Late
in the 19th century, postal workers became inflamed
with the same organizing spirit as other workers. They
began to band together in order to fight for fair
wages and improved working conditions.
Conditions in the post offices at
that time were extremely unhealthy, dangerous and
dismal. Buildings were dank, poorly lit, crowded and
unventilated. Many workers contracted typhoid and
other diseases from the unsanitary environment.
Railway Mail Service employees faced the added dangers
of frequent rail accidents resulting in numerous
deaths and serious injuries each year.
Postal employees were required to
work long hours of overtime without additional pay.
They were expected to stay on the job until all work
was completed—sometimes as long as 18 hours—and to
work every other Sunday without extra compensation.
The average salary for postal clerks at the turn of
the century was $818 a year, with some workers earning
as little as $100 a year.
Since the Post Office had been
established by Congress in 1794, postal workers were
appointed to their positions through the spoils system
by politicians in return for political favors. Even
after the first civil service law was passed by
Congress in 1883 requiring competitive exams for
workers in the larger facilities, most appointments
and promotions continued to depend on political
influence, personal favoritism—and sometimes
bribery.
To discourage the organization of
unions, the Post Office management tried to infuse
workers with an image of themselves as different from
other workers. They were professional civil servants,
white-collar "government officials" who
supposedly had little in common with blue-collar
skilled craftsmen, industrial workers and unskilled
laborers. Management fostered the view that it would
be demeaning for them to join a union.
But how else except by unionizing
were postal workers to change their miserable working
conditions and to improve their intolerably low wages?
With their pay and working conditions set by Congress,
organized postal workers' earliest efforts were aimed
at securing more favorable legislation by sending
representatives to plead their cause in Washington.
These first efforts were scattered and not very
successful. The Postmaster General in 1895 issued a
"gag order" forbidding employees of the Post
Office from coming to Washington to influence
legislation. The penalty for disrerarding this order
was removal!
AFL
Charters First Clerks' Local
The American Federation of Labor
(AFL), which was growing by leaps and bounds, stood
ready to welcome into its fold federal employees,
particularly postal workers, who would join the fight
for the 8-hour day. In response to a request from a
small group of clerks in Chicago, the AFL chartered
Federal Union #8703 in 1900—the first union of
federal employees to affiliate with the Federation.
In 1902, in response to the
vigorous lobbying undertaken by the fledgling postal
worker unions, President Theodore Roosevelt issued an
executive order denying basic constitutional rights to
all postal and federal employees by forbidding them to
solicit members of Congress for wage increases or to
influence any other legislation.
This "gag rule" was
followed in 1909 with another under President Taft
prohibiting postal workers from answering any
questions concerning their working conditions that
might be posed by Congressional representatives.
Despite these obstacles, several
organizations of postal workers representing post
office clerks, letter carriers and railway mail clerks
grew steadily in numbers and in influence. Along with
the American Federation of Labor and other unions,
they fought to increase wages, improve conditions and
pass other favorable legislation.
Legislative
Gains
In 1912, the Lloyd-LaFollette Act
was passed, rescinding the previous "gag
rules" and establishing the right of federal and
postal workers to organize unions. The year 1916 saw
the adoption of the first Federal Employees
Compensation Act for workers injured on the job. In
1920, Congress voted the first Civil Service
Retirement Act providing retirement for clerks at age
65. A 10 percent nighttime differential was won in
1928. However, in spite of these legislative gains,
little progress was made to improve overall wages.
During the 1920's postal workers'
salaries fell behind those of comparable workers in
private industry. In the years of the Great Depression
the job security of federal employees made their
positions the envy of millions of unemployed workers.
As part of an effort to curb government spending,
postal workers were forced to accept a 15 percent pay
cut and one month's furlough. Additionally, when the
Wagner Act was passed in 1935 guaranteeing most
workers the right to bargain collectively through
representatives of their choosing, postal and federal
employees were specifically excluded from its
coverage.
During the '20s and '30s motor
vehicle employees, maintenance workers and special
delivery messengers employed by the Post Office joined
together to organize unions to protect and further
their interests and concerns.
During the 1940s, postal workers
won some wage increases as a result of intensive
campaigning, lobbying and letter-writing. But their
experience during the Eisenhower Administration led to
increasing dissatisfaction and frustration. In spite
of promises to the contrary, wage increases voted by
Congress were repeatedly vetoed by President
Eisenhower. The limited power of the unions to
effectively improve the lot of postal workers was
apparent. The Post Office did not recognize the unions
as the representatives of the workers; wage increases
were blocked by Presidential veto and there was no
grievance procedure through which disputes could be
resolved.
During this period, a number of
postal clerks became increasingly dissatisfied with
the established clerks union. In 1959, they organized
a new and unique industrial union of postal workers
which would recruit members from every post office
craft. This was the first step toward the
establishment of a progressive industrial union of
postal employees.
Unions
Win Recognition
In 1962, President Kennedy signed
Executive Order 10988 which, for the first time,
officially recognized the legitimate role of federal
employee unions in the workplace. Representation
elections in which 77 percent of the eligible
employees participated resulted in the certification
of six unions as the exclusive bargaining agents for
each of the postal crafts. The unions now had the
right to negotiate with management concerning working
conditions, promotional standards, grievance
procedures, safety and other matters. However, they
could not negotiate over wages and fringe benefits.
Another major flaw of the Executive Order was that
nothing compelled the Post Office management to reach
an agreement with the unions. In any dispute,
management still had the last word.
The 1960's brought unfulfilled
promises of pay equity with private industry. While
the unions were hammering out agreements with the Post
Office, they still had to lobby for raises in postal
salaries to offset the effects of inflation. In the
government's effort to curb spending, federal workers'
salaries—once again—became the scapegoat. Low pay
and money-saving restrictions in overtime led to high
employee turnover, a heavy mail backlog and a severe
drop in morale. The workers' frustrations mounted and
the postal unions appeared incapable of overcoming
employee dissatisfaction and the increasing sense of
powerlessness.
Strike
On March 18, 1970, the situation
erupted. Beginning in New York, thousands of postal
workers walked off the job. The strike spread quickly
across the country, finally involving more than
200,000 workers. Its impact was to fundamentally
change labor-management relations in a major
breakthrough for postal unions.
The Postal Reorganization Act of
1970 was adopted establishing the U.S. Postal Service
as an independent government agency. For the first
time postal unions had the right to negotiate on all
matters concerning wages, fringe benefits,
cost-of-living adjustments and other financial gains.
Salaries and benefits were to compare with private
industry and the time to reach the top grade pay was
to be reduced from 21 to 8 years. Additionally, postal
nanagement was required to bargain in good faith and
to make a genuine effort to reach an agreement.
Unresolved matters were to be submitted to final and
binding arbitration. Finally, postal workers had won
most of the rights enjoyed by workers in private
industry since the adoption of the National Labor
Relations Act in 1935. The one glaring omission was
the right to strike.
The
APWU Is Born
On July 1, 1971, five postal unions
joined together to found the American Postal Workers
Union, forming the largest union of postal employees
in the world. APWU represents 320,000 clerks, motor
vehicle employees, maintenance workers, special
delivery messengers, and other Postal Service
employees. The merging unions which formed the
American Postal Workers Union were the United
Federation of Postal Clerks, the National Postal
Union, the National Association of Post Office and
General Service Maintenance Employees, the National
Federation of Motor Vehicle Employees, and the
National Association of Special Delivery Messengers.
Strengthened by the unity and
solidarity of the different crafts it represents, the
APWU has negotiated several National Agreements since
1971, each winning improved wages and working
conditions for all postal workers. Collective
bargaining has now replaced "collective
begging" as the union's primary weapon.
Nevertheless, lobbying and political action remain a
vital part of the union's program to ensure that those
gains won at the bargaining able are not taken away
through legislation.
