August 5-9, 2024 Boston Convention and Exhibition Center
office. By the first NALC conven- tion, the union encompassed 52 branches and represented 4,600 carriers. Each subsequent issue of The Postal Record documented steady growth in the number of branches, as the NALC reached into every region and every state— anywhere letter carriers were de- livering mail. That Boston seemed an appro- priate setting for this first meet- ing is not a surprise, given the re- gion’s legacy of resistance. In the 1830s, half a century before the better-known mass movements for workers’ rights in the United States, mill workers in Lowell, MA, organized, went on strike and mobilized in politics when women couldn’t even vote—and created the first union of working women in American history. Also in the 1830s, Boston became the cen- ter of the abolitionist movement with the founding of The Libera- tor newsletter, which advocated for the “immediate and complete emancipation of all slaves.” That legacy has continued in the years since that first NALC conven- tion. In 1919, 20,000 textile work- ers in Lawrence, MA, struck against a cut in pay, stopping nearly all
the years. In 1968, delegates met for the last time without the right to full collective bargaining. The wildcat postal strike in 1970 would mean that by the time the delegates next met, NALC had won the right to bargain over wages for the first time under the Postal Reorganiza- tion Act. In 2008, delegates grappled with the grim realities of the early stages of the Great Recession. The country had just experienced the biggest jump in unemployment in more than 20 years and millions of Americans, including some NALC members, were losing their homes in the wake of an historic collapse of the mortgage market. Mail vol- ume had begun its secular decline a few years before, but we had yet to understand the deep and last- ing impact the recession would have on the Postal Service—or the negative impact of the pre-funding mandate in the Postal Accountabil- ity and Enhancement Act, which had just become law in 2006. But there was hope. The delegates voted to endorse Barack Obama for president and, as we now know, he helped the country navigate finan- cial recovery. This year marks the fourth time we have met in Boston for an NALC convention. We gather here to carry on the work of the Lowell mill girls, the Lawrence textile workers, and NALC’s original organizers to ad- vance the cause of worker rights and solidarity. We will meet the challenges ahead, just as our pre- decessors did. Welcome to Boston, siblings. Bread and roses! Time since Chicago Our time in Chicago was one of celebration and pride. We had a lot to celebrate: We were finally gath- ering together after four years, with the COVID-19 pandemic requiring us to cancel our 2020 convention, and exercising an abundance of caution in 2022 in Chicago as vac- cines and masks were ushering us out of the pandemic.
production in the city. The strike depended on the solidarity of diverse work- ers, as it united people of more than 51 nationalities. Remembered as the Bread and Roses Strike, workers sought both fair wages and dignified working condi- tions. This strike has be- come a source of inspiration for the labor movement, as labor activists today still quote a poem written about the strike, reciting, “Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!” It is with this same goal— for both wages and dignity, bread and roses—that NALC delegates have continued to convene in Boston over
The Bread and Roses Strike
18 The Postal Record August 2024
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