Branch 769

The next year saw letter carriers in attendance from the north and the south, from small towns and big cities alike, united and ready to move forward.  New York City letter carriers convened a meeting on July 4, 1890, to which they invited representatives of the fledgling NALC. In Wendell’s Assembly Rooms on 7th Avenue, supporters of the NALC made their case. Central to their argument was the contention that “an instrument to do national legislative work is a necessity”—a statement that still resonates today. A resolution urging all cities to bring their local associations under the NALC passed after serious debate. 

The first convention, which took place a month later in Boston, was attended by 68 delegates. By that point, the NALC encompassed 52 branches representing 4,600 carriers. Each subsequent issue of The Postal Record documented steady growth in the number of branches, as the NALC reached into every region, every state—anywhere letter carriers were delivering mail.

Those involved in these early years were conscious that the union needed some sort of badge or emblem so that members would have an easy way to identify each other. A committee was established at the convention in Boston to select an appropriate image.  The resulting design was formally adopted in January of 1891: a hand holding a letter addressed “USA” within a circular border inscribed “National Association of Letter Carriers.”  The design has served the union well, as it steadily grew in the years that followed; it remains the NALC logo today. 

 The Beginning

 Free city delivery of mail was established in 1863. In the years that followed, letter carriers found themselves working 10- to 12-hour days, seven days a week. The fight to achieve legal recognition of an 8-hour day, successfully concluded in 1888, clearly demonstrated what could be achieved when letter carriers banded together and reached out beyond their local area.

This idea was behind the official call, issued by Milwaukee letter carriers, to meet in August 1889. The date was chosen to coincide with the reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans from the Civil War, an event that was scheduled to be held in Milwaukee. The hope was that the lower rail fares available because of the reunion would increase attendance and make the meeting truly national.

For the event, 60 letter carriers showed up in Milwaukee on August 29 in the meeting room above Schaeffer’s Saloon. The following day, these delegates passed a resolution officially establishing the National Association of Letter Carriers.

A look at the delegate list shows the NALC had a national range from the start, with representatives from San Francisco to Buffalo. But the schedule, in conjunction with a meeting of union veterans, meant the states of the former Confederacy weren’t well represented. And the large cities of Philadelphia and New York, which had been so central to the fight for the 8-hour day, were conspicuous by their absence.

Cherry hill-haddonfield merged

The postal strike of 1970.

 

The night before, postal workers in New York voted 1,555 to 1,055 to go out on strike in protest of a House committee vote to limit their wage increase that year to 5.4 percent on the heels of a 41 percent increase in Congress’s own pay. The wildcat strike and picketing were effective in shutting down postal operations in New York and quickly spread to about 30 other cities. Within days about 152,000 workers in 671 locations were on strike. It was illegal for federal workers to strike, or even to advocate a strike, but union officials said they had no control over the action. The strike shut down New York’s financial industry, kept 9,000 youths from receiving draft notices, delayed the mailing of census forms and tax refunds, and generally disrupted the country’s communications. Injunctions and heavy fines were levied on union leaders; but the membership paid no attention. President Nixon called out 24,000 military personnel to distribute the mail, but they were ineffective. While the president asserted there would be no negotiations until the workers returned to work, Secretary of Labor William Usery did engage in negotiations that brought the strike to an end after 2 weeks. By all accounts, the strike was extremely successful for the unions, and it set the course of postal affairs for decades to come. No postal worker was ever disciplined for the walkout. Negotiators agreed to a 6 percent wage increase retroactive to 1969, and an additional 8 percent contingent on enactment of the Postal Reorganization Act.

The bill had been languishing in Congress, but by April 16, 1970, agreement was reached. It not only provided the 8 percent pay raise, but also allowed postal workers to reach the top of the pay scale in only 8 years — in contrast to the 21 years previously in effect. After the first contract, pay for the newest worker had surpassed what a 21-year veteran had made 3 years earlier. Although the agreement directed the large increase towards high-cost areas like New York, where the strike began, it was effective across the nation, even in low-cost areas where compensation had been ample. The practice of uniform wages continues today at the Postal Service; even though the federal pay system introduced locality pay in 1990. The binding arbitration feature of the Act could also be traced to the strike. According to a union history, binding arbitration was included in the bill “in lieu of the right to strike,” though of course no federal employee has ever had such a right. This feature of the law has meant that the Postal Service has never been able to exert control over its labor costs. Unions also insisted that the Postal Service would not be called a government corporation, to guard against any implication that workers would lose the security of their federal jobs. The strike also set in motion lasting changes in the postal labor movement. Union heads that had tried to control the strike, and were willing to compromise with government leadership, lost credibility. A city carrier, Vincent Sombrotto, was in the forefront of rank and file members in New York insisting on the strike. After the strike, he led a movement to open up union elections and eventually headed the National Association of Letter Carriers for 24 years. Coincidentally with the formation of the Postal Service, five distinct unions of postal clerks, mail processors, maintenance, and motor vehicle workers merged into a new American Postal Workers Union, which provided a more unified voice for labor in political and collective bargaining negotiations.