He said the striking air-traffic controllers were in violation of the law; if they did not report to work within 48 hours, their jobs would be terminated. Citing safety concerns, PATCO calls for a reduced 32-hour work week, a $10,000 pay increase for all air-traffic controllers and a better benefits package for retirement. PALMER: I think Reagan lowered . The president stayed true to his word, firing the over eleven thousand controllers still striking and banning them from federal employment for life, a ban that was only lifted twelve years later, in 1993, by President Bill Clinton. In . Strikers were no longer the sympathetic ones. Citing safety concerns, PATCO called for a reduced 32-hour work week, a $10,000 pay increase for all air-traffic controllers and a better benefits package for retirement. They are initially replaced by controllers, supervisors and staff personnel not participating in the strike and in some cases, by military controllers. Employment Outlook Fair She was discovered lying nude on her bed, face down, with a telephone in one hand. All over Twitter and Facebook, citizen commentators are offering a solution to end the partial U.S. government shutdown: airport workers should just go on strike. The executive action, regarded as extreme by many, significantly slowed air travel for months. Yeah, they sure were. Or, from the perspective of the union's president, who spoke on NPR that day ROBERT E POLI: They're trying to break the union. And two days later, on this day 40 years ago, Reagan fired more than 11,000 of those who hadn't crossed the picket line. It isnt illegal for US companies or the government to hire strikebreakers. AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER STRIKE With dramatic increases in commercial airline traffic following World War II (1939 - 45), Congress established the Federal Aviation Agency in 1958, which it later renamed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The PATCO leadership were blindsided by the firings especially since the union had, unwisely, endorsed Reagans 1980 presidential campaign over Carters. Reagan bans them from ever being rehired by the FAA. Aug. 17, 1981: The FAA begins accepting applications for new air-traffic controllers. The strike was a consequence of stalled contract negotiations between PATCO and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). MALONE: That moment the deadline passed, Ron and over 11,000 air traffic controllers who stayed on strike were officially fired. Still, while attacks on organized labor had begun before the PATCO strike, Reagans ruthless response to the controllers gave trade unionists a demoralizing and very public beating. Several strikers were jailed; the union was fined and eventually made bankrupt. And this is NPR's MORNING EDITION. Campagna, Anthony S. The Economy in the Reagan Years: The Economic Consequences of the Reagan Administrations. As air travel steadily grew, air traffic controllers were increasingly subjected to high levels of stress, since they directed numerous airliners carrying thousands of persons in an crowded sky. As conservative columnist George Will observes, Reagans PATCO firings produced a cultural shift, a new sense of what can be appropriate in business management: layoffs can be justifiable even when a company is profitable if the layoffs will improve productivity and profitability. Beyond the symbolic destruction of the union, the lives of many fired workers and their families were ravaged in the aftermath of the failed strike. Only about 800 got their jobs back when Clinton lifted the ban on rehiring those who went on strike. Contract negotiations with the FAA stall. the long-standing commitment in the US liberal democratic state to the principles of the New Deal, which meant broadly Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies with full employment as the key objective, was abandoned in favor of a policy designed to quell inflation no matter what the consequence might be for employment. The same day, President Reagan called the strike illegal and threatened to fire any controller who had not returned to work within 48 hours. Air traffic controllers picket near a fence at DFW Airport's FAA tower during the PATCO strike. Today, tensions are once again high between the Federal Aviation Administration and the union that eventually emerged to replace PATCO, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. And if you were on an airplane at the time, they were the most important people in the world. On April 16, the federal courts intervened and most controllers went back to work by order of the court, but the government was forced to the bargaining table. According to the union, salaries average a little more than $100,000, plus benefits. Moffet calls the strike a "calamity," not just for the fired air-traffic controllers, but for unions everywhere. Education and Training Variessee profile "The loss of the strike as a weapon for American workers has some rather profound, long-range consequences. And if you look at the numbers, you see a lot of strikes right after World War II, when unions were flying high. All rights reserved. I propose a MASS sickout in Atlanta, the Monday after the Super Bowl. And if you realize that your boss wants you to strike so they can fire you and rehire somebody else, that is going to make you less likely to strike, the main piece of leverage unions have. In addition to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, two organizations now claim the name and part or all of the jurisdiction of the original PATCO: Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (AFSCME) and Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. "It is deprofessionalizing air-traffic control.". But as a union leader, he's well aware of the penalties. Much like the PATCO strike, Act 10 set the tone for the rest of our two terms in office. [18] Nevertheless, by 2006 only 850 PATCO strikers had been rehired by the FAA. On Monday, 7.5 percent of the TSA workforce called out, compared to 3.3 percent on the same day last year. When PATCO went on strike in 1981, Ken Moffet was the chief federal mediator. After a brief read more, On August 5, 1944, Polish insurgents liberate a German forced-labor camp in Warsaw, freeing 348 Jewish prisoners, who join in a general uprising against the German occupiers of the city. Specifically, the statute covering most federal workers makes striking a crime, which is unusual," Joseph E. Slater, a law professor at the University of Toledo and an expert in public sector labor law, told ABC News in an email. And he stood there and said, "If you're going to go on strike, you're going to lose your job, and we'll make out without you." MALONE: The government was nervous, but on Day 1 of the strike, all these replacement air traffic controllers showed up to work. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. MAKE Congress and the President pay attention," radio host Joe Madison tweeted. Consequently, President Ronald Reagan (198189) gave the strikers three days to return to work or be fired. On August 17, the FAA began accepting applications for new air-traffic controllers, and on October 22 the Federal Labor Relations Authority decertified PATCO. By October of that . The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization or PATCO was a United States trade union that operated from 1968 until its decertification in 1981 following an illegal[1] strike that was broken by the Reagan Administration. Beginnings [ edit] PATCO was founded in 1968 with the assistance of attorney and pilot F. Lee Bailey. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? Click here for reprint permission. Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS The President invoked the law that striking government employees forfeit their jobs, an action that unsettled those who cynically believed no President would ever uphold that law. Accuracy and availability may vary. MALONE: Here again is retired controller Ron Palmer. Noted for his conservative politics, the popular Republican focused on economic reforms that . Increasingly tight airline schedules placed more pressures on the controllers themselves. MALONE: Suddenly, around America, strikebreaking became the thing to do. Oct. 22, 1981: The Federal Labor Relations Authority de-certifies PATCO. Meat packers, bus drivers - so many strikes in the 1980s were broken to the point where unions realized that employers wanted them to strike so that they could fire them and replace them with non-union workers. McCarthy also points out that the decline in union density under Reagan was driven almost exclusively by private-sector losses. PATCO is a prime example of union busting, but not the singular event that caused decline. Michael McCarthy agrees that the significance of the PATCO strike has been overstated, instead arguing that it was the Federal Reserve anti-inflationary policies underway before 1981 that debilitated the power of American workers: Despite the image that the PATCO rout conjures up, Reagans attack on labor was mostly indirect, working covertly through the mechanisms of monetary policy.. When he lowered his heel on PATCO, everybody in the United States that was a member of a union took a long, hard look at what happened to us. President Ronald Reagan would soon crush that strike leading to devastating consequences for organized labor and all workers that we're still dealing with today. If strikers demonstrate they are using their militancy to fight not just for themselves but for the entire working class, they can build a broad coalition of sustained community support. [5][6], During his campaign, Reagan sent a letter to Robert E. Poli, the new president of PATCO, in which he declared support for the organization's demands and a disposition to work toward solutions. In the wake of the firing, the FAA quickly imposed new restrictions on air traffic flow. Reagan warns that striking is illegal for public employees, and that anyone who does not return to work within 48 hours will be terminated. "They are the guardians of the sky who have to be 100 percent right 100 percent of the time. Forty years ago today, 13,000 air traffic controllers went on strike. SIMON: Reagan flipped the narrative on strikebreaking. If you don't get your butts in those little air traffic control towers in 48 hours RON PALMER: When he made that speech in that Rose Garden, I just felt betrayed, you know? Although a largely computer-automated system was in the development stage during the 1990s to address the ever increasing air traffic levels of commercial flight, the FAA was accused of moving too slowly in developing and approving new flight control systems. The controllers called for a reduced workweek, bringing the existing five-day, forty-hour workweek down to four days and thirty-two hours, in response to widespread controller fatigue. During the summer and fall of 1984 significant disruption of airline schedules occurred. PATCO was decertified by the Federal Labor Relations Authority on October 22, 1981. Air traffic controllers revectored the course of U.S. history once before. Forty years ago today, 13,000 air traffic controllers went on strike. "a day in the life," the nation, february 19, 1996. President Reagan considered the strike a "peril to national. And he stood there and said, If youre going to go on strike, youre going to lose your job, and well make out without you. That had a profound effect on the aggressiveness of labor at that time, in the midst of this inflationary problem and other economic problems., It also had a profound impact on our allies and adversaries around the world. Typically, controllers work "on position" for 90 to 120 minutes followed by a 30-minute break. Two days later, President Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 of them, sending a clear signal to corporate America that it could [], A journal of theory and strategy published by Jacobin, The Legacy of the Crushed 1981 PATCO Strike, Taking Back Left Parties From the Brahmins. Encyclopedia.com. 7311), which prohibits strikes by federal government employees. I'm Carl Kasell. For many air traffic controllers, whose ranks are already at 30-year lows, the last strike has been seared into their memories. Reagan's director of the United States Office of Personnel Management at the time, Donald J. Devine, argued: When the president said no, American business leaders were given a lesson in managerial leadership that they could not and did not ignore. Two days later, President Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 of them, sending a clear signal to corporate America that it could declare open season on organized labor and US workers generally. "Many were not interested in coming back.". 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