40th Anniversary of the 1970 Postal Strike
Channel: SmithsonianNPM
Date: 2010-03-21

On March 18, 1970, Local 36 of New York City's National Association of Letter Carriers began a wildcat strike protesting low pay and poor job advancement. Postal workers in more than 30 cities joined the strike, crippling businesses nationwide. President Richard Nixon tried using the National Guard to process mail in New York City before negotiating with workers to end the strike almost two weeks after it began.

Vincent R. Sombrotto (president emeritus of the National Association of Letter Carriers and member of Local 36), William Burrus (president of the American Postal Workers Union), and George Gould (former Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Postal Operations and Services) discuss these momentous events and the dramatic changes the strike sparked in the nation's mail service and its employees' lives.