American Postal Workers Union
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| Full name | American Postal Workers Union |
|---|---|
| Founded | July 1, 1971 |
| Members | 330,000 |
| Affiliation | AFL-CIO, UNI |
| Key people | Mark Dimondstein, President |
| Office location | Washington, D.C. |
| Country | United States |
| Website | www.apwu.org |
The American Postal Workers Union (APWU) is a labor union in the United States. It represents over 200,000 employees and retirees of the United States Postal Service who belong to the Clerk, Maintenance, Motor Vehicle, and Support Services divisions. It also represents approximately 2,000 private-sector mail workers.
The American Postal Workers Union is currently working to stop the closing of Post Offices. Due to current economic factors, the USPS is looking to close several local branches and mail processing centers around the nation.
Postal workers in the United States first won collective bargaining rights after the U.S. postal strike of 1970. Two organizations of postal clerks emerged in the 1890s; they merged in 1899 into the United National Association of Post Office Clerks (UNAPOC).
It was too conservative for the AFL, which in 1906 sponsored the National Federation of Post Office Clerks (NFPOC), which soon surpassed the UNAPOC. NFPOC grew from 16,000 members in 1922, to 36,000 in 1932, and nearly 50,000 by 1940. It did not engage in strikes, but spent much of its efforts in opposing hostile Congressional legislation. Additional rivals were formed in the 1930s, but the first serious rival was the National Postal Clerks Union (NPCU) that began in 1958; by 1970, the NPCU had reached a membership of 80,000.
Merger discussions dragged on for years, until finally the NFPOC, UNMAPOC and others merged in 1961 as the United Federation of Postal Clerks. In 1971 five unions combined into the American Postal Workers Union. They 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 Post Office Motor Vehicle Employees, and the National Association of Special Delivery Messengers, with a combined membership of 280,000.
On August 20, 2007, the previously independent National Postal Professional Nurses (NPPN) merged with the APWU. As a result of this merger, the members of the NPPN were granted membership in the Support Services Division of the APWU. The NPPN-APWU represents over 90 occupational health nurses who are employed by the Postal Service. This 2007 merger was the first merger of any postal unions in the United States since the U.S. postal strike of 1970.
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