1990-2002 Facing Revolutionary Change F · 2014. 7. 1. · 1990-2002 Facing Revolutionary Change F...

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.

Carriers in a Common Cause � 105

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.


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