Labor quiz for the week of May 14, 2012

What’s a Nixie?

Back when most mail moved by train, the Postal Service’s railway mail clerks hand-sorted at least 600 pieces of mail per hour in drafty, noisy boxcars hurtling down the tracks, and often spoke in shorthand. A “nixie” was:  a damaged or empty mail sack, an unsortable or misaddressed letter, or the hook used to snag the sacks held aloft at the cranes standing outside train stations.  Click here to submit your answer and you could be next week’s winner!

Last Week’s Quiz: The organization that Jerry Wurf and a couple of other union leaders tried to establish in the late 1970's was the Progressive Alliance, a collective effort by the “dissident” wing of the U.S. labor leadership to establish an alternative labor politics to that of the AFL-CIO. Congrats to Carl Goldman of AFSCME Council 26, Washington, DC, this week’s quiz winner!