Vincent Raymond Sombrotto was a letter carrier at Grand Central Station in New York City, and the 16th president of the National Association of Letter Carriers between 1978 and 2002. He was born in Manhattan in 1923 to an Italian father and an Irish mother. Sombrotto became an official member of the National Association of Letter Carriers in 1947 and played a huge part in the U.S. postal strike of 1970. Sombrotto helped to expand the union into more than 100 cities and involved more than 200,000 new members. He retired in 2002 and finished with over 300,000 members and died in 2013 aged 89 at Port Washington, New York.
Early life
Vincent Raymond Sombrotto was born on June 15, 1923 in Manhattan, New York. His parents were Raymond and Agnes Sombrotto. His mother supported the family by working as a seamstress.
After World War II Mr. Sombrotto worked as a truck driver. He took a part-time job sorting mail at Christmas in a local Post Office. For most of the next 30 years he worked as a letter carrier delivering mail from Grand Central post office in Manhattan New York. In July 1969 Mr Sombrotto supported a mass sick call of Postal Workers in Bronx New York.
U.S. postal strike of 1970
On March 1970 members of National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 36 met in Manhattan, New York City and voted to call a wildcat strike. Sombrotto and the members of the union began picketing the next day. At first the strike was just in New York City but soon it grew to more than 210,000 workers across the entire country. President Richard Nixon appeared on national television and ordered the employees back to work, but this only stiffened the will of existing workers, angry strikers, and workers in 671 places in other cities joined the strike. At the time, postal employees were not permitted by law to bargain collectively. Striking postal workers felt they had very low wages and that working conditions were poor, unsanitary, and unsafe. The immediate trigger for the strike was an act of Congress to increase the salaries of postal workers by only 4%, while Congress raised their own pay by 41%.
As the strike grew to a national scale and began to disrupt mail delivery across the United States; President Richard Nixon became involved. Nixon used the military and the National Guard as strike breakers. Instead of backing down, workers became more vocal and the strike gained even more support. Workers from other government agencies also announced that they would strike if Nixon pursued legal action against postal employees. Nixon spoke to the nation again on March 23, asking workers to return to their jobs and announcing he would deploy the National Guard to deliver mail in New York. This announcement was accompanied by Proclamation 3972, which declared a national emergency. The national emergency Proclamation was never revoked. The resulting expansion of presidential power was investigated in 1973 by an agency of Congress called the Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency, which warned that the national state of emergency gave the president the right to seize property, organize the means of production, and to institute martial law. Nixon then ordered the force to 24,000 military personnel to begin distribution of mail. Operation Graphic Hand was at its peak of more than 18,500 military personnel assigned to 17 post offices in New York, from the regular Army, National Guard, Army Reserve, Air National Guard and the Navy, Air Force and Navy Marine Reserve. The strike of postal workers in 1970 severely tested the working relationships within the federal government. The Department of Labor played a major role in mediating the strike. After the soldiers were briefly called, a compromise was reached with the postal unions and the wildcat strike ended quickly.
The successful strike involving almost 250,000 postal employees resulted in the passage of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 by the US Congress. The law established the United States Postal Service, a corporation-like independent agency with an official monopoly on the delivery of mail in the United States. It also gave the National Association of Letter Carriers and other postal unions the right to collectively negotiate a national agreement with the newly formed United States Postal Service.
President of NALC Branch 36
On December 2, 1971, Sombrotto was elected President of New York Local 36. He and six other members of Branch 36 were known as "The Magnificent Seven". This group of union organizers worked to reform and democratize the union.
President of NALC
In 1978 Sombrotto was elected as President of the National Association of Letter Carriers, a position he held for the next 24 years. As president, Sombrotto led seven contract negotiations that provided basic wage increases in every contract. In 1993 he played a key role in helping to reform the Hatch Act, the law which forbade the partisan political activities of federal employees.
Charitable and philanthropic activities
President Sombrotto's belief in social responsibility caused him to seek the help and support of union leadership and membership to help others in need. Over the years the National Association of Letter Carriers raised money for many charities, with members volunteering time and resources to the community projects, and an offering a helping hand to those less fortunate. With the active support of the union's membership, the union raised millions of dollars for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and their annual food drive has become one of the world's largest one-day food collection drives.
The Walter P. Reuther Library in Detroit, Michigan houses the . This collection illustrates his time in office such as administrative functions, political involvement, organizational affiliations, and relationships with union members.
