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PO Workers Fight Back

By VVAW

Last July a couple of thousand postal workers walked off their jobs in New York and in California when the contract between postal workers and the U.S. Postal Service expired. The walkout protested the peanuts the government was offering to the postal unions, and the failure to come to an agreement on an acceptable new contract.

As a result of this action--refusing to work without a contract--over 200 postal workers were fired from the bulk facility for New York City. This firing was an attempt on the part of the government to get rid of some of the most militant postal workers, since they were in the midst of the job action. More than this, it was an attempt to punish a group of workers who were asking for a decent wage increase to keep up with inflation--well over 7% at a time before Carter?s guidelines had even been put out.

Since then postal workers and supporters have been pushing for amnesty for the fired workers. Centered in the New York/New Jersey area there have been demonstration and rallies demanding amnesty.

On February 27 rallies were held at many post offices around the country for Amnesty Day. In the courts, the workers and the American Postal Workers Union have asked for an injunction to get the jobs back. However, judges keep continuing the case, hoping that the Postal Service will settle it by itself.

At this point public pressure has resulted in the rehiring of 30 workers, those who were picketing off their shift and thus not in violation of the federal law which prohibits strikes by federal employees. Plans for the future include a sit-in at the headquarters of the Postal Service in Washington in late May.

More than just the jobs of fired postal workers is at stake. Abolishing the right to strike for postal workers meant, simply, that the workers no longer had a lever to use against the Postal Service. Knowing that, the Postal Service had no intention of giving the workers a reasonable contract. The nature of the contract offer at the time the worker walked out is demonstrated by the large majority of postal workers who resoundingly voted the contract down. But a renegotiation did not bring large gains, in part because the workers did not have the ability to use the biggest weapon in the arsenal of U.S. workers, the strike. For those who did use that weapon, the government came down as hard as they could, which is one more reason support for the fired workers is essential.

To contribute to the Defense Fund for Fired Workers:

P.O.W. (Post Office Worker)
317 Grove Street, Room 5
Jersey City, NJ 07302