Branch 19, National Association of Letter Carriers
23 Brock Street, Unit B2
North Haven, CT 06473

Branch 19 was chartered in 1890. (Charles Page, the Branch President, notes that the original charter is kept at the national headquarters in Washington, D.C.) NALC is today the exclusive bargaining agent for letter carriers (read: the men and women who actually deliver the mail.) Branch 19 today represents carriers in Allingtown, Branford, Cheshire, Clinton, Deep River, East and Fair Haven, Guilford, Hamden, Kilby, Mount Carmel, New Haven, North Haven, Wallingford, Westville, and Whitneyville.

THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT IN THE UNION’S HISTORY, states its President, Charles Page, was the postal strike of 1970, which won the union its collective bargaining rights.

THE GREATEST DIFFICULTY OVER THE YEARS has been the union’s inability to get legislation passed that effects member benefits and retirement issues. These issues still must be addressed by Congress; they cannot be negotiated as part of collective bargaining.

THE UNION’S BIGGEST CONCERNS TODAY are “automation and downsizing.”

THE RECORDS

Mr. Page says that the officers who keep the bulk of the records are the President, Vice President, Treasurer, Recording Secretary, and Financial Secretary. In addition, the office secretary keeps records. There is, obviously, some duplication among the records of the various entities.

Records kept in the President’s Office include: current handbooks and manuals (rules and regulations from the Postal Service itself); an explanation of the current national agreement, which goes back to 1976; “under lock and key,” files of unfair labor practices charges made by the branch against the postal service, going back to 1996; and, on both the computer and in hard copy, membership lists including addresses and phone numbers, and a log of grievances filed back to 1999. Mr. Page notes that a current special office project is to take the older hard copies of the grievances and arbitrations (going back to the mid 1970s) and transfer them to the computer’s zip drive.

Records kept in the Vice President’s Office include: handbooks and manuals from the postal service (basically current); active workers’ compensation cases (these may go back a few years, but they have not yet been resolved); Local agreements, filed by the particular post office with which they were reached, going back to the mid 1980s; materials related to the national contract, going back to the mid 1970s; current grievances, again filed by post office; arbitration decisions, referring back to the mid-1970s; and grievances now closed, going back to 1999.

Financial Records (Current—Past Year) include vouchers and correspondence to and from accounts payable; vouchers and correspondence to and from various officers; and records about expenses incurred for various functions, including the annual retirement dinner; convention; scholarship fund and “canister days” for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Outer Office—Office Secretary
Mr. Page says that no records are kept at the desk in the outer office. A filing cabinet holds hard copy of the previous year’s grievances, now closed. On shelves are various publications from the current year, including their own Local publication; national postal service publications; weekly National Association of Letter Carriers bulletins; and the national postal service bulletin, The Federal Times.

Inventory of the Records Kept in the Basement
A storage area in Branch 19’s basement holds older records. Mr. Page says that the financial records such as voucher books and treasurer’s records go back only a little over ten years; many of these records were thrown out for reasons of space. The following is the inventory of records that we found in the basement storage area:

The basement also has a conference room, where records are also stored, mostly in notebooks by topic and date:

The conference room is named after and dedicated to the memory of Charlie Hughes, who was the installation President in the 1950s and early 1960s. Its walls hold certain historical artifacts, such as; the National Association of Letter Carriers Bicentennial Banner; the Ladies Auxiliary Charter from 1935 (with signatures of the charter members); a framed photograph of Mr. Hughes ca. 1950s or 1960s; a photograph of Mr. Hughes’ retirement dinner in the 1960s; awards given to the Local for its work on behalf of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and framed photographs of Local officers with Jerry Lewis, 1982, 1985, 1986; and several other old photographs of members and activities, taken in the 1980s.

The third floor is where the scanning project is taking place, so there are stacks of files of the 1993 grievances that are being scanned into the computer. Mr. Page explains that, once the grievances are scanned in, the hard copies will be disposed of, and that nothing before 1993 would be scanned in. Grievances prior to that year have already been discarded.Mr. Page also explains that he is currently the state secretary for the Connecticut State Association of Letter Carriers, and that its President is Branch 19’s Sergeant-at-Arms, Joseph Mahon. The state President always holds the state’s records, so they are currently housed in this office.

Filing cabinets on the third floor contain the following Branch 19 records:

In addition, there is a MacIntosh computer in one of the third floor offices, and the Local has Mac discs that contain grievance logs to 1989; the membership list, as of 1998; and meeting minutes 1990-1997.

CONTACT

Charles B. Page, President, 203-777-NALC; 203-468-0291

WEB LINK

www.nalc.org