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There's Always Work at the Post Office
Philip F. Rubio
African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice, and Equality
The University of North Carolina Press
May 2010
On Sale: May 1, 2010
472 pages ISBN: 0807859869 EAN: 9780807859865 Paperback
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Non-Fiction
This book brings to life the important but neglected story
of African American postal workers and the critical role
they played in the U.S. labor and black freedom movements.
Philip Rubio, a former postal worker, integrates civil
rights, labor, and left movement histories that too often
are written as if they happened separately. Centered on New
York City and Washington, D.C., the book chronicles a
struggle of national significance through its examination of
the post office, a workplace with facilities and unions
serving every city and town in the United States. Having fought their way into postal positions and unions,
black postal workers--often college-educated military
veterans--became a critical force for social change. They
combined black labor protest and civic traditions to
construct a civil rights unionism at the post office. They
were a major factor in the 1970 nationwide wildcat strike,
which resulted in full collective bargaining rights for the
major postal unions under the newly established U.S. Postal
Service in 1971. In making the fight for equality primary,
African American postal workers were influential in shaping
today's post office and postal unions.
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