ABSTRACT
The first strike of postal workers took place in 1868, but little is known about the walkout. It took 102 years before there was a second post office strike—but what a strike! It began slowly at 12:01 a.m. on March 18, 1970, when a handful of letter carriers set up a picket line outside the massive General Post Office building in Manhattan. A few of them held makeshift signs demanding higher pay. Most shoved their hands in their pockets to stave off a late winter chill. Hardly anyone noticed. Postal workers, like other government workers, were widely viewed as loyal and passive civil servants. Their unions, lacking real collective bargaining rights, did little more than lobby. Federal law prohibited strikes against the federal government, imposing a $1,000 fine and/or one year and a day in jail against violators. Yet within two days, some 200,000 postal employees joined picket lines in front of post offices throughout the country, making theirs not only the largest strike against the federal government, but also the largest wildcat strike in U.S. history.
