Postal Strike?

This might be the nightmare: the nation's 30,000 post offices suddenly shut down and are surrounded by angry pickets, while tons of undelivered mail accumulate like the leaves of autumn. Stores and utilities are cut off from their revenues; doctors and other professionals are deprived of their incomes, the old of their Social Security pensions, the poor of their welfare benefits. Only when Americans are threatened with the loss of their mail service can they realize how much they and their whole society depend on it.

That threat abruptly became a reality last week and, though U.S. officials worked throughout the weekend to avert the nightmare, it was scheduled to begin imminently.

Just a month ago, when a similar threat loomed, the Administration applied intense pressure and the problem seemed settled. After 17 weeks of talks, negotiators for the U.S. Postal Service and three postal unions announced tentative agreement on a new three-year contract. The two key compromises: the Postal Service abandoned its effort to abolish a contract's ban on layoffs; the unions accepted relatively moderate pay and cost-of-living increases of 19.5% stretched over three years. It was the only major union contract this year to be settled on such mild terms, and Administration officials hailed it as a victory over inflation.

But the postal workers, who now earn an average of $7.58 per hour, were deeply dissatisfied. There were brief wildcat walkouts in Jersey City and outside

San Francisco. The Postal Service responded by firing 100 workers. The militants refused to back down. Two weeks ago, at the Denver convention of the American Postal Workers Union, rebel delegates burst forth in a rancorous demonstration against their own leaders. The dissidents had powerful support: AFL-CIO President George Meany denounced the contract as "disappointing."

Last week it was time to count the votes. The three main unions--the A.P.W.U., the National Association of Letter Carriers, and the Mail Handlers division of the Laborers' International Union, which together represent 497,000 of the 554,000 postal employees--rejected the contract by a close but decisive margin of 5 to 4. That same vote authorized two of the union leaders to call a strike within five days--illegal though it would be--unless the Postal Service agreed to new negotiations. Postmaster General William F. Bolger rejected the bid. The Postal Service then went to court to seek an injunction. When talks broke down, U.S. District Judge John Pratt issued a six-day temporary restraining order prohibiting union leaders from calling a strike. He also required union officials to send out messages to their members to comply with the injunction.

Only once before has there been a national postal strike. During a crippling two-week walkout in 1970, President Nixon called in federal troops, and discovered that soldiers could protect the mail but not deliver very much of it. Avoiding a similar calamity this week became the No. 1 item on the Government agenda.

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