So it is Wednesday, July 16th, at 1.45 p.m. as we're recording this, what are we going to be talking about today?

Well, in March of 1970, Gino Jacobelli gave an interview with the Associated Press about his job.

And his life was not easy.

Gino's take-home pay after 14 years as a U.S. postal clerk in

Hackensack, New Jersey, was $109 a week. He had to support his wife, his adult daughter, and his two

grandchildren. Now, according to the interview, Gino's ambitions weren't too grand, but he complained

that most nights dinner was pork and beans or beans and bacon. And what he really wanted was what he

called a halfway decent meal, maybe a hamburger or a steak. And Gino told the AP reporter that

27 of his fellow postal workers had applied for food

stamps, and he was getting pretty close to it himself. Now, postal worker salaries were low

because Congress had only raised their wages in small amounts. In the 1960s, it wasn't uncommon

for postal workers to have multiple jobs.

By the time of Gino's interview, many postal workers were just above the poverty line.

Yet, in early 1970, Congress proposed a bill that would give postal workers a 5.4% raise

less than the rate of inflation.

This was the same Congress that had voted themselves

a 41% raise the year before. In New York City, postal workers in the largest branch of the

National Letter Carriers Union demanded a strike, but their union leaders refused. One reason

was it was actually illegal for postal workers to strike.

But the members took a vote, and they decided to strike anyway.

A wildcat strike.

And thus began on March 18th, that's right, 1970, the largest wildcat strike in American history.

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