National Association of Letter Carriers
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| National Association of Letter Carriers | |
| Founded | 1889 |
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| Members | 300,000 |
| Country | United States |
| Affiliation | AFL-CIO, UNI |
| Key people | William H. Young, president |
| Office location | Washington, D.C. |
| Website | www.nalc.org |
The National Association of Letter Carriers (or NALC) is a labor union for employees of the United States Postal Service who serve as letter carriers (informally, "mail carriers", "mailmen", or "postmen", although many are now in fact female).
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[edit] History
The NALC dates back to the 19th century, when postal working conditions were brutal by modern standards, hours could be very long, and the those Letter Carriers were not paid for working the extra hours. The NALC serves the craft often known as "city carriers". Letter carriers who either walk their routes or deliver mail from a Postal Service-owned vehicle. (Carriers who deliver mail from their own vehicles and are compensated for this are generally rural carriers who are represented by a separate organization.) Over the years, the union has worked to reduce working hours, the weight of loads that must be lifted at any one time, the strictness of uniform-wearing standards, and other worklife-quality issues, as well as the obvious ones of pay and benefits. Activists stress that the Postal Service management style is often one of the more dictatorial ones in the modern United States, and imply that this is one of the reasons that a seemingly disproportionate number of USPS employees become infamous for "going postal", although they also point out that the vast majority of such employees were not members of the union. However, statistics show that NALC member carriers are one of the most respected group of workers in the United States.[citation needed]
Prior to the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, the U.S. Post Office was a department of the executive branch of the United States Government and the Postmaster General was a Cabinet member. This meant that the rate of postal pay was set by the United States Congress into federal law. This somewhat-unique arrangement meant that the NALC was even more overtly political than most other labor unions. Like most other U.S. unions, it has largely supported the Democratic Party, but has been critical of Democrats who have hurt the interests of its members (such as the veto by President Lyndon B. Johnson of a postal pay raise in the mid-1960s, and has supported individual Republicans that it has found to support its members' interests. The NALC worked hard for and supported Postal Reorganization of 1971; its expertise was more in lobbying than in traditional labor-management negotiations and collective bargaining. Nonetheless, it is now recognized as the collective bargaining agent for all city carriers.
This arrangement carries some difficulties for the union. By the Taft-Hartley Act and other federal legislation, the federal government is uniformly an "open shop"; no one can be compelled to join the NALC or any other union as a condition of gaining or continuing employment with the government. However, over 93% of all working Letter Carriers are members of the NALC. Also, by federal law, carriers (like other governmental workers) are forbidden from striking, meaning that the primary threat that private-sector unions can make if they feel an employer is not bargaining in good faith is not available. This means that collective bargaining agreements between the NALC and the USPS must be politically feasible; if they are not, this could invite unwanted intervention by United States Congress.
[edit] Issues
Politically, the NALC is inalterably opposed to postal privatization and to any termination of the USPS monopoly on "First Class mail". The future of the union, and the post office itself, seem to be threatened on an unprecedented level by the march of technology, with the Internet, fax, electronic bill-paying, and other forms of communication that do not involve the physical transportation of pieces of paper from one location to another. This has put even more pressure on the NALC to merge with the other major postal union, the American Postal Workers Union, which represents postal clerks; as of this writing, this has not yet occurred, although it has been formally proposed at various times for decades. It should also be noted that most NALC members overwhelmingly reject any mergers with the APWU. It should also be noted that technologies such as the internet has increased mail flow. Any business done online generates hard mail.[citation needed]
[edit] Distinction from other unions
The NALC in a few minor ways distinguishes itself from private sector unions and even other government unions; for one, it refers to its chapters as "branches" rather than "locals". It developed its own retirement community for its members, Nalcrest, Florida. It operates a mutual benefit association which sells insurance to members which predates the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan, in which it is also a major participant, even as most other employee groups have discontinued their participation.
The union has a close relationship with Jerry Lewis and his annual Labor Day telethon and is invariably one of the groups showcased by the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
