American Postal Workers Union

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.

Current operations

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.

History

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.