[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on The Great Postal Strike of 1970
A strike of postal employeeswould cripples the postal service and could only with great difficulty be broken with the help of labor from the outside. In spite of substantial provocation, such a strike did not occur until forty-three years later, but when it did occur, the strikers, acting against most of their own labor leaders, the Postmaster General, and the President of the United States, won their strike. The ordinary men and women who handle, distribute, and deliver the mail took matters into their own hands and won concessions they never could have won had they not withheld their labor. The implications of the postal strike to federal officials were serious indeed.
The wave of labor militancy that has engulfed state, county, and city employees in the last few years has now begun lapping at the ranks of federal unionists. The age of pressure-free agreements may be ended. . .The confrontation--illegal and the result of explosive frustration--could happen in almost any branch of government. Constitutional bars against striking are now being questioned. . .The tradition against walkouts on government jobs no longer is being taken for granted." Newsweek , "The Day the Mail Stopped," March 30, 1970, p. 14.On the same day that the postal strike ended, March 25, 1970, members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) called in "sick" or "too tired to work," creating serious airline delays.
The PATCO members were engaging in concerted action--denounced as "illegal" by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)--to protest the transfer of three members from Baton Rouge, Louisiana the previous year, but a general dissatisfaction with work conditions and FAA policies added to their "sickness." Eleven years later, PATCO would stage the second nationwide walkout against the federal government, but the results would be disastrous for those strikers......
