Despite the many achievements of our union, we continue to face serious challenges that threaten our job security, our pay, benefits, and the very future of the Postal Service. So, how can APWU members fight back against attempts to privatize our Postal Service and keep it running for another 250 years? We must unite and fight by organizing new members into our union.
Locals and states are coming together to unite and fight back against threats to our work, our contract, and our public Postal Service. That is the theme of the new APWU internal organizing drive – Unite and Fight. The organizing drive will kick off on Sept. 1 and will run through Oct. 31.
Today, about 80% of postal workers are organized. That’s great! But it also means that one in five of our coworkers across the country don’t belong to our union. We’ve had knock-out successful organizing drives in the last few years; now we’re taking a new course. Our goal is for 2,000 individual members to sign up at least one new member. Organizing is every member’s responsibility!
Why Organize?
Often when we highlight organizing victories, we’re talking about new organizing wins, where workers are winning union recognition for the first time. Of course, our union is already well-established and recognized by the Postal Service. First, a union derives its power from its members, joining together, exercising their collective voice to win on issues that matter most to them. The more members in a union, the more representative it is of the workforce, the louder its collective voice, and the harder it is for the boss to play workers off one another. Quite simply, there’s power in numbers.
Second, internal organizing is an opportunity to make a union stronger by exercising its union muscles. Having conversations with coworkers, identifying and addressing workplace issues, recruiting new activists and leaders – these are all things we can achieve when we develop a plan to grow our union, talk to nonmembers, and find out what’s most important to postal workers today. Talking and acting like a union, leading and engaging in collective campaigns, and signing up new members allows us to flex our APWU muscles and grow stronger together.
The APWU Organization Department, led by Anna Smith, has developed a toolkit of helpful materials to bring along with you when reaching out to nonmembers. This includes various brochures on the benefits of union membership, highlights of important victories our union has achieved, and more.
To access these tools and get involved in this critical organizing drive, visit apwu.org/unite-and-fight
“It’s been an exciting start to the year,” said President Dimondstein, kicking off the campaign. “We won an awesome new contract, and we fought off devastating retirement cuts. We’ve won these battles and many more because our union is ready to fight for what matters to postal workers. We’ll be even stronger when we’ve signed up the nonmembers in workplaces across the country and grown our union family. Everyone can be an organizer – let’s do this together!”
