force to developa long-term understanding on contract-ing out and established a six-monthmoratorium on new delivery outsourcing

in offices otherwise not protected. Inall, the contract contained the first newrestrictions on subcontracting in morethan 30 years, and in September 2007,the membership ratified the contract bya margin of 9 to 1.

USPS in troubleAs NALC negotiators preserved car-

rier jobs and the integrity of the bar-gaining unit, the Postal Service wasfacing financial problems the PostalAccountability and Enhancement Actof 2006 was not equipped to amelio-rate and had, in fact, exacerbated.Although by late 2007, the economicdownturn later dubbed “The GreatRecession” was underway, althoughnot apparent to either economists orthe American public, the “postal recession” had started in mid-2007 ase-mail and electronic bill-paying cutinto the volume of high-revenue mail.From January through March 2008,

Although the history of letter carriers and

their union reaches way back into the 19th

century, it’s only been in recent decades

that NALC has taken concrete steps to preserve

the union’s records and artifacts to allow both

members and researchers explore the history of

one of America’s oldest labor unions.

Since the early 1980s, the union’s Information

Center has maintained a comprehensive records

system to safeguard NALC’s working papers and

historic legacy. Toward this end, each year unnec-

essary or redundant files are destroyed and recent

and vital records are routinely stored in a climate-

controlled records storage area in the Headquar-

ters building. Branch officers also receive informa-

tion and training on retaining, storing, and correctly

disposing of paper and electronic records.

Not all of the union’s records retained for pos-

sible use in the short term for legal and adminis-

trative purposes are deemed of historical impor-

tance. Those judged to have possible long-

standing historical value for members and schol-

ars alike are shipped to the union’s official

archival depository, the Archives of Labor and

Urban Affairs at the Walter P. Reuther Library at

Wayne State University in Detroit, the union’s

official archival depository since 2001 and widely

regarded as the nation’s foremost repository of

records of the American labor movement.

In many ways, NALC’s extensive collection at

the Reuther Library is a legacy of the large, com-

prehensive exhibit at NALC’s Centennial

Celebration in Milwaukee in August 1989, which

displayed the union’s original historic documents,

photographic and video images of letter carriers

and union events, as well artifacts related to the

history of letter carriers and the NALC. Many of

these valuable historical materials are now locat-

ed at the Reuther Archives where, augmented

periodically by more recent materials sent from

Headquarters, they are being professionally pre-

served for posterity, research, and future display

by the NALC, the Archives, the National Postal

Museum, and other museums for historic exhibits.

PreservingNALC’s past

Postmaster General JackPotter and NALCPresident William H.Young signed the 2006-2011 National Agreement.


first-class mail volume fell 3.5 percent,steepest drop since the 9/11 attacks.Overall mail volume for all of FiscalYear 2008 declined by 4.5 percent fromthe previous fiscal year—the worstdecline since the 1930s. As the nation’seconomic downturn became painfullyobvious at the end of 2008 and thebeginning of 2009, the decrease in mailvolume and thus revenue continued.Advertising mail dried up, and transac-tions volume fell sharply because thecrisis had hit such mail-intensiveindustries as housing, real estate andbanking. Overall mail volume plum-meted by 24.2 percent from Fiscal Year2007 to Fiscal Year 2010, with first-classvolume declining at approximately thesame rate. Postal Service employment,already decreasing, continued to con-tract, dropping by roughly 14 percentbetween mid-2007 and mid-2010, andthe number of city carriers fell from222,000 in March 2007 to under 210,000three years later. As the USPS’ financial condition

deteriorated, a fatal flaw in the 2006reform law became apparent. NALCknew the legislation would have to beamended—it was “too little, too late”since the postal industry was changingand Republicans in the 109th Congresshad blocked many of the provisionsNALC believed essential. Yet at thetime of passage, NALC’s major concernwas the unfairness of a workers’ com-pensation provision imposing on onlyinjured postal employees a mandatorythree-day waiting period before OWCPbenefits could begin. What had notespecially concerned the union normost postal stakeholders was therequirement that the Postal Service“pre-fund” the health benefits of futureretirees according to an amortizationschedule requiring the Service to pay$5.6 billion per year for 10 years. Hard-wired into the law without regard toeconomic conditions, the pre-fundingmandate was a burden no other com-

pany in the nation shouldered. Thisdid not appear to be an immediateproblem when the law was enacted.Postal revenues were increasing, andmanagement was able to build the costof pre-funding payments permanentlyinto postage rates during the specialrate proceeding authorized by the lawto occur within one year of enactment.But as the nation’s economy fell apartin 2007 and 2008, the Service chose notto raise rates. As a result, the Servicepaid more than $12 billion between thebeginning of 2007 and the end of 2009to pre-fund future retiree health bene-fits, turning its healthy balance sheetdeep red.For Fredric V. Rolando, who in July

2009 had assumed the union’s helm asits 18th president upon the retirementof William H. Young, confronting thepostal financial crisis was his top priori-ty. In September 2009, following a sum-mer of grassroots lobbying led by NALC,Congress enacted a one-year $4 billionreduction in the scheduled pre-fundingpayment, which helped the USPS sur-vive the worst year of the GreatRecession. Nonetheless, by early 2010,the Postal Service was still suffering thedouble-whammy of pre-fundingexpenses anddeclining mailvolume. Withno visible signsof robust eco-nomic growthnecessary toprop up mailvolume and rev-enue, postalmanagementsaw an oppor-tunity to slashjobs. In March 2010, the Service pub-licly unveiled an overall recovery planthat included legislative and operationalchanges, most notably a proposal elimi-nating Saturday mail delivery. The planassumed dramatic and unrealistic mail


2003-2014

William H. Young installedFredric V. Rolando as the18th NALC president onJuly 2, 2009.

volume decreases, a worsening mail-mix and, with delivery points increas-ing, enormous financial losses.For Rolando, the Service’s plan con-

tained the “good, the bad, and theugly.” The new NALC presidentapplauded the legislative proposalsrepealing the pre-funding mandate,developing new products and services,and employing flexible demand-basedpricing. Unequivocally opposed to theService’s veiled call to hire more low-wage, part-time workers and closesmall post offices, he was enraged bythe Service’s intention to eliminateSaturday mail collections and delivery,a move he knew would lead to a“vicious cycle” of reduced service driv-ing mailers away, thus increasing rev-enue short-falls requiring further cost-cutting measures. In fact, in May 2010,Postmaster General Jack Potter admit-ted his real goal was four-day delivery. To save Saturday delivery, Rolando, his

fellow officers and the NALC legislativestaff, joined by thousands of letter carrieractivists, lobbied Congress throughout2010 and 2011 to guarantee the FiscalYear 2011 budget would retain a “rider”requiring the USPS to maintain six-daydelivery—a provision first adopted in1983 and renewed every year afterward.

The union also intervened in theService’s case before the PostalRegulatory Commission seekingapproval for eliminating Saturday deliv-ery, and argued in local and nationalmedia outlets for retaining Saturdaydelivery. In March 2011, theCommission, citing union evidence,concluded the USPS had overstatedfuture savings from cutting Saturdaydelivery. The PRC’s opinion and NALC’Srecruitment of small businesses to sup-port Saturday delivery persuadedCongress to retain the six-day deliverymandate in the Fiscal Year 2011 budget.Although buoyed by its success, NALC

understood the Postal Service’s financialcrisis required legislation to relieve theService of its pre-funding burden and togrant it flexibility to develop and pricefairly new products and services. Thistask was made all the more difficult bythe election of an anti-government andanti-worker majority in the House ofRepresentatives in the 2010 mid-termselections. In April 2011, a bill was intro-duced in the House to dramaticallyreduce the impact of the pre-fundingmandate, and in the fall, the union organ-ized more than 500 rallies at the field offi-cers of House members rallying support.Yet the legislation faltered as the anti-labor, pro-privatization House Oversightand Government Reform Committeemoved ahead with a bill offering theService no relief from the pre-fundingrequirement, eliminating Saturday deliv-ery as well as door-to-door delivery to 40million households and businesses, andthe closing of thousands of post offices—a death sentence for the USPS. Despite substantial opposition, H.R.

2309 was jammed through the commit-tee on a party-line vote in October.Tossing fuel on the fire, PostmasterGeneral Patrick Donahoe in March 2012endorsed “practically everything” in thebill, consistent with his announcementweeks earlier to eliminate overnightdelivery of first-class mail by shutting


NALC members rallied withother postal workers nation-wide on September 27,2011, as part of an initiativecalled “Save America’sPostal Service.” The multi-union effort was designed togenerate support for a leg-islative proposal that wouldhelp the USPS withoutdegrading service. Picturedabove are carriers inLincoln, Nebraska.

over half of the Service’s mail processingplants. NALC immediately intervenedbefore the Postal Regulatory Commis-sion, arguing that cutting speed andquality of service would drive away busi-ness. Nonetheless, without waiting forthe Commission’s advisory opinion, theService implemented its plan in May. Spurred by the PMG’s announcement

to close plants, the Senate resuscitated S. 1789, a reform bill first drafted in 2011.NALC opposed the legislation when itcame before the full Senate in the springof 2012 because it provided insignificantrelief to the Service from the mandate topre-fund future retiree health benefits,permitted the elimination of Saturdaydelivery within two years if postal man-agement decided it was necessary, andslashed workers’ compensation benefitsfor postal employees. Despite NALC’sopposition, which included national ral-lies at Senate field offices in all 50 states,the Senate passed S. 1789 in April 2012.With the Senate having passed

harmful legislation, and the moredestructive House bill awaiting a vote ofthe full body, the union acted. In July, Rolando employed the union’s rapid-firee-Activist network to ask members tolobby their representatives to preventH.R. 2309 from reaching the Housefloor. Almost simultaneously, the unionpresident held a tele-town hall withthousands of letter carriers to discussthe crisis, which soon became more pre-carious. The postmaster generalannounced on August 1 that the Servicewould not make its $5.6 billion fiscalyear pre-funding payment for futureretiree health benefits due September30—a “default,” congressional criticsand an uninformed media corpsclaimed. In response, Rolando, joinedby other resident officers, national busi-ness agents and branch presidents inkey media markets, explained to thepublic that no other agency or companyin America had to pre-fund futureretiree health benefits, the payment

comprising the bulk of the Service’slosses for that fiscal year. Nonetheless,the Service’s failure to make theSeptember 30 payment ignited anotherbarrage of negative media stories andcalls to end Saturday delivery.

Bargainingunder duressFor the NALC, savoring its success in

negotiating the 2006-2011 contract wasshort-lived. Due to the economic reces-sion and the pre-funding mandate in the2006 reform legislation, the PostalService’s financial condition deterioratedrapidly in 2008 and 2009. Fortunately,the 2006 contract’s sub-contracting pro-visions provided a bulwark against out-sourcing good city delivery jobs, butthese provisions required implementa-tion and monitoring. Under the 2006 National Agreement,

the parties established a six-month mora-torium on new Contract Delivery Servicecontracts while a committee would devel-op a long-term understanding of theissues. The moratorium was extendedtwice, and in October 2008, the union andthe Postal Service banned new CDS routesfor the remainder of the five-year con-tract, thus guaranteeing that, for the firsttime in more than 30 years, themajority of new deliveries would bedelivered by city carriers. TheOctober agreement also set rules forassigning new deliveries in officeswhere city carriers worked alongsiderural letter carriers and individualsdelivering highway contract routes.By the spring of 2010, NALC’s shareof all delivery work, which had

2003-2014

Even as NALC wasworking to guide legisla-tive solutions for its fiscalcrisis, the union enteredcontract negotiationswith the Postal Servceon August 18, 2011.


declined from 85 percent in the 1970sto 70 percent in 2005, had stabilized.Nonetheless, the sharp decline in

mail volume in 2008 and 2009, cou-pled with the financial burden of thepre-funding requirement had led to ashedding of carrier jobs despite pop-ulation growth adding deliverypoints. With letter carriers underincreasing stress, evaluating andadjusting their routes fairly was cru-cial. A provision in the new contracthad established a joint route evalua-tion task force, which by the time ofthe union’s 2008 convention inBoston was fully operational andready to begin testing the union’s andthe Postal Service’s alternatives. As aresult, three alternate route adjust-ment programs were implementedover the next three years, all intendedto ensure fair route adjustments andreduce stress and conflict.Common to all three programs

was an effort to adjust routes as nearly as possible to eight hoursbased on the regular letter carrier’sactual average office and street timesover a period of time. Declining mailvolume led NALC and USPS to usedata from May and September 2008,and about 90,000 routes were adjust-ed. Beginning in April 2009, a secondprocess with slight modifications wasused to adjust some 150,000 routes.In May 2010, the union and thePostal Service established the JointAlternate Route Adjustment Processthat, like its predecessors, gave carri-ers a role in the evaluation andadjustment process and also provid-ed that no adjustment be made with-out the consent of both local parties.A subsequent version of JARAPimproved training and placed moreauthority at the local level. Together,these joint processes saved the USPSbillions of dollars by adjusting routessubstantially faster than had beenthe case.

NALC MEMBERSHIP1889-2014

The numbers below shed light on one important aspect of the history of the NALC

—the union’s growth and contraction.

No official record gives the exact number of branches in 1895, but in the early

years of the union, branches were numbered sequentially, and Norristown, PA Branch

542 was founded on May 27, 1895, with additional branches chartered during the rest

of the year. The number of branches grew over the next several decades as popula-

tion centers sprung up throughout the country—especially in the years after World War

II. But in 1970, convention delegates, recognizing that collective bargaining required

larger branches with the resources to better represent the membership, amended the

NALC Constitution to allow branches to merge. Ever since, the number of branches

has declined sharply.

The uneven growth in the number of NALC members requires more explanation.

The 60-members figure in 1889 reflects the number of delegates attending the union’s

Milwaukee, Wisconsin organizing meeting. Almost immediately, the organization

increased its membership significant-

ly, as local letter carrier groups

formed into branches aligned with

the new national union. The growth

in membership increased irregularly

for several decades in reaction to

changing economic conditions affect-

ing rates of household formation and

mail volume and thus the number of

city carriers on the USPS rolls.

Membership increased dramatically

in 1960 when the NALC Health

Benefit Plan became part of the

Federal Employees Health Benefit

Program, and tens of thousands of

letter carriers joined the union to take

advantage of the Plan. An upsurge

in mail volume in the 1980s and

1990s was accompanied by a paral-

lel increase in union membership,

peaking in the late 1990s. But as

mail volume plummeted during the

early 21st century, the union’s mem-

bership also declined. The surge of

city carrier assistants into the craft

beginning in the spring of 2013 sug-

gests the possibility of a leveling-off

in the union’s membership, and even

a possibility of growth in future years.

Ultimately, however, mail volume

trends and the fate of Saturday deliv-

ery and door-to-door delivery will

largely determine the number of

NALC members.

Year Members Numberof Branches

1889 60 —

1895 8,000 541

1900 14,000 760

1905 17,000 1,056

1910 27,000 1,385

1915 32,000 1,694

1920 35,000 1,876

1925 49,000 2,400

1930 58,000 3,483

1935 59,000 3,084

1940 67,000 3,784

1945 68,000 3,871

1950 103,000 4,234

1955 104,000 4,610

1960 115,000 5,532

1965 174,000 6,312

1970 212,000 6,605

1975 232,000 5,379

1980 235,000 4,656

1985 279,000 3,933

1990 312,000 3,554

1995 314,000 3,141

2000 313,000 2,803

2005 301,000 2,500

2010 280,000 2,232

2014 271,000 2,047


Unfortunately, management revertedto its adversarial stance when, in August2011, just days before talks were to beginfor a new contract, USPS called uponCongress to eliminate the no-layoff provi-sions in union contracts to facilitate mas-sive downsizing, and also to permit thePostal Service to unilaterally replace fed-eral pension and health benefit programswith the Service’s own programs.President Rolando and his negotiatingteam responded at the bargaining tablethat, although the NALC was open to cost-saving innovations, the union would fightto preserve wages and benefits achievedover decades. NALC also made it clear itwould accept no contract that did notpreserve COLAs and the subcontractingrestrictions won in the 2006 contract. All through the fall, the parties

explored the complex issues inherent inestablishing a postal-only health plan.They also discussed USPS proposals tosignificantly increase the size of the non-career workforce, following a pattern setin the APWU contract. NALC resisted theService’s demands while also insisting thatnon-career carriers have a path to careerjobs. As the November 20 expiration ofthe existing contract neared, postal man-agement cut off the talks and pulled out ofthe Joint Alternate Route AdjustmentProcess, then 18 months old, thus erodingthe gains in mutual cooperation and costsavings that had been achieved. Althoughthe contract was extended three times,when the parties failed to reach an agree-ment by January 20, 2012, the USPSdeclined to continue bargaining, trigger-ing in mid-February a 60-day mediationperiod. With management refusing toaccept NALC’s demands on subcontract-ing and a career path for non-career lettercarriers, mediation failed, and by earlyApril the parties began to prepare forinterest arbitration.With Shyam Das, a highly respected

and experienced arbitrator, as chair,joined by arbitrators representing theUSPS and the NALC, the three-person

arbitration panel heard the parties open-ing statements in early September.During the following months, both theNALC and the USPS submitted writtentestimony from key officials as well as out-side expert witnesses, and the arbitratorsconferred frequently. In January 2013, thepanel issued its final and binding awardfor a four-and-a-half year contract. Inaddition to providing for general wageincreases and maintaining cost-of-livingadjustments, the panel preserved the no-layoff clause and extended the subcon-tracting ban in the 2006 contract, whileadding a provision ensuring that newdelivery work arising from the develop-ment of new services on city carrier routeswould be assigned to city carriers. Thearbitrators also reduced the starting wagesfor new career letter carriers while main-taining the career letter carrier top-steppay and maintaining the 12.4 years neces-sary to reach he top step, and reduced theService’s share of the health care premiumover a five-year period. The panel’s mostsignificant decision was to replace non-career transitional employees with a newand larger category of non-career lettercarriers—city carrier Assistants. In creat-ing the new position, the arbitrators alsoaccepted the union’s proposals to createan all full- time career workforce by phas-ing out part-time flexible carriers and giv-ing CCAs the opportunity to fill availablefull-time career positions, an option tran-sitional employees never had.By extending the restrictions on sub-

contracting and ensuring that city carri-ers would be delivering new productsand services on their routes, the unionhad succeeded in preserving letter carri-er jobs. Although the Das board followedthe APWU pattern and ordered the cre-ation of city carrier assistants and lowersteps for career carriers, the job of a lettercarrier remained a good job with goodpay and benefits. If the early years ofCCA employment would not be as remu-nerative as they had been for career lettercarriers in the immediate past, the new

2003-2014


contract provided a pathway to careerwages and benefits. With the Americaneconomy staggering and the USPS itselfrecording massive losses, the panel hadnevertheless thrown a lifeline to tens ofthousands of future letter carriers, even ifthe lifeline was longer than both the citycarrier assistants and the union wouldhave preferred.City carrier assistants began to enter

the workforce in March 2013, and by lateJune 2013, the CCA workforce numberedover 27,000, leading the union to demandmechanisms for converting CCAs tocareer status as required by the arbitra-tion award. Key was an August 30, 2013,memorandum that established specificsteps and a timeline for filling vacancies,including the conversion of CCAs to full-time career status. By mid-2014, thousands of city carrierassistants had been converted tocareer positions and acquired theentire slate of benefits providedcareer letter carriers, including sickand annual leave, health benefits,group life insurance, and participa-tion in the Federal EmployeesRetirement System. That CCAswere entering the workforce indroves was a mixed blessing for theunion. For the first time in years,the Postal Service was hiring newcarriers, thus lessening the pressureon career letter carriers. In addition,CCAs’ lower wage helped theService’s bottom line. On the otherhand, as had been the case with tran-sitional employees, NALC faced thedifficult challenge of organizing city

carrier assistants, a growing non-careersegment of its bargaining unit. Inresponse, the union tailored an organiz-ing campaign specifically for CCAs thatled to an influx of new members intomany of the NALC’s struggling branches.Despite this success, President Rolandoand his fellow national officers under-stood that if Congress eliminatedSaturday delivery, degrading the USPS’

delivery network, the union’s total activemembership, career and CCA, wouldplummet dramatically.

Saving Saturdaydelivery

Although efforts to eliminate Saturdaydelivery had faltered when the 112thCongress adjourned in early January 2013without the House considering the slash-and-burn legislation passed in committee,postal management picked up the cudg-els. In early February, Postmaster GeneralDonahoe announced that the PostalService would unilaterally end Saturdaydelivery by August, despite the congres-sional mandate requiring six-day delivery.Six weeks later, Rolando rallied thousandsof NALC activists and their families in all50 states to protest. Two days later,Congress adopted, and President BarackObama signed, a continuing resolutionkeeping the government open through theend of the fiscal year and also mandatingsix-day delivery, necessary even thoughthe Government Accountability Office hadissued a legal opinion that USPS had nolegal authority to reduce delivery unilater-ally. The GAO opinion, plus the mandatein the continuing resolution, forced theBoard of Governors to announce in April itwould “follow the law.”With the Postal Service stymied, con-

gressional efforts to end Saturday deliv-ery resumed. In July, the chairman of theHouse Oversight and GovernmentReform Committee introduced a newbill, H.R. 2748, calling for an immediateend to Saturday delivery and to front-door delivery for 35 million Americansand for allowing non-federal employeesaccess to the mailbox. The NALCresponded that even though the bill con-tained positive provisions on price flexi-bility, it failed to adequately address thepre-funding requirement, and its deliveryprovisions would have a devastatingimpact on the mailing industry and


2003-2014


Aquick look at the photographs in the

first several chapters of this history

makes it abundantly clear that, for

many years, the city carrier workforce con-

sisted mainly of white males. But the pic-

tures in the last few chapters tell a differ-

ent story, with a growing percentage of

minorities and women carrying the mail at

the end of the 20th century and into the

21st. All signs point to an even more

diverse workforce, and thus NALC mem-

bership, in the years ahead.

The top table at right tells the tale: A far

greater proportion of the active member-

ship in 2013 consisted of women and

minorities than in 1987. As a result, white

males comprised only 41.3 percent of

active letter carrier members in 2013,

compared with 62.2 percent in 1987.

In 2013, as compared with 1987, the

active membership was also far older on

average, had carried mail far longer, and

had a far smaller percentage of military vet-

erans, even though the United States had

fought two wars since September 11, 2001.

A closer look at the 2013 active carrier

membership of the NALC suggests even

more diversity is likely in the years ahead.

The second table compares the racial,

gender and age characteristics in July 2013

of non-career letter carrier members

(almost all city carrier assistants) with both

career letter carriers and those with 25

years or more of service. To a great

extent, carriers with 25 years of service or

more in 2013 resembled the entire active

carrier membership of 1987, while the

entire 2013 career letter carrier member-

ship was more diverse. The most signifi-

cant difference, however, was between

career carriers and non-career carriers.

Since an even larger percentage of the

active membership in future years will con-

sist of minorities and women, a more

diverse leadership will be necessary to

maintain union solidarity and commitment.

ALL ACTIVE LETTER CARRIER MEMBERS 1987 AND 2013

Numbers are percentages unless otherwise noted.

1987 2013*

Male 82.6 70.7

Female 17.4 29.3

White 74.1 56.1

Black 15.5 21.2

Hispanic 7.1 12.4

Asian 2.6 9.0

Others 0.7 1.3

White Males 62.2 41.3

Veterans 49.2 19.5

Avg. Age (years) 40.0 48.2

Avg.Tenure (years) 11.0 16.8

*2013 data includes both career and non-career carriers

ACTIVE LETTER CARRIER MEMBERS BY CAREER STATUS AND TENURE

JULY 2013Numbers are percentages unless otherwise noted.

Non- All 25 YearsCareer Career + Only

Male 61.9 71.8 77.4

Female 38.1 28.2 22.6

White 42.9 57.7 69.0

Black 34.9 19.5 15.2

Hispanic 14.8 12.2 10.0

Asian 5.2 9.5 4.9

Others 2.2 1.1 0.9

White Males 29.2 42.8 54.3

Veterans 10.3 20.6 21.5

Avg. Age (years) 34.5 49.9 56.1

Avg.Tenure (years) — 18.9 28.9

The changing faceof the nalc

American households and prevent the Service from taking advantage of the growing e-commerce market.Nonetheless, the committee passed HR 2748 on a party-line vote.A proposed Senate bill introduced on

August 1 was also designed to destroy theService, if perhaps more slowly. S. 1486provided for a three-year moratorium onthe pre-funding requirement paid for bymajor downsizing and worker benefit cuts,and would eliminate Saturday deliveryafter a year while granting the postmastergeneral the authority to eliminate futuredays. It also mandated drastic reductionsin door-to-delivery for millions of house-holds and businesses, and a discriminato-ry change to compensation for injuredfederal workers. Almost immediately,NALC denounced the legislation, and inlate September, Rolando testified beforethe Senate, criticizing the bill for failing toadequately address the 2006 pre-fundingmandate, for providing for the end ofSaturday delivery and door-to-door deliv-ery and for creating a two-tier workforce.While Congress dithered, the USPS

released figures in the summer of 2013supporting NALC’s position that theService’s financial problems were largely

a result of the pre-funding requirementand the economic recession that hadstarted in 2007. For the third quarter ofthe fiscal year, USPS posted an operatingsurplus—with Internet-powered packagedelivery increasing significantly and withadvertising mail holding its own even asfirst-class mail declined more slowly. In late 2013, the union’s fight to pre-

serve the Postal Service increasinglybecame entangled with congressionalbudget politics, but thanks in part topressure brought by NALC’s grassrootsnetwork, a joint House-Senate budgetplan for the remainder of FY 2014 thatpassed Congress in December did not callfor the elimination of Saturday delivery. Nonetheless, in early 2014, efforts to

eliminate Saturday delivery, either imme-diately or within a few years, remainedalive in the relevant committees in theHouse and Senate despite the Service’soperating profit in first quarter of FiscalYear 2014. In February, the SenateHomeland Security and GovernmentalAffairs Committee moved first, passing arevised S. 1486 that merely delayed someof the service cuts contained in the origi-nal bill introduced the previous summer By late spring of 2014, the future of

the Postal Service—and reform legisla-tion—was far from settled. The union’sposition was bolstered by the Service’simproving financial picture, sparked bythe growing package delivery businessthat compensated in part for the contin-ued diversion of first-class mail due todigital alternatives. Yet the union wasaware that as long as the Service wasburdened by the unfair and unafford-able pre-funding mandate contained in the Postal Accountability and

Enhancement Act of2006, and managementremained obsessed withits “shrink to survive”strategy, the future of thePostal Service and thejobs of letter carriers wereat risk.

NALC has honed itsgrassroots legislativeprogram to pushCongress to maintainSaturday delivery serv-ice, as it did during itsnationwide rallies onMarch 24, 2013.

President Rolandovowed before a Senatecommittee on September26, 2013, that NALCcould not support anylegislation that didn’t fixpre-funding.

R eading this history of theNational Association of LetterCarriers can be a disorientingexperience. The story line is

constantly circling back, repeating itself,with essential elements resurfacing againand again. As the preceding pages haveshown, this is a story of persistence andresilience, of brothers (and later sisters)constantly striving—the issues rarelychanging, the struggles never ending.

Take, for example, management’snever-ending attempts to squeeze morework out of carriers than humanly possi-ble—from Frederick Taylor’s scientificmanagement techniques of the 1910s, tothe Letter Carrier Route Evaluation Systemof the mid-1970s, to the DeliveryOperations Information System of the 21stcentury. Measure, count, time. From stop-watches to computers, it’s been the same:deliver more mail to more homes andbusinesses faster, then tomorrow delivereven more mail to even more homes andbusinesses even faster.

But this union has never succumbed—always fighting to stop the stopwatchesand rip up the computer-generatedspreadsheets, always taking whateveraction is necessary to keep carriers’ work“fair, reasonable, and equitable.”

Again and again and again.Of course, management has not been

letter carriers’ only adversary—on numer-ous occasions, the nation’s political lead-ers joined the fray by trying to preventcarriers and their union from bringingtheir concerns to the attention of theirelected representatives. The infamousRoosevelt and Taft “gag orders” in the firstdecade of the 20th century, rescinded in1912, as well as the 1939 Hatch Act, finallyrepealed in 1993, told letter carriers inunmistakable terms that they were sec-ond-class citizens, American enough toshoulder a satchel, even fight a war, butnot American enough to participate fullyin the nation’s democracy.

Ever since the strike of 1970, the battlefor decent wages, benefits and workingconditions has moved to the negotiatingtable. Over time, the NALC has successful-ly resisted most of postal management’sknee-jerk proposals for reduced wages andbenefits, two-tier workforces, and moreonerous working conditions, whiledemanding, often successfully, majorimprovements in the wages, benefits andworking conditions.

Again and again and again.But the history of the National

Association of Letter Carriers has not onlybeen a story of the struggle to improve theworking lives of letter carriers. It is also thestory of men—and later, women—com-mitted to serving the American people andensuring that the United States PostalService continues to fulfill its legal man-date to “provide prompt, reliable, and effi-cient services to patrons in all areasand...postal services to all communities.”

Take a look at the NALC Constitution,Article 1, Section 5, stating that one of theunion’s objectives is “to strive for the con-stant improvement of the Service.” It’s notclear how far back those exact words go,but the idea has been around since theunion’s founding. In fact, Article II, Section1 of the Constitution adopted inMilwaukee in August 1889 sets forth as an“object of the association...the advance-ment of the free delivery system.”

Ever since, this union and its membershave believed that the job of a letter carrieris more than a job, but rather a mission,and that the Postal Service—even if some-times an abusive and regressive employer—provides an essential service for thenation and its citizens.

Of course, depending upon when you’rereading these words, whether the PostalService will continue to provide the univer-sal, quality service Americans deserve maybe far from settled. Letter carriers andother postal employees may still be strug-gling with postal management and


EPILOGUE

Congress to ensure that the nation’spostal system survives and prospers andthat our postal networks, expanded overwell more than two centuries, remainstrong. If so, they will certainly be fight-ing to ensure that letter carriers aredelivering to every home and businessat least six days a week.

But maybe you’ll be reading this aftermany of the disputes recorded in thelast chapter of this history have beenresolved—maybe in 2016 or 2020,maybe much later. Perhaps Congressand postal management will have finallyunderstood that the Service could not“shrink to survive,” and that only bymaintaining six-day delivery and, insome cases, even seven-day delivery,could the Service exploit the Internet-driven demand for package deliveryand, as a result, not only survive butprosper. Perhaps those in Congress whowill have fashioned this viable PostalService will also have removed theunnecessary and costly burden ofrequiring the Service to pre-fund thehealth benefits of retirees not even onthe rolls.

But if this optimistic scenario is tobecome reality, the Postal Service willlikely have broadened its mandate tomeet the changing demands ofAmericans in a digital age. As a result,the job of a letter carrier could verywell be much different than it was in,say, 2014.

For one thing, by that time—whenev-er that may be—letter carriers will notbe carrying very much first-class mail.Instead “letter carriers” may be mainly“parcel carriers,” with a smaller portionof their total deliveries consisting of“letter mail”—mostly advertising mail.The rest will probably be magazines,large-format advertising, and, of course,parcels. Lots of parcels, since parceldelivery will be an integral and integrat-ed part of an expanding e-commercesector of the economy. “Office time”could be slightly more than a “New York

minute.” And the battles with Congressover the continuation of six-day deliverymay seem quaint, as future carriers areout on the streets every day of theweek—sometimes picking up packagesearly in the day and delivering themacross town a few hours later. Expressmail on steroids.

But delivering letters, flats and pack-ages may be just a part of what carriersdo. They also will be the Postal Service’slead sales force—selling services,arranging pick-up and delivery times,even suggesting software innovations tohelp small businesses determine theirshipping needs.

Carriers might also perform otherservices while completing theirrounds—perhaps helping low-incomecustomers connect online to a newUSPS financial services system; orreading utility bills; or serving asmobile facilitators of government serv-ices, with keypad and Internet connec-tion at the ready. In addition, thesebrothers and sisters of the NationalAssociation of Letter Carriers will beserving as a welcome and visible pres-ence on the streets of America at atime when, with the decline of brick-and-mortar commercial establish-ments, the notion of “community”may have been radically altered.

Whatever the contours of a future(if not futuristic) Postal Service—what-ever its size and products and servicesand regardless of how many letter car-riers are fulfilling the needs of theircustomers—the men and women whowill comprise the membership of theNational Association of Letter Carriersin the years—even decades—aheadwill continue to stand together, shoul-der to shoulder. They will recognize—as they always have—that alone theyare powerless, but together they areinvincible. That is why letter carriersand their union will long remain, asthey have been since 1889, carriers ina common cause.


CARRIERS IN A COMMON CAUSE - NALC

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