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The Fiftieth Anniversary of the 1970 Postal Strike Postal Employment Is Still Contentious a Half Century Later
(The American Prospect, March 18, 2020)
the eIghteenth of march 2020 wIll soon Be celeBrated as the fiftieth anniversary of the Great Postal Strike of 1970. But March 17, the prior day, should also be recognized, as the fiftieth anniversary of a critical meeting of Branch 36, National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO (the Manhattan-Bronx branch), at which an activist rank-and-file member, Vincent Sombrotto, called for a vote to strike the postal service in protest of extremely low pay and outrageous working conditions in the face of large increases in the cost of living. Indeed, many New York City letter carriers with large families qualified for, and were receiving, welfare. There had been strike talk among postal workers for at least a year earlier, especially because unionized public employees in New York City were being paid much more than postal employees.
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The union members at the March 1970 letter carriers’ meeting
voted 1,559 to 1,055 to strike, despite leadership opposition based upon the fact that participating in a strike against the postal service was a federal crime and a basis for immediate discharge, as is still the case today. The next day Branch 36 struck nonetheless, and other unionized postal workers in New York City joined the strike and picket lines. Morris (“Moe”) Biller, president of the powerful New York Metro Area Postal Union, an independent industrial postal workers union in New York, extended support to the strikers. In the next few days, well over two hundred thousand postal workers across the country followed suit, and the largest strike against the United States government in its history was underway. By March 21, the strike had spread to more than two hundred cities and towns, including Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, and mail processing and delivery were at a standstill.
What had been the immediate provocation for the strike was that the Nixon administration was seeking legislation that would reform the U.S. Post Office Department and make it into a “businesslike,” self-sustaining enterprise rather than having it continue to depend upon federal subsidies. In addition, the administration was proposing to end the historic practice of local postmasters, and even the postmaster general, being political appointees, without their having any postal, or even managerial, experience. It might be recalled that from 1933 to 1941, James Farley, FDR’s campaign manager, served simultaneously as postmaster general (then a cabinet post) and chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He was the New Deal’s principal patronage dispenser. Farley kept a file on almost every person he’d ever met. Such a file is still referred to by politicians as their “Farley file.”
Historically, Congress had overseen postal operations, including mechanization and rates as well as wages and benefits. But it, too, was unqualified to perform such managerial duties. Thus postal reform, which was supported in general by both political parties,
promised greater efficiency and rationality in turning the postal service into an independent, TVA-like, government-owned enterprise. However, postal pay legislation was being held up until a reform package had been agreed upon.
The history of the United States Postal Service (USPS, known before 1970 as the U.S. Post Office Department) goes back to before the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin served as deputy postmaster general for the American colonies beginning in 1753 and was appointed postmaster general of the United States by the Continental Congress in 1775. Establishing post offices and post roads are among the powers specifically delegated to Congress in the Constitution.
From its beginnings, the postal service has been viewed by the country as a vital public service that needed to keep pace with the nation’s rapid expansion of settled areas and ever-evolving commerce and culture. Thus expenditures on the postal service commonly and understandably have exceeded revenue during its long history, creating publicly acceptable deficits and subsidies. Like the military, it has existed to advance national policies and purposes and was not expected to return a profit like a business enterprise. By 1901, the number of post offices stood at a high of 76,945 (there are 31,000 today). As early as 1863, during the Civil War, the principle of a single uniform rate for mail was adopted so that a letter traveling coast to coast, and to and from rural areas, cost postal customers the same amount as one being delivered within a single city or hamlet. In contrast, commercial carriers normally charge customers by the mile. The postal service historically has increased its services based upon the public’s evolving exigencies. Postal money order service began in 1864; special delivery in 1885; postal savings in 1911 (discontinued in 1966); parcel post, C.O.D., and insurance services in 1913; certified mail in 1955; and express mail in 1977. Thus, the postal service sought to respond to changing public needs and did not view itself in conventional commercial terms concerning
budgeting and profitability. Indeed, today in the U.S. a first-class stamp costs $0.55, whereas in Italy the cost (in U.S. dollars) is $3.40; in Denmark $3.22; in Norway $1.20; in the U.K., Germany, and the Netherlands $0.89; and in Canada $0.75. (Consider the public outrage if the price of a first-class stamp in the United States were raised by a dime!) Indeed, adjusted for inflation, first-class and other postal rates have been stable throughout American history. By comparison, in 1914, when the New York subway system began operating, its single-ride fare was 5 cents, and today, 106 years later, it is $2.75. During the same period, first-class postal rates went from $0.02 to $0.55. By 2018, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) was delivering 146 billion pieces of mail to 159 million delivery points, or an average of over 900 pieces to each point each year; 43 million of these delivery points (27 percent) were on rural carrier routes, and 83 percent of mail (letter mail and packages) go to and from households. However, first-class mail volume declined from 104 billion pieces in 2001 to 57 billion pieces in 2018, a reduction of 44 percent, because of electronic bill paying and banking, as well as email and other electronic communication methods. This has resulted in a huge decline in postal revenue. On the other hand, USPS package delivery has increased dramatically because of the growth of e-commerce. However, the idea of the USPS as an agency designed to advance the public good has been under assault from political forces for many years, and the Trump administration has been in the forefront of attacking the USPS as if it simply were an ailing public utility. Indeed, discussions of postal privatization have frequently been conducted within and outside of government, especially by conservative think tanks.61
Letter carriers had organized their national union by 1889. But because postal unions had no bargaining rights regarding wages
61. See Brittany Gibson, “Why Everyone Should Care Who the New Postmaster General Is,” The American Prospect (online), January 13, 2020.
and benefits, they were limited mostly to lobbying Congress for pay and benefit increases or to litigating over statutory rights. When the 1970 strike erupted, the leaders of the several existing national postal unions, representing several “crafts”—e.g., postal clerks, letter carriers, mail handlers, rural letter carriers, etc.—all headquartered in Washington, D.C., where they had been lobbying Congress skillfully over many years, were at a loss over how to respond and were unsuccessful in efforts to persuade their members to return to work.
As for the government, President Nixon threatened harsh consequences for the strikers if they did not end their strike. He declared a national emergency and sent twenty-five thousand troops into New York City, where they were assigned to “move the mail” so that the stock market, commerce, banking, and Social Security payments would not be crippled. However, the soldiers were unsuccessful, since postal work required technical skills that depended upon prior training and special knowledge.
Relatedly, it might be recalled that in 1894, President Cleveland sent in thousands of federal troops and marshals to break the national Pullman Strike, led by railway union leader Eugene Victor Debs. Cleveland acted on the ground that the strike was interfering with transporting mail by rail. Debs was convicted of violating an injunction against the strike, and it was during his six months in prison, through reading, that he was “converted” to socialism.
There were aides to Nixon who urged him to adopt a “hard line” in dealing with the strikers, including mass arrests. On the other hand, one government official, Bill Usery, an assistant secretary of labor who was a former organizer for the International Association of Machinists, AFL-CIO, persuaded then Secretary of Labor George Shultz that the strike should be viewed as a national labor dispute rather than a political insurrection, and that Shultz, as labor secretary, should play a mediating role. Shultz and Usery thereafter succeeded in getting Winton Blount, then the postmaster general (he had previously been a nonunion construction contractor
in the South), to meet with the national unions in order to explore a settlement that would help end the strike.
As for the unions involved, because they had internal differences but also believed that they needed the support of the entire labor movement in their struggle, they asked AFL-CIO President George Meany to serve as their spokesperson in negotiations. Meany agreed and brought bargaining and legislative experts and lawyers from the AFL-CIO to assist. In addition to dealing with the immediate issues regarding wages, it was hoped that a new regime of progressive labor relations in the postal service might be achieved in the negotiations over postal reform. After many days of negotiations, an immediate retroactive wage increase and other improvements were agreed upon after the strikers had returned to work. These were signed into law, and negotiations over postal reform commenced.
The Postal Reorganization Act (PRA) was enacted into law later the same year, on August 12, 1970, having been negotiated between the White House, the national postal unions, and both houses of Congress. Its provisions declared the newly created United States Postal Service to be “an independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States.” It was declared “a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government” and to “have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people.” It declared, inter alia, that no small post office shall be closed solely for operating at a deficit and that as “an employer, the Postal Service shall achieve and maintain compensation for its officers and employees comparable to the rates and types of compensation paid in the private sector of the economy.” It was required to “place particular emphasis upon opportunities for career advancement . . . and the achievement of worthwhile and satisfying careers” for its employees.
As to the specifics of its labor-management provisions, the PRA directed recognition and bargaining for the unions representing its employees on all bargaining issues required under the National Labor Relations Act, subjected the USPS and the unions to the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board for matters relating to employee organizing rights and unfair labor practices, and provided that if the parties were unable to reach agreement over contracts through bargaining and mediation, they were entitled to obtain final and binding neutral third-party-interest arbitration of their disputes. The statute did not authorize the negotiation of union shop provisions, however, but did authorize union dues checkoff.
For a number of years following the enactment of the PRA, the postal unions negotiated jointly and even succeeded in negotiating no-layoff provisions for regular employees. And Moe Biller became the president from 1980 to 2001 of a newly consolidated American Postal Workers Union. Similarly, Vincent Sombrotto led the National Association of Letter Carriers between 1980 and 2002. However, in later years the postal unions went their separate ways in bargaining.
Recently, on January 17, 2020, in response to congressional requests, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a comprehensive report on current postal employee compensation. Among its findings was that in separate collective bargaining with the four major postal unions, the USPS had greatly reduced its wage costs over the last ten years by achieving the right to a secondtier wage scale for newly hired career employees as well as the right to employ large numbers of non-career employees (casuals).
Now employees hired after a certain date would receive starting pay substantially below that of previously hired career employees. For example, according to the GAO, “a city carrier hired in January 2016 would make about $37,640 a year compared to $48,406 a year if hired before the new starting pay agreement” (GAO Report, p. 11). The USPS claims to have saved approximately $2.3 billion
between fiscal years 2016 and 2018 by this change. But adjusted for inflation, the new second-tier annual wage is about the same as the $6,176 per year starting pay for career employees in 1970, the year of the strike.
Further, the overall percentage of non-career employees versus career employees in 2018 was 37.5 percent of the overall work force. In 2018, among city letter carriers, there were 178,974 career and 99,036 non-career carriers (36 percent); among postal clerks 130,413 career and 51,137 non-career (28 percent); among mail handlers 39,718 career and 19,020 non-career (32 percent); and among rural letter carriers 76,938 career and 84,936 non-career (52 percent). It has been estimated by GAO that the USPS has saved $6.6 billion between 2016 and 2018 as the result of its employment of lower-paid non-career employees. In its study, regarding hours of postal compensation, GAO found “on average” that
a non-career [casual postal] employee worked 30 more straight hours, 73 more overtime hours, and 23 more night and Sunday hours per year than a career employee, and a lower paid career employee worked a higher number of straight time hours and, depending on the craft, also may work more overtime, night work, and Sunday hours than a higher-paid career employee. (GAO Report, p. 15.)
Based upon anticipated retirements of older first-tier employees, within the next ten years, postal wages might revert to pre–1970 strike levels, based upon current wage and employment projections.
On January 22, 2020, the USPS settled a national grievance with the letter carriers’ union over its having exceeded the contractually agreed-upon caps on the hiring of non-career letter carrier assistants. The settlement requires the USPS to convert 5,000 noncareer carriers to career status.
For several years President Trump has railed publicly and
privately that the USPS was subsidizing Amazon in connection with a contract for so-called “last-mile” delivery of Amazon parcels by the USPS. On April 3, 2018, he tweeted that “Amazon [is] costing [the USPS] massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy.” Then on April 12, he issued an executive order creating a Task Force on the United States Postal System, charging it with investigating postal operations and recommending improvements. The task force’s report was delivered to President Trump by its chair, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, on December 4, 2018. Among its labor-related recommendations, it proposed that the “USPS compensation [should be removed from] collective bargaining” on the ground that USPS employees should not be afforded protections and rights not enjoyed by other federal employees. Of course, at the same time the Trump administration has been removing the few labor rights enjoyed by those other federal employees. In further support of its recommendation, the task force asserted that applying “private sector collective bargaining law [to the USPS] creates unsustainable labor costs.” Similarly, while the task force acknowledged that “postal workers are more likely to be injured on the job due to the physical and outdoor nature of their work,” as contrasted with other federal employees, it supported reductions in their workers’ compensation entitlements.
In a June 6, 2018, letter to Mnuchin, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed several reforms that he believed would make the USPS thrive and better serve the public for years to come. Among these were allowing the USPS to provide basic banking and financial services in post offices. Sanders asserted that this would help 57 million Americans who have no bank accounts and must rely on “rip-off” storefront check-cashing services and payday lenders. However, proposals for postal banking were expressly rejected in the task force report. Sanders urged other changes, including permitting post offices to provide copying and notarial services, transport wine and beer, and restore overnight delivery. And he offered numerous
other operating and financial reforms designed to keep the USPS solvent and operating in the public interest. Suggestions from others, including from the GAO, have included providing check-in services for those needing it, and collecting data on mobile wireless coverage and air quality.
The Great Postal Strike of 1970 was a powerful lesson for the country and its government. Insofar as postal workers were concerned, the strike demonstrated that there was a limit on how much abuse they would tolerate before they were forced to resort to self-help to correct intolerable wrongs inflicted upon them at their workplace. This lesson was acknowledged by the strike settlement and the enactment of the PRA in response to an “illegal” strike.
The right to strike and withhold one’s labor is as fundamental a human right as the right to breathe clean air, to drink clean water, to think, and to be heard. Trying to legislate these fundamental human rights out of existence has always been a counterproductive fool’s errand (even if sometimes successful). However, at present there appears to be an unrelenting desire on the part of the USPS, the Trump administration, and its allies to place on the shoulders of postal workers the cost of social changes caused by changing technology by reducing their compensation and turning them into disposable parts of a vital two-hundred-plus-year-old public institution that has played a critical role in building this nation. Having postal workers be required to subsidize the USPS by reducing their compensation and conditions of employment to marginal levels is equally absurd, and it is contrary to the policies enshrined in our laws and our way of life.
And the idea of “privatizing” the USPS is as absurd as would be the idea of contracting out the military. That any commercial firm would ever decide to provide the services provided to every corner of the country by the USPS—and to either purchase or lease the postal service’s real property and equipment, worth at least $100 billion—is, to say the least, laughable.
Insofar as popularity is concerned, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center survey, the USPS is the American public’s favorite federal agency, with an 88 percent approval rating. The fact that postal employees visit every residence in the country six days each week makes postal workers the human face of the federal government. And local post offices are far more than just the venue for window services and mailboxes in many communities. They often serve as centers of community life, so that frequent USPS threats of post office closings are fiercely resisted everywhere.62 To tear the USPS apart and victimize its employees once again would seem the height of political folly. But political folly, or worse, has never been beyond the imagination of Donald Trump.
62. See the website “Save the Post Office” (https://www.savethepostoffice.com/) for multiple examples.
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