When Rockford letter carrier Jay Larson was stabbed to death on the job earlier this year, grief-stricken U.S. Postal Service employees leaned on each other and their leader, Lawrence Steward.
As a friend of Larson’s and as president of the National Association of Letter Carriers Local 245, Steward helped organize a vigil and a balloon release to honor the victims of the March 27 mass stabbing and a mail truck procession on Larson’s route to memorialize the 49-year-old longtime postal worker.
A few months later, Steward would get a notice from his boss. He was being fired.
“It was such a sad, traumatic event for everyone,” said Michael Caref, National Business Agent for NALC Region 3 in a video posted on YouTube. “My man here did a good job. He had to deal with the media, had to deal with postal management, the grief that our brothers and sisters were going through.”
