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Three Decades of Legislative Struggle

(This Legislative Department article was first published in the September/October 2004 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine)

Our recent battle over postal "reform" is the latest chapter in a more than three-decade struggle for postal jobs: our rights, wages, and benefits. Here is a brief review of some of the other important challenges our union has faced on Capitol Hill.

Postal Reorganization Act

Before 1971, when Congress passed the Postal Reorganization Act (PRA) that created the modern Postal Service, USPS employees could get pay raises only by begging Congress. The few raises we did receive were meager.

As a result, postal workers were chronically underpaid. Full-time workers earned a starting salary of approximately $6,200, and those with 21 years of service averaged only $8,440. Many postal families qualified for food stamps at the time.

Following the historic strike in 1970, postal workers gained collective bargaining rights under the PRA, and five unions merged to create the APWU. Our pay rose dramatically, and wages and benefits since then have kept pace with inflation, a clear indication of the tremendous benefits of working under a collective bargaining agreement.

Restricted Freedoms

Later in the 1970s, the APWU and other federal unions began pressing Congress to grant government workers greater political freedom through amendments to the Hatch Act, allowing us to participate in political advocacy away from the job. Despite gaining congressional approval several times, our efforts were stymied through vetoes by Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. Finally, after Congress once again passed a Hatch Act reform bill in 1993, President Bill Clinton signed it into law.

The APWU was less successful in advancing legislation to give postal workers the rights to strike and to demand a "union shop," which we also lobbied for in the1970s.

Defending Benefits

The 1980s were an era of intense defensive battles, as Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush backed numerous efforts to reduce retirement and health benefits for all federal workers and retirees.

In 1983, we waged a critical battle over a law Congress passed to phase out the Civil Service Retirement System and put all new workers in a newly created Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) that placed government employees under the Social Security System. APWU efforts helped ensure that FERS benefits would be commensurate with those provided under CSRS, and that workers hired before 1984 could choose to remain in an unchanged CSRS. Federal unions, however, were unable to prevent the passage of a 1982 law that subjected government workers to a Medicare payroll tax.

The APWU also helped defeat efforts to convert the Federal Employees Health Benefits program to a voucher system; to increase employee contributions to CSRS from 7 percent to 11 percent of wages; to increase the retirement age to 65, with penalties for those who retire between 55 and 65; and to reduce retirement benefits by changing the "High 3" formula for computing annuities to a "High 5" formula.

The union also prevailed against efforts to slash retiree COLAs and workers; compensation benefits.

Many of these efforts (as well as various proposals to privatize the Postal Service) that first arose in the 1970s and 1980s resurfaced in the 1990s, and we are still on guard today.

Budget Gimmicks

In 1988, Congress placed the Postal Service in an "on budget" status, which allowed the government to use USPS revenues to reduce the federal deficit. The accounting gimmick drained revenue from the Postal Service and eventually would have forced job cuts. However, the union helped to convince Congress to return the USPS to an "off budget" status in 1990.

Fight for FMLA

During the 1980s, the APWU led a seven-year union-led fight to pass the Family and Medical Leave Act, which provides as much as 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year in the event of a medical emergency or the need to care for seriously ill immediate-family members or newly-born or adopted children. Congress approved the FMLA in 1991, but President George H.W. Bush vetoed it. Finally, Congress passed the bill again in 1993 and President Bill Clinton signed it into law, and it has been providing some much needed peace of mind for working families ever since.

Postal 'Reform'

The latest effort to pass a wide-reaching postal reform bill began in the late 1990s, and the union has now been battling this series of anti-worker, anti-consumer proposals for nearly a decade. At the request of the mailing industry, President George W. Bush appointed a highly partisan commission to give impetus to the mailers' agenda. The commission and its proposals, now well-known, became the focal point for the APWU in 2003-2004.

Every APWU member should by now realize that President Bush's commission tried to cut our pay; reduce our health, retirement, and workers' compensation benefits; undermine our collective bargaining rights; eliminate our no-layoff clause; close post offices and plants without community input; and outsource our work.

The Commission's frontal assault on our jobs, our families and our dignity has united our union as never before. If we stay united and work together, we will prevail. United We Stand - Divided We Fall.

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