About
The American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO, represents 366,000 employees of the U.S. Postal Service who are clerks, maintenance employees, motor vehicle operators, and non-mail processing professional employees. The world's largest postal union, APWU is also the fifteenth largest union in the AFL-CIO.
Postal unions, dating back to the nineteenth century, have gone through a number of transitions paralleling the growth of the former Post Office Department and its transformation into the U.S. Postal Service under the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970. Under the PRA, postal unions first won the right to bargain collectively over wages, hours and working conditions.History
APWU was founded on July 1, 1971, the result of a merger of five postal unions: 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 Motor Vehicle Employees and the National Association of Special Delivery Messengers.
APWU's top officers are the president, William Burrus; the executive vice president, C.J. "Cliff" Guffey; and the secretary-treasurer, Robert Tunstall.Structure
The union's organizational structure reflects its separate craft origins. There are four craft divisions: clerk, maintenance, motor vehicle, and a support services department. Other headquarters departments are industrial relations, legislative, research and education, organization, human relations and health plan. Craft divisions and departments are each headed by a director.
The three top officers, the directors of the departments and divisions, other craft division and department officers, five regional coordinators and 59 national business agents are all elected by mail ballot referendum of the membership every three years. The next election of officers will be in 2004.
The APWU has more than 1,600 locals located in every state and territory of the United States. Its top governing body is the biennial national convention, the next to be held in 2002. Between conventions, a 12-person national executive board sets union policy. Members of the NEB are the top three officers, three craft/division directors, the director of industrial relations and the five regional coordinators.
