Waiting for the earthquake

This is a book about San Francisco in 1969, at a time when the country was falling apart. The War in Vietnam is killing American boys, there is a Black Liberation movement in the big cities, and Nixon is just starting his experiment with fascism as he gives the green light to government agencies to intervene against perceived "radicals." The protagonist is a postal worker who is active in the postal workers' union. Various presidents have been sitting on postal wages for decades, and there's an illegal strike brewing. The Postal Inspectors put a young man in the union to report on them, but also to testify before a grand jury that the protagonist is advocating an illegal strike.

The two very young men become friends, and as the strike goes down things start to get wild. The protagonist struggles with his Quaker heritage as violence seems to be in the air. The protagonist finds out who the Postal Inspector is in his union, and there is a confrontation. All of this is creepily relevant to what is going on today, as the rich and powerful try to destroy unions, and people must make difficult choices in chaotic situations.

There is a great deal here about San Francisco in the late 1960s, as a two-fisted drinking town but also a place with a strong trade union tradition and a history of wild living and partying. There is also a fair amount of thoughtful detail about racial tensions and aspirations at that time. (The protagonist of WAITING FOR THE EARTHQUAKE is white, but the Postal Inspector planted as an agent in his union is African-American.) This book is in a lot of libraries, and is very popular, especially with postal workers. The only other book about postal workers is the one by wild-man poet Charles Bukowski, but it doesn't deal with the political setting like this book does.