1970 US Postal Strike Essay

The 1970 U.S Postal strike was an illegal nationwide strike that started out in New York City and spread all through the east and west of the United States. During this time period one of the biggest multi-million dollar contract for the United States postal service was set to expire. U.S Postal services workers were in need of higher wages and better working conditions, they saw this as an opportunity to work with congress to try and get these issues resolve. Unfortunately congress would come to a congressional decision and would only raise wages by four percent for the United States postal service workers. The news that congress would raise wages by four percent , would make the workers upset due to the conditions they work through and having

Living in New York City as a postal service worker one didn’t make enough to survive most workers got assistance from the government as a way to survive and make a living. Most postal service workers were members of a union they would plead to their union managers to call out a strike so that their voices could be heard by congress that they would not allow such unlawful treatment to go on, without obtaining in return better working conditions and higher wages. Even though the members of these unions knew that picketing and striking would go against the law and could mean they could get charges, they wanted to be herd. Union leaders wanted to work with members of their union, but knew that collective bargaining wasn’t allowed, union members were ready to vote so that they could call a strike. The results of the votes read that the majority of votes had voted for a strike, which would lead to the next day thousands of postal workers to walk out across the city to be

The workers would go on two strike for the next eight days the strike would initiate on March 18, 1970 and would until March 25.The call out of the united postal service started in New York City but within hours and days the picketing and strike would move across the country and more postal workers across the country would join them. While the strike was going on President Nixon would appear on TV and address the situation to all postal service workers to stop and return to work if not legal action would take place since workers could get charge. This didn’t matter to postal workers they wanted better pay and working conditions the strike would continue. While most postal workers were on strike member of the United States Army branches would get sent to fulfill the postal service jobs from gathering and distributing mail. This would become a challenge to the soldiers due to lack of training and mail not getting distribute properly, this would as a nation hurt the economy as mail wasn’t being deliver it would crippled the nations mail systems and would even strike the stock market as it would affect the trading volume making people think that this would lead to the closure of the stock market. The impact of this peaceful strike would continue until Nixon administration step in, to negotiate with postal service leaders and grant them what they