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President's Viewpoint
Remembering and
Honoring Their Contributions
(This article first appeared in the July/August 2009 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)
In May I attended the memorial services for a former national officer, John Morgen, who was director of the APWU Clerk Craft for more than a decade. John retired in 1985, so many current members have no recollection of his service to the union. But this lack of recognition does not detract from the fact that he made significant contributions to the working conditions of today’s postal employees.
Nor is this lack of institutional memory restricted to the work of John Morgen; it applies similarly to Stu Filbey, the first national president of the American Postal Workers Union and the principal architect of the merger of the five unions that formed the APWU; Moe Biller, the dynamic president who served for more than two decades and moved the union into the 21st century, and many others.
The struggle among Postal Service employees to achieve acceptable wages, benefits, and conditions of employment has evolved over time through the efforts of hundreds of thousands of individuals who gave their time and energy so that others could benefit. Former presidents Filbey and Biller were perhaps the most visible of the postal leaders but many others — such as John Morgen — made major contributions to the progress achieved over the past 220 years.
The U.S. Mail
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History informs us that following the adoption of the U.S. Constitution in May 1789, Congress established a Post Office Department and created the Office of the Postmaster General, who had the general authority to establish and operate a government enterprise that would be responsible for processing and delivering mail.
From that date forward, workers were employed to perform the tasks of collecting, processing, transporting, and delivering mail throughout the United States and the world, and they have done it well.
For many years, the conditions of employment were Spartan: Employees earned barely enough to get by and had no benefits; they lacked the right to collectively pursue better conditions. The workforce was overwhelmingly male, with females and minorities restricted to specific occupations.
From the earliest days and well into the early 20th Century, postal workers were required to petition the government to request improvements in pay and conditions of employment. And petitioning could be ignored: It was not until 1971, after years of struggle, that we achieved collective bargaining rights and were granted a real role in the decisions that profoundly affect our lives.
What Came Next
Once we had won the right to organize and speak collectively, postal workers set about the task of improving wages and working conditions: Even with greatly expanded rights, we still had to achieve improvements in wages and benefits.
As in every collaborative effort, individuals with determination and vision stepped forward to lead the struggle that has resulted in the vastly improved conditions of today’s workplace.
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John Morgen fit easily into the cadre of leadership that built this union. Following military service in World War II, he went to work for the St. Paul Post Office, where he immediately made his mark as an activist. John was not satisfied being “just” a union member. He was outspoken from the beginning, and in short order held a succession of leadership positions. He was elected president of the St. Paul local and from that position gained national attention. In 1968, he was elected as a national officer of one of the two clerks unions that later merged to form the APWU.
During his nearly 20 years as a national officer, John Morgen added his voice of reason and determination to the demand that postal workers receive dignity and respect equal to the service that they provided. He served as an executive vice president in the National Postal Union and then as head of the Clerk Craft for the merged APWU.
When Moe Biller and I arrived at the national office in 1980 as president and executive vice president, it was our intent to usher in a new direction for the APWU — to take postal unionism to a higher level. We succeeded in the ensuing years in achieving levels of remuneration far exceeding those in the past, advancing the pay and expanding the benefits of employees well beyond those in existence when we assumed office. John Morgen was a highly visible player in this new arena of representation.
As the Director of the Clerk Craft, he was deeply involved in the fight for fairness as the Postal Service transformed from manual to mechanized to automated mail processing, and dealt effectively with the myriad of changes associated with each conversion.
Putting the Membership First
As a member of the APWU National Executive Board, John was always a voice of reason and conviction. His constant concern was, “How will it affect the members?”
John Morgen’s work is now done, and there aren’t many of us left who remember his crooked grin and soft chuckle. Few postal employees are still around who can recall his tenacious representation or his contributions to advancements in wages, benefits or working conditions.
But we are all richer from his efforts, and despite our amnesia about how we arrived at this point, I want to use this occasion to remind postal employees of an important truth: The many contractual benefits we now enjoy are not our birthright. We achieved them through the hard work of people like John Morgen.
And as our focus on what is really important gets clouded – amidst the disputes over overtime, seniority, higher-level pay, and other minor benefits made possible by John Morgen and other union activists, I take this opportunity to pay tribute to those who did more than complain:
To Stu Filbey, Moe Biller, and the hundreds of other national officers and local activists who passed this way and made our lives richer, I offer our appreciation for your service to postal employees.
We are far removed from 1789, of course, but nine generations later we appreciate the efforts of those who toiled to make postal employment better.
