Some 40 years ago, Bill Young, a promising young shop steward in San Luis Obispo Branch 52 of the National Association of Letter Carriers, filed a grievance to protect the rights of one of his branch members. It turned out to be the beginning of a remarkable career in the modern union movement.
It was not long before Young's union sisters and brothers recognized both his leadership talents and his bulldog-like determination to fight for fair wages and benefits and a decent middle-class life for city letter carriers. In Region 1 in San Francisco, they chose him to be regional administrative assistant and then national business agent. His work in California was so widely respected that he was asked in 1990 to come to NALC headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he would serve as assistant secretary-treasurer, director of city delivery, vice president and executive vice president. When his mentor, Vincent Sombrotto, retired in 2002, Young became president of the union.
It was not an easy time to take the helm. The NALC—and the entire union movement—were fighting hard to resist a viciously anti-union White House and Congress. Young understood better than anyone else that his mission was to maintain good jobs for city letter carriers, to strengthen the NALC and to ensure the survival of the Postal Service itself.
Often against huge odds, Young's efforts succeeded on each of those fronts. His accomplishments as NALC president include a streamlined, fair new grievance procedure; an efficient method of route rotation; a five-year contract that provides regular wage increases and cost-of-living adjustments for NALC members; increased participation in American politics by the union; and the NALC's new Leadership Academy to train the union's next generation of leaders. Moreover, with his guidance, the NALC had a strong and positive influence on the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 that put the Postal Service on a more secure footing.
Young is widely recognized as a leader not only of the NALC but of the entire union movement. The AFL-CIO Executive Council has benefited from his contributions. He serves with distinction as vice chair of the council's Community Partnerships Committee and as a member of its Executive Committee and Political Committee.
In 2008, under Young's direction, more than 300 Letter Carriers members and staff were sent throughout the country to help elect a president and Congress on the side of working families. In addition to this massive union-wide commitment, Young personally joined NALC staffers and officers after work as volunteers at AFL-CIO headquarters for the Labor 2008 phone bank. In these evenings, he called countless union members to talk about the issues at stake in the election.
It is also typical of Bill Young that he has been one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Employee Free Choice Act. Because he has always seen how critical it is to strengthen the entire union movement, he deployed more than 30 NALC staff members for the Employee Free Choice Act campaign in battleground states.
This summer, he retired as president of the NALC and is now retiring as a council member. On behalf of the 11 million members of the AFL-CIO throughout the country, we thank our good friend and brother Bill Young for everything he has achieved for the Letter Carriers and the AFL-CIO, and we give him our very warmest wishes for many happy years of retirement.