BOSTON — Delegates to the 66th Biennial Convention of the National Association of Letter Carriers, acting on a motion by “honorary NALC member” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), voted enthusiastically today to endorse Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for president in this fall’s general election.

The 303,000-member NALC was one of the first unions to support Sen. Clinton’s presidential bid last September and was at the forefront of a nationwide grass-roots mobilization on her behalf throughout the primary campaign.

In an address to more than 8,000 convention delegates just before the endorsement vote, Clinton urged the NALC members to work hard to elect Obama as president this fall.

“I believe this country is worth fighting for and I believe firmly that the best way to continue this fight is to elect Senator Barack Obama as president of the United States,” she said.

“I have seen his passion and determination, his grace and his grit,” Clinton added. “He has lived the American dream. And he can, with your help, become the president who will once again put that dream within the reach of all of our children and grandchildren.”

Immediately after her address, the delegates unanimously made Clinton an honorary NALC member and a delegate to the convention. In turn, she moved a resolution to endorse the Illinois senator, which was adopted unanimously by a rousing voice vote.

NALC President William H. Young said Obama stands with letter carriers on every issue important to them, including legislation to ban contracting out of letter carrier jobs, support of the Employee Free Choice Act to help workers obtain union protection, and opposition to Do-Not-Mail registries that threaten affordable postage for most Americans.

“Senator Obama has clearly shown he can mobilize this country for change and he has demonstrated a remarkable level-headedness about the war in Iraq from the start,” Young told the convention. “The NALC will do everything in its power to make him the next president of the United States.”

On the contrary, Young said Republican candidate John McCain has routinely opposed letter carriers’ interests and “has been consistently hostile to working men and women.”

Obama had been invited to address the convention, but was unable to appear due to his current trip overseas to U.S. war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The NALC represents all city delivery letter carriers employed by the U.S. Postal Service in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and Guam. The biennial convention, which continues through Friday, is the largest convention of any AFL-CIO union.