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One of the problems activists often face is the distance between workplace concerns and the national officers’ agenda. In the American Postal Workers Union, local officers formed the Local Presidents’ Conference in the late 1970s when the national union ignored their concerns.

Today, renamed the National Presidents’ Conference, the group meets three times a year and provides a forum for activist local APWU officers to exchange information, communicate their concerns to national union leaders, organize for the national APWU conventions, and figure out how to educate and mobilize members. Meetings rotate from city to city, organized by a host local. Local and state presidents are the voting delegates, but any APWU member may attend. National officers may attend as well, but they cannot vote, and they speak only at the invitation of the delegates.

The NPC sets its own agenda and its work influences the work of the national union in several ways. NPC meetings give local and state presidents the opportunity to express concerns and ask questions directly of the national officers, outside the formality of the union convention, which meets every other year. The discussions can be heated, especially on controversial issues when delegates believe the union is not doing enough.

When the discussion ends the NPC adopts resolutions and organizes to get them passed at the national APWU convention. One NPC-backed resolution led to a constitutional change creating a permanent mechanism for funding organizing drives among private-sector postal workers. Another prohibited officer retirement and benefit enhancements unless voted on by the national convention. National officers must respect the NPC because it has the demonstrated ability to sway the convention.

The NPC also, of course, helps the union deal with Postal Service management. Says Lance Coles, president of Local 44 in Des Moines, “If management starts a new program in Des Moines, say a new scheduling process, we can tell other locals about it before management does, and we can find out how other locals have responded. That way we are all forewarned and forearmed.” Issues the NPC has tackled include health care, grievance backlogs, staffing, and dues increases.

The NPC took the lead in addressing the impact of globalization and privatization on postal workers. They found that two trade deals then in negotiation, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), could lead to more privatization of postal services, a real threat to postal unions.

”We have an educational day or two at the NPC, and the class on the FTAA shocked people,” says Coles. “So NPC created a train-the-trainers program to allow APWU officers to educate their members about globalization and privatization. That way, we could take the issue to our union meetings and then to our churches, our families, and take political action. We talked about specific actions we could take, such as coalition building, editorial writing, and direct action.”

The NPC is not an official APWU organization and receives no funds from the union. Registration fees offset expenses and help host locals defray their costs. Representatives from about 150 of the APWU’s 1,600 locals attend the NPC. They come mostly from the largest locals, which represent the bulk of the membership and have the resources for travel. Smaller locals attend when the NPC meets close to their base.

LOSING AND REGAINING INDEPENDENCE
The evolution of the NPC provides some lessons for activists about the importance of independence. When founded, the NPC adopted a bylaw that barred national APWU officers from attending its meetings.

”We wanted to be independent from the influences and pressures that the national union could bring to bear and we wanted to be a ‘cat’s paw’ that promulgated issues and positions that national officers were not necessarily in agreement with,” explains John Richards, former president of the Pittsburgh local and the first elected NPC chair .

The NPC’s independence attracted many local and state officers, since it gave them a safe place to express their dissatisfactions and sent a strong message to national union officers. NPC leaders became so influential that in 1980 they won election to national offices as a slate. Upon their election, however, they altered NPC rules so they could continue to attend as voting delegates.

That was “a horrible mistake,” recalls Richards. “From that point on, the Conference lost its independent status. It was like witnessing the morphing from a tiger to a tame, docile house pussycat. I believe that the Conference allowed itself to be totally co-opted by the administration.”

For nearly two decades, the NPC was little more than a “talking shop” where national leaders “lectured and preached,” says Jim Alexander, president of the Southern Oregon Area Local and current NPC chair.

In 1999, “change came from a group that called itself the P.O.P.’s, Pissed-Off Presidents,” says Alexander. “There were about 40 or 50 of us who weren't happy with the direction of the union. We wanted a more activist agenda for the NPC to prepare and organize for the national conventions. Just by raising the issues at the conferences we changed the direction of the NPC.”

By mobilizing delegates, the P.O.P.’s also altered NPC rules so that national officers again could attend and speak only at the discretion of the delegates. As a result, more local presidents attend than ever before and ”the national officers are doing a better job of listening to us rather than preaching,” concludes Alexander.

”I simply believed then and continue to believe now that it is an oil and water situation, and no matter who is elected to those offices and no matter where they come from, their priorities change,” says Richards. “An independent Conference is desirable to keep their feet to the fire.”

[Aaron Brenner is a labor historian, researcher, writer, and editor in New York City. He has written about international labor solidarity, union reform movements, and rank-and-file rebellions by Teamsters, telephone workers, and postal workers. He authored the Troublemaker’s Handbook 2 chapter on Union Solidarity.]