William Henry Burrus (December 13, 1936 – May 19, 2018) was an American labor union leader. Born in

Wheeling, West Virginia Wheeling is a city in Ohio County, West Virginia, Ohio and Marshall County, West Virginia, Marshall counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The county seat of Ohio County, it lies along the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mo ...

, Burrus studied at West Virginia State College, then joined the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

, serving in the 101st Airborne Division and the 4th Armored Division. In 1957, he left the army, and became a distribution clerk with the

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the federal governmen ...

, based in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

. Burrus joined the

American Postal Workers Union The American Postal Workers Union (APWU) is a trade union, labor union in the United States. It represents over 200,000 employees and retirees of the United States Postal Service who belong to the Clerk, Maintenance, Motor Vehicle, and Support S ...

. He took part in the U.S. postal strike of 1970, and was elected as president of his local union. While in this role, he became the founding president of the union's National Presidents Conference, and led a movement in 1978 which successfully rejected a collective bargaining agreement which would have limited cost-of-living increases. In 1980, Burrus was elected as executive vice president of the union, leading negotiations with the postal service. In 2001, he was elected as the union's president, the first African American to become leader of a national union through a direct ballot of the union membership. As president, he campaigned against government efforts to worsen postal workers' pay and conditions, and following the

2001 anthrax attacks The 2001 anthrax attacks, also known as Amerithrax (a portmanteau of "United States, America" and "anthrax", from its FBI case name), occurred in the United States over the course of several weeks beginning on September 18, 2001, one week after th ...

, campaigned for safer working conditions. Burrus also served as a vice-president of the AFL-CIO. He retired from all his posts in 2010, and died in 2018.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burrus, William 1936 births 2018 deaths American trade union leaders People from Wheeling, West Virginia Trade unionists from West Virginia Vice presidents of the AFL-CIO Military personnel from West Virginia West Virginia State University alumni