Pressure for more pay reached a new high in the United States during March. Government workers walked off their jobs. Why? Because their pay demands were not met. So about 200,000 post-office employees went on strike against their employer​—the federal government of the United States.

Workers see that government officials, in a matter of days, legislate huge pay increases for themselves. But postal employees waited months for the government to act on their requests for a pay increase. It did not come. Frustrated, the postal workers went on strike. The New York Times declared: “The taxpayers have no right to expect Federal workers to make sacrifices to stem inflation when everyone else is practicing the ‘gimme’ philosophy.”

When mailmen walked off their jobs it marked a defiance of federal law. Court orders to get them back to work were also ignored. So were the pleas of union leaders. The mailmen felt that the only language the government understood was their use of power, the power to cripple the mail service and affect the entire economy of the country.

So serious was the strike that President Nixon told a nationwide audience: “What is at issue is the survival of a Government based on law.” He then declared a national emergency and called up National Guard troops to help with the mail. Incidentally, these troops were civilians who had to leave their jobs and families, resulting in loss to their employers and loved ones.

An example of who eventually pays was seen in the case of the post-office workers who were promised a raise​—the mail rates are to be increased. So everybody who uses the mail pays more.