1. The Beginning: Eight-hour day

Throughout the 1880s, labor activists in many industries across the country campaigned for a national law to create an eight-hour day. It's easy to forget that not so long ago, workers had no protection—no labor laws—to stop employers from enforcing 12-hour shifts, sometimes seven days a week. If you couldn't keep up, you were fired—with no unemployment, no "safety net" of any kind. Brutal conditions and starvation wages were the rule, not the exception, in most industries—including the federal Post Office Department.

However, even before the formation of a national union, carriers who were labor activists were able to influence Congress in 1888 to legislate an eight-hour day for letter carriers. This victory inspired carriers to form a national organization Throughout the 1880s, labor activists in many industries across the country campaigned for a national law to create an eight-hour day. It's easy to forget that not so long ago, workers had no protection—no labor laws—to stop employers from enforcing 12-hour shifts, sometimes seven days a week. If you couldn't keep up, you were fired—with no unemployment, no "safety net" of any kind. Brutal conditions and starvation wages were the rule, not the exception, in most industries—including the federal Post Office Department.

2. Birth of a union

In 1889, the Milwaukee Letter Carriers Association organized the founding meeting of the National Association of Letter Carriers. With approximately 60 carriers attending from 18 states, NALC was born August 29, 1889 in a meeting hall above Schaefer's saloon in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This event marked the beginning of NALC. Even beyond that obvious fact, the founding convention is proof that letter carriers knew early on—even before workers in many other industries—that they would achieve more if they could form a national union. In many cities, carriers had "mutual benefit" associations that tried to win improvements for carriers in those cities. But NALC's founders realized that true power would only come when every carrier in the country joined together. Those hours in Schaefer's Saloon marked the very beginning—the birth of a union that would eventually become one of the most powerful and influential organizations of federal and postal employees.

3. Enforcing the law

As noted above, an 1888 law provided that letter carriers work only an eight-hour day. The Post Office Department, however, first ignored the law, then interpreted it to mean eight hours a day for seven days a week—or 56 hours a week. This meant that the Department would work a carrier nine hours a day for six days, and still require him to work two additional hours on Sunday!
The fledgling NALC immediately squared up for battle against this abuse. Using a completely unexpected tactic, the union sued the federal government. Even more startling was the result: In 1893 NALC won the case and the U.S. Supreme Court awarded letter carriers a total of $3.5 million, settling thousands of overtime claims.

4. No more gags

In the early 1900s, indeed until 1970, carriers depended on Congress to improve their wages and working conditions. But in 1902, in response to the growing power of NALC and other groups representing government employees, President Theodore Roosevelt issued a "gag order" forbidding all postal and federal employees, "directly or indirectly, individually or through associations," to lobby members of Congress for wage increases or try to affect the passage of any other legislation.

Other presidential orders forbid postal employees from discussing their working conditions in public and even from answering Congressional requests for information on their pay and working conditions!

NALC protested vehemently, and found a sympathetic listener in Robert LaFollette, a progressive Republican senator. He spearheaded a Congressional campaign that in 1912 resulted in passage of the Lloyd-LaFollette Act rescinding all gag rules.

5. No more Sunday work

As a result of intense lobbying efforts by NALC, in 1912 Congress also passed the Reilly Eight-in-Ten Hour Act, which stated that postal employees could not be forced to spread their eight-hour shift over more than ten consecutive hours. Equally important was a law passed at the same time—the Mann Sunday Closing Act—which closed post offices on Sunday, thus guaranteeing postal employees at least one day off every week

6. First Workers' Compensation law

Another reality of turn-of-the-century working conditions that seems especially brutal to workers today is that when carriers were injured on the job, they had no guarantee of receiving any kind of compensation for that injury. In fact, the employer could actually sue the injured employee for being careless! If you were lucky, a company representative would appear with a proposed settlement—a few dollars, perhaps enough to cover a funeral if the employee had been killed—an in return the employees or their families had to agree not to sue the company.

That harsh reality changed for letter carriers in 1916. Intensive lobbying by NALC resulted in a landmark piece of legislation—the first Federal Employees' Compensation Act. This law ensured that postal and federal employees who were injured on the job would receive compensation and medical benefits. Again, dedicated union leadership backed by the full support of members—now totaling some 32,000 carriers in 1,694 branches—achieved a powerful victory that literally saved carriers' lives and livelihoods.

7. Bitter struggle for pensions

Although injured carriers now had some relief and support, carriers approaching retirement age could anticipate no such comfort. If a carrier could no longer bear the strain of the job—which was intense in those days of unpaved roads and heavy mail loads—he faced literal starvation. Leaving a Post Office job meant no more income, no more benefits. And in the early years of the century, older carriers were being pushed out of work by a particularly oppressive Postmaster General, Albert Burleson. Burleson insisted that all carriers who "couldn't keep up with the work" be fired.

In 1915, such a dismissal in Fairmont, West Virginia prompted a form of strike as Fairmont's 25 carriers resigned in protest. The workers were arrested and thrown in jail; 24 were given fines and released. The 25th worker, a carrier named W. H. Fisher, hung himself in his cell the night before his trial.

Outrage at this incident and other excesses authorized by Burleson encouraged NALC leaders to press for relief from Congress. The Civil Service Retirement Act, taking effect in May 1920, allowed carriers to retire at age 65 with annuities ranging from $180 to $270 a year. In June 1920, Congress passed a bill providing sick-leave benefits for carriers, followed by a salary bill increasing the maximum wage to $1,800 a year. Again, the combined power of carriers carried the day.

8. Exclusive recognition

Although NALC leaders had achieved impressive victories through lobbying Congress, they continued to press for full collective bargaining rights. And on January 17, 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, which replaced the 1912 Lloyd-LaFollette Act. Labor organizations in the federal government—including the Post Office—could hold elections to gain national exclusive recognition and could then represent employees in grievance proceedings and negotiate a national contract with management
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Although the Executive Order limited the terms that could be bargained, it was a giant step forward for NALC. In March 1963 the union and the Post Office Department signed their first national agreement.

9. STRIKE!

In 1969 and 1970, a series of dramatic failures in communication and negotiation between NALC national leaders, the White House and NALC membership led to the climatic postal strike of March 15-18, 1970. (A detailed account of events leading to the strike appears in the March 1995 Postal Record.) Members of New York City Branch 36 were the first to walk out; the work stoppage spread quickly through the metropolitan area, then to cities and towns throughout America. By March 23, there were almost 250,000 postal employees on strike.

The strikers agreed to return to work so that contract negotiations could begin, and by April 2 NALC had achieved an agreement that included a 14 percent pay raise, collective bargaining with binding arbitration and a reduction from 21 to eight years for carriers to reach the top step of their grade level.

Postal reorganization became reality on August 12, 1970, with a law creating the U.S. Postal Service. NALC and other postal unions were accorded the right to bargain collectively over wages, hours and working conditions.

10. Equity for all carriers

Almost a century after NALC's successful protest of management's violation of the Eight-Hour law, national union leaders again helped achieve fair treatment for carriers whose rights had been violated. In the mid-1970s, a series of private lawsuits was initiated on behalf of carriers charging the Postal Service with violating the overtime pay requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act, a 1938 federal law governing wages and hours of work. As the dispute played out, one group of union members became pitted against another. Some members received financial benefits while other members were left out.

In February 1979, NALC's leadership and legal staff found a way to intervene in the private suits to represent the interests of the thousands of carriers who were not a part of those suits. In October 1982, a federal judge approved a comprehensive $400 million settlement of the case.
The settlement achieved equity for all carriers by securing payments based on the formula that had been used to settle the earlier private lawsuits. This settlement, made possible by the determination of NALC's leaders to achieve equal treatment and nothing but equal treatment for all carriers, maintained the union's tradition that "an injury to one is an injury to all."

Tip of the Iceberg

Of course, these 10 moments are not the sum total of NALC's achievements. Rather, they are particularly distinctive examples of the union's power as an institution and a force for change in letter carriers' working lives. Throughout the union's history, other victories have been won, often against tremendous opposition and predictions of failure from such powerful forces as postal management, the U.S. Congress, and a series of U.S. presidents opposed to any union success.

What is important about these 10 moments is that they illustrate, sometimes quite dramatically, that the support of members and the dedication of union leaders can overcome even the fiercest resistance. With these examples, branch leaders can remind carriers that NALC relies on the support of its members to triumph in such difficult and decisive moments.

If you want to know more about NALC history, Carriers in a Common Cause; A History of Letter Carriers and the NALC is available for purchase at a cost of $5.00 through the NALC Supply Department at NALC Headquarters, 100 Indiana Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001.