Nick Vafiades is a devoted union advocate whose journey began after dutifully serving eight years in the Marine Corps. He began his career with the Postal Service in 1996 in Longview, WA, where his commitment to letter carriers took root. Nick’s drive to improve working conditions led him to become a shop steward, branch president eventually taking on roles such as local business agent and arbitration advocate.

A graduate of the 2008 NALC Leadership Academy Class 6, Nick has also served as an executive board member, vice president and as president of the Washington State Association until appointed Regional Administrative Assistant in 2014. In 2018, he ran for and was elected as the Region 2 National Business Agent (NBA). In 2022, Nick was re-elected by acclamation. 

As business agent, he has built specialized steward teams for:

• Route adjustment training – providing route protection training for letter carriers, at the branch’s request

• Route adjustment grievances – providing support and assistance during the grievance process, at the branch’s request

• JSOVB support teams, deployed to places to deal with management bullies. 

• Backlog teams, at the branch’s request for places that were behind or overwhelmed by the grievance workload.

 

Nick has developed two new steward college tracks: Dissecting Discipline and Contract Interpretation, in addition to continuing to provide the original tracks on an as needed basis. He has also expanded the pool of experienced, qualified NAAs working within the region from a handful to nearly 30 stewards and/or instructors ready to assist in any of the region’s six states.

Nick’s goals have always remained clear and objective: to leave Region 2 better than when he found it. In keeping with that, Nick intends to continue advocating for national level grievances and interpretive disputes involving non-compliance and refusal to activate Step B back-up teams. He will continue to expand education and training through the development of NEERMP teams, and updating the already developed steward tracks, and providing direct support to branches and members in offices of all sizes.