Nobody ever notices postmen somehow. Yet they have passions like other
men, and even carry large bags where a small corpse can be stowed quite
easily. -G.K. Chesterton
Monday, Mar. 30, 1970
THE STRIKE THAT STUNNED THE COUNTRY
So invisible were the docile, dependable men in gray until last week
that no one noticed that their passions were about to explode into a
historic and ominous strike. The first national postal stoppage in U.S.
history and the largest walkout ever against the Federal Government,
the postal strike almost immediately began to strangle the operations
of commerce, impair Government functions and vastly inconvenience the
public. It was also an acutely painful symptom of the fragility of the
institutions that are crucial to the nation's orderly functioning. It
could well set a new pattern of ruinous civil service strikes.
The wildcat movement erupted with such suddenness that Congress, the
Administration and the leadership of seven postal unions were unable to
move promptly or effectively to get the men back on their jobs. Union
and Administration officials conferred in Washington at the end of last
week, but the illegal strike, which started in New York City, quickly
spread to surrounding areas and gradually began marching north to New
England and westward across the country, hitting Akron, Buffalo,
Chicago, Cleveland, Dearborn, St. Paul, Detroit, Denver and San
Franciscoand many smaller communities between. By week's end the
strike had either shut down or curtailed service in more than 30 major
cities, and was still spreading.
Postmaster General Winton Blount could only move to lessen the strike's
effects, not to end the walkout. Mail destined for affected cities was
embargoed, and began piling up by the ton. Mailboxes were ordered
sealed. Jailing workers or union officials, a weapon allowed by
statute, promised only a tauter confrontation. A court order barring
the strike was ignored by the rank and file, who courted contempt
A late-week agreement between Labor Secretary George Shultz and a group
of union leaders headed by James Rademacher, head of the National
Association of Letter Carriers, promised a back-to-work movement in
exchange for negotiations on a wage increase. Rademacher himself sent
telegrams urging strikers to abide by the ageement. "Public wrath shall
replace support" if workers stay out, he warned. "Reason must prevail."
But the strikers hooted down their leaders. For them, money is the
crucial issue. Embittered by what they consider their subsistence-level
pay ($6,176 to start, $8,442 after 21 years), they resistedat least
over the weekendall attempts of the leadership to impose discipline.
Postmaster General Blount at
first seemed to rule out any attempt to coerce the unions or use the
National Guard or the Army to move mail. Later, the Government's
attitude hardened. At week's end President Nixon broke four days of
silence to vow: "I will meet my constitutional obligations to see to it
that the mails will go through." He did not say how, but his statement,
"We have means to deliver the mail," strongly hinted at a call-out of
Themselves surprised by their newfound militancy, and having already
risked their jobs and pensions by defying the federal antistrike laws,
the postal workers were determined to justify the hazard by making the
most of their action. "We're used to hard times," said one striker, and
few of his fellow workers would disagree. Union meetings resounded with
obscenities aimed at Rademacher, Richard Nixon and everyone else urging
a truce. Gustave Johnson, president of the letter carriers' Manhattan
Branch 36, where it all started, asked for compliance without really
expecting it. "For the first time these men are standing ten feet tall
instead of groveling in the dust," he said. "By this action, we have
graduated from an organization to a union."
This feeling of union brotherhood became evident when postal local
leaders from across the country met with Rademacher in Washington after
the conference with Shultz. The local labor chiefs promised a
nationwide strike unless Congress, the guardian of the postal system,
committed itself to action on pay and other issues.
After just a few days of stoppage, and with parts of the system still
operating, the effects of the shutdown appeared to be little short of
devastating. The nation's postal system handles 270 million pieces of
mail a day and moves everything from bank drafts to draft notices.
Census questionnaires were scheduled to go out to every American family
this week. No Government agency or businessand few individuals
could escape the impact of the mail strike. Postal service, once
taken for granted, suddenly affected everyone by its absence.
The disruption visited on the New York area provided a frightening
blueprint of what the rest of the country could expect if the strike
lasted. The New York Post Office handles 35 million pieces of mail
daily, more than all of Belgium. Many of the country's largest
corporations are headquartered in the city; most depend upon the mails
for conducting their business. Paychecks destined for branch offices
were frozen. The strike, which was 100% effective in halting deliveries
in the city, prevented banks, insurance companies and Government
offices from sending out bills or receiving payments. Consolidated
Edison, which disburses and receives $3,000,000 a day, had no money
coming in, none going out.
On Wall Street, checks, stock certificates, bonds and the other
financial papers that are the lifeblood of the world's busiest stock
exchange failed to arrive, hampering business and forcing officials of
the New York Stock Exchange to consider a market shutdown if the strike
continued much longer. Mail-order houses and periodicals that depend
primarily on subscriptions were immediately damaged. The garment
industry, which deals heavily in mail orders demanding immediate
filling, was also disrupted. The telephone and telegraph became ever
more valuable, but telephone facilities in New York were already taxed
to capacity before the strike started. How much extra strain they could
absorb was uncertain. Department stores, some of which get 85% of their
accounts receivable through the mail, were cut off from their major
sources of cash.
Enjoyable for Some
The strike also affected the
lives of millions of individuals. Poet W.H. Auden fretted about his
passport, which might not reach him in time for a scheduled April 1
departure for Israel. A young divorcee about to leave on vacation was
upset because the strike prevented her child-support payment from
reaching her on time. To others, the strike brought welcome relief from
business pressures. "It's wonderful not to receive any mail," said an
editor employed by a New York publishing firm. "For the first time in
years, I've been able to clear my desk." Critic Dwight Macdonald
lamented a missing check and a manuscript stalled somewhere in the
pipeline, but he concluded: "It's really rather nice not getting any
mail, particularly all the mail I get soliciting for various causes."
New York City's 1,000,000 welfare recipients, however, were unaffected
by the strikeso far. Public-assistance checks were posted earlier in
the month, and most were delivered just before the stoppage got under
way. The Welfare Department planned to distribute future checks to the
city's welfare centers for pickup there. If the strike continues,
pensioners expecting Social Security payments early in April will have
to do without. Other examples of the hardship caused by the strike:
> The Defense Department estimated that more than 500 tons of mail
destined for U.S. military personnel and their families round the world
were already tied up. One of those thus affected was Mrs. Donna Fyler,
22, a magazine writer whose husband Peter is serving with the Air Force
in Viet Nam. "Every story you read in the paper tells of his base being
blown up," said she. "It was only from the letters that I knew he was
alive and well." Due to meet her husband in Hawaii this week, she
feared that she would not get the necessary papers if the strike
continued. Worse, she says, "I wouldn't know where to meet him."
> Manhattan's Lenox Hill Hospital reported a backup in mail applications
for admission to nursing homes. That forced some patients ready for
discharge to remain in the hospital and prevented new patients from
> Said an elderly lady who lives at Manhattan's Beacon
Hotel: "I live on my stock dividend checks and I'm expecting some right
now. If this goes on for much longer, I'll just have to start dipping
into my savings."
> Patients at New York's Park Terrace Nursing Home received no letters
from families or friends. Said Henry W. Jacovy, manager of the home:
"I don't think people realized how much the post office really meant
until the strike. Yesterday one of our old people had a birthday
anniversary and didn't get a single card. Usually there aren't that
many cardsmaybe three or fourbut they mean a lot."
> Supervisory personnel at New York's General Post Office found
themselves taking care of live chicks and frogs stranded by the strike.
> A Florida firm that trucks gift packages of citrus fruits to New York
for mailing to save postage was unable to dispose of its merchandise.
Asked what would happen to such perishable goods, William Carroll,
deputy director for the New York postal region, shrugged; "It will just
have to perish."
> Some 9,000 young men in the New York area got a temporary reprieve
from the draft. New York's local draft boards, unable to send out their
traditional greetings because of the strike, delayed physical
examinations and inductions scheduled for April 5 to 20 for at least a
week. This did not really rate as much of a hardship.
The strike tested the ingenuity and determination of many of those
affected. Some firms, like the National Broadcasting Co., shipped their
mail to areas where postmen remained on the job. Many turned to Western
Union. "It's terrible," said John Blasi, assistant manager of a Times
Square office, as he watched clerks who normally handle 800 telegrams a
day write out the 2,000th by 11 a.m. "We can't handle it."
The strike proved to be an unexpected bonanza for a handful. Arnold
Bloom, of Manhattan, who transmits documents by facsimile machines to
31 centers in the U.S. and Canada, was besieged with requests to send
everything from electrocardiograms to copies of Securities and Exchange
Commission rulings. One physician requested the medical records of an
American hospitalized in Europe. Messenger services thrived. New York
City's Fleet Messenger Service, which normally handles 3,000 deliveries
a day, had orders for 4,000 before noon on the first day of the strike.
Another firm used the strike as an opportunity to go into the business
of private mail delivery. It picked up more than 100,000 letters at
10¢ plus postage, trucked them out of New York and mailed them.
A New Jersey lawyer, unable to mail necessary papers to the courthouse,
telephoned the judge who was handling his case and explained what he
wanted to do. Then he called the opposing lawyer, who in turn called
the judge to confirm receipt of the message. In Paterson, N.J., police
divided up a stack of court orders and delivered them in patrol cars.
"The absence of mail is vexatious," said Passaic County Judge Vincent
Duffy, "but it won't stop the courts. Thank God for the telephone and
The postal workers, of course, feel that they have been inconvenienced
and deprived for years. For one thing, their salary scales are the same
across the country. A letter carrier in New York, the nation's second
most expensive city, gets no more than his counterpart in Butte, Mont.,
where living costs are lower. The workers seek a salary schedule that
starts at $8,500 and goes to a top scale of $11,700 after five years.
They also want broader retirement benefits and Government assumption of
the costs of their pension plan, which now comes out of their pay.
Congress, enmeshed in both the pay question and the issue of renovating
the whole postal system, displayed no interest in acting quickly.
The House Post Office and Civil Service Committee reported out a measure
that provided for 98% of the postal workers a hike of 5.4% retroactive
to October 1969, plus an average 6% raise for all federal employees,
including the mailmen, early in 1970. The House passed the bill and
sent it along to the Senate. There, according to union officials, "it
was emasculated." The Senate amended it so that it provided a raise of
only 4% for all federal employees earning less than $10,000 annually.
House and Senate conferees never met on the bill, and it passed into
legislative limbo at the end of the congressional session.
Meanwhile, union restlessness was
growing. Last July, postmen received a 4.1 % pay increase as part of a
two-year-old package. But the carriers and clerks, viewing their pay
raise in the light of the 41% hike that Congressmen had voted for
themselves the previous February, were infuriated rather than
satisfied. Government employees generally were scheduled to receive
another small raise this July 1. As an anti-inflation measure, however,
the Nixon Administration proposed deferring that increment for six
Nor were postal workers placated by Nixon's plan for postal reform. The
Administration was committed to a plan developed in 1968 by a ten-man
Commission on Postal Organization headed by Frederick Kappel, former
board chairman of American Telephone and Telegraph Co. The plan
recommended abolition of the Cabinet-rank position of Postmaster
General and the creation of a Government-owned corporation with power
to set postage rates with congressional approval (see box page 14).
Fearing loss of their civil service status and diminution of their
leverage in Congress, the unions opposed the Kappel plan. So did a good
many Congressmen, who were apprehensive that
such a plan would deprive them of their patronage power. Moreover, the
postal unions are the largest and most politically active civil service
bloc and, though their vote power has not resulted in high wages, they
still influence many Congressmen. Nixon indicated, however, that he
would veto any postal-pay bill that did not include creation of a
postal corporation. To resolve the impasse, he called in Rademacher
and they agreed on a bill that the letter carriers could support. But
other postal unionsthe clerks, mail
handlers and expressmenrejected
the plan, breaking the unions' once solid front and giving Congress
another excuse to go slowly.
The delay drove the unions to the brink
of revolt. "Those bastards took little enough time to vote themselves a
41% pay increase," said a postal worker. "Why should they take longer
to give us 8%?" Stamping their feet and clapping their hands, members
of Branch 36 broke up their December meeting with raucous cries of
"Strike! Strike!" Their mood frightened union officials. "We were no
longer in control," said Executive Vice President Herman Sandbank.
In an attempt to impress Congress with the seriousness of the situation,
New York union officials traveled to Capitol Hill again last month.
Said Sandbank: "We were there to convince the Congressmen and the
national [union] president that we were not playing games and that
there would be a strike unless we got the legislation that would
satisfy [our members]." Their attempt was unsuccessful. Earlier this
month, the Post Office Committee reported out still another bill
providing the mailmen with a 5.4% increase retroactive to January. The
men were unhappy with the amount. They were further irked by the
announcement that Congress would take no action on the bill for three
or four weeks. "This was the spark that set them on fire," said
The fire was soon out of control. An angry call for an immediate strike
vote was ruled unconstitutional, and balloting on the question was put
off until St. Patrick's Day. Then, as thousands of their fellow New
Yorkers watched the marchers on Fifth Avenue, the letter carriers
marched to the ballot boxes and voted 1,555 to 1,055 in favor of a
strike. Other locals quickly followed suit. Members of the
Manhattan-Bronx Postal Union chased their president, Morris Biller, off
the platform when he refused to allow them to take an immediate strike
The rapidly spreading walkout placed the Government in a difficult
position. Dependent upon Congress for his department's funds, Blount
could not have bargained with the strikers even if he had wanted to.
Congress adamantly refused to legislate under the club of a strike, and
many postal workers were unwilling to back down without a guarantee of
Finally, there seemed to be some yielding. Rademacher met for 2½ hours
with Secretary Shultz, and the Government agreed to begin discussions
on all of the issues as soon as the men went back to work. Senator Gale
McGee, chairman of the Senate Post Office Comittee, agreed to consider
postal pay raises as part of a general salary bill covering all federal
employees, but refused to take any action while mailmen remained on
strike. Said McGee: "I will not discuss any pay legislation that
rewards only those workers who walk out on the American people in a
wildcat strike." Rademacher was satisfied with the deal, confident that
he could sell it to postal union officials.
His confidence proved unjustified. Local officers, gathered in the
green-and-gold ballroom of Washington's Continental Hotel, were
determined to remain out until their demands were granted. Branding the
agreement a "sellout," they finally accepted it only after adding a
condition of their own. If no agreement is reached on the salary
question by the end of this week, Rademacher would have to call a
national work stoppage.
Even that failed. In a display of impatience with both Congress and
their own leadership, some 3,000 members of Chicago's N.A.L.C. Branch
11 shouted down pleas from union officers to remain on their jobs and
voted overwhelmingly to strike. The resistance spread quickly. Postal
units in Boston, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, San
Francisco and several Los Angeles suburbs voted either to continue
walkouts already in effect or initiate new ones. At a tumultuous
Saturday morning meeting, New York's N.A.L.C. Branch 36, which had
started it all, voted almost unanimously to remain off the job.
The outcome of the vote was never in
doubt. A noisy ovation greeted Branch Chief Johnson as he entered the
hall. Waiting for silence, Johnson read the letter carriers the
Administration's proposal, only to be interrupted by angry shouts as he
explained that the strikers must go back to work before discussions
could begin. "My brothers," he declared, "these are not my words. This
is what has been offered." A union lawyer attempted to explain the
terms of the injunction barring the walkout, but his voice was lost in
the carriers' chorus of catcalls. Putting the matter to a vote, Johnson
also placed himself in the forefront of his union's battle for higher
wages. Said he: "Your voice is loud and clear. And I will lead you."
No less predictable was the strike vote taken by the Manhattan-Bronx
Postal Union. Union members waiting to vote in the day-long balloting
raised a cheer when the N.A.L.C. decision was announced. Before the day
was over, they, too, had voted to strike.
Their defiance brought a prompt response from the President. Nixon
acknowledged that the postmen had legitimate grievances, but he
declared that the Government would not negotiate so long as the illegal
walkout continued. Though the President promised to get the mail
delivered this week, he did not spell out how. But the tone of his
remarks and the flurry of activity at the Pentagon left the strong
impression that he would mobilize Army or National Guard units if
Though the Supreme Court
decision in the Government's 1952 seizure of the steel industry affirms
the broad powers of both the President and Congress to deal with
strikes in private industries that affect the public welfare, the law
is less clear concerning Government employees. President Truman's 1946
plan to draft striking railroad workers was never tested; the strikers
went back to work before Congress could act. The President needs no
authority but his own to call out either the National Guard or the
Army. It is doubtful, however, if troops would be very effective.
Though the Army has its own postal operation to handle mail for
servicemen, few soldiers have any experience in the complex task of
operating a postal system. In addition, the presence of troops,
technically acting as strikebreakers, increases the possibility of
violence in a strike that was peaceful in its initial phase.
The Government also applied pressure to the unions from another quarter.
Shortly after the strike vote, Johnson and other officers of N.A.L.C.
Branch 36 were ordered to appear in court to show cause why they should
not be held in contempt of the antistrike injunction. The Government is
asking that the officials be fined $1,000 each for the first day of the
strike, $2,000 for the second and progressively increasing amounts for
subsequent days. It is also asking that the union be penalized on a
similar scale, its fine starting at $10,000.
While raising many practical and legal questions, the postal strike also
underscores the helplessness of government in the face of organized,
even if nonviolent, lawlessness. It also points up the growing tendency
on the part of individuals and special interests to press their demands
despite the havoc wrought on the community, and demonstrates the
deterioration of discipline that has become a major challenge to U.S.
society in recent years. In spite of state and local laws forbidding
such actions, strikes by public employees have spread like an epidemic
throughout the nation. The Government's effectivenessor lack of
itin halting the postal walkout could thus determine whether other
federal employees decide that the way to a pay raise is through the
The dilemma is a complex one. While postal workersand many other
public employeesare undeniably underpaid, government's first
obligation is to protect the economy and maintain essential public
services. The right to strike is an important weapon in labor's
arsenal. But strikes against governmentwhether local, state or
federalnot only endanger society but also weaken popular confidence
in government and ultimately degrade the government itself.
Unfortunately, nothing has been devised so far to prevent them. New
York's tough Taylor Law, which provides heavy fines and jail terms for
striking public employees, failed to prevent New York City's garbage
collectors or schoolteachers from walking off their jobs. Ohio's law
calling for the dismissal of every public employee who goes on strike
has proved equally ineffective. Ohio had more than two dozen
strikesinvolving police, nurses, city service employees and
teachersin a recent one-year period.
Federal law is equally strict, and equally unenforceable. Chapter 73 of
the Federal Code prohibits federal employees from even advocating the
right to strike, but the antistrike laws are rarely invoked. "You can't
jail thousands of workers," said a Post Office spokesman of last week's
walkout. Indeed, most strike settlements contain provisions prohibiting
the punishment of strikers. Nor, without stiffening worker resistance
or running the risk of triggering a sympathy strike, can officials jail
What, then, can a government do to see that its laws are obeyed and
essential services maintained? The answer seems to lie not in
punishment but in the provision of practical alternatives to work
stoppages. One obvious alternative is the adoption of realistic pay
scales and desirable working conditions. Another is the development of
machinery capable of preventing deteriorating government-employee
relations from reaching the strike stage. Such machinery might include
fact finding, mediation, conciliation and, when all else fails,
compulsory arbitration that binds both the government and the union. As
with other forms of protest, there must be means short of a test of raw
strength to settle arguments. Most important, those means must enjoy
the confidence of the workers and the public if they are to have any
chance of working.
Meanwhile, the costly postal strike continued to raise havoc with the
nation's economy and inconvenience its citizens. Members of the
striking unions have shown that, like Chesterton's postmen, they share
the same passions as other men, particularly for a decent wage. Until
they go back to work, however, the corpse that they carry in their
mailbags can only be that of the public interest.
Be informed, stay informed. In
knowledge there is
power, in unity
there is strength.