Members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization picket outside a Federal Aviation Administration air route control facility in Leesburg, Virginia, on Aug. 5, 1981. | Budd Gray/AP Photo
On this day in 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who had ignored his order to return to work. The sweeping mass firing of federal employees slowed commercial air travel, but it did not cripple the system as the strikers had forecast.
Two days earlier, nearly 13,000 controllers walked out after contract talks with the Federal Aviation Administration collapsed. As a result, some 7,000 flights across the country were canceled on that day at the peak of the summer travel season.
Robert Poli, president of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), sought an across-the-board annual wage increase of $10,000 for the controllers, whose pay ranged from $20,462 to $49,229 a year. He also sought a reduction of their five-day, 40-hour workweek to a four-day, 32-hour workweek. The FAA made a $40 million counteroffer, far short of the $770 million package that the union sought.
Reagan branded the strike illegal. He threatened to fire any controller who failed to return to work within 48 hours. Federal judges levied fines of $1 million a day against the union.
In 1955, Congress had made such strikes punishable by fines or a one-year jail term — a law the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 1971.
To the chagrin of the strikers, the FAA’s contingency plans worked. Some 3,000 supervisors joined 2,000 nonstriking controllers and 900 military controllers in manning the commercial airport towers. Before long, about 80 percent of flights were operating normally. Air freight remained virtually unaffected.
In carrying out his threat, Reagan also imposed a lifetime ban on rehiring the strikers. In October 1981, the Federal Labor Relations Authority decertified PATCO.
Historian Joseph A. McCartin concluded that the 1981 strike and defeat of PATCO was “one of the most important events” in late 20th century U.S. labor history. Donald J. Devine, the director of the Office of Personnel Management at the time, said “When the president said no ... American business leaders were given a lesson in managerial leadership that they could not and did not ignore.
“Many private-sector executives have told me that they were able to cut the fat from their organizations and adopt more competitive work practices because of what the government did in those days. I would not be surprised if these unseen effects of this private-sector shakeout under the inspiration of the president were as profound in influencing the recovery that occurred as the formal economic and fiscal programs.”
Some former striking controllers were allowed to reapply after 1986 and were rehired; they and their replacements are now represented by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, which was organized in 1987 and had no connection with PATCO. The ban on the remaining strike participants was lifted by President Bill Clinton in 1993.
SOURCE: “COLLISION COURSE: RONALD REAGAN, THE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS,
AND THE STRIKE THAT CHANGED AMERICA” BY JOSEPH MCCARTIN (2011)
The bitter fight over union rights in Wisconsin calls to mind a labor battle that helped define the first year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Thirty years ago in August, Reagan fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers after they staged a strike against the federal government.
But the public solidly supported Reagan’s action. Fully 59% of Americans approved of the way he was handling the issue, according to a Gallup poll conducted a few days after he fired the controllers. A Harris survey at about the same time showed that by 51% to 40%, more said they were in sympathy with the Reagan administration than with the air traffic controllers. Several months later, in January 1982, 50% said that Reagan’s treatment of the air traffic controllers was “about right.”
In many ways, the public’s reaction was predictable. While labor unions had much more support in the early 1980s than they do today, Americans clearly drew the line against strikes by government workers in essential occupations — including air traffic controllers. In the Gallup poll, just 28% said air traffic controllers should be permitted to strike while 68% said they should not. Even among those in households with a union member, just 40% said the controllers should be allowed to strike.
This underscores one of the many differences between the long-ago strike by PATCO and today’s fight between public employee unions and the Wisconsin state government. Notably, PATCO launched its strike to win major concessions from the federal government in wages and benefits. Government workers in Wisconsin have agreed to Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed benefit cuts, but are protesting merely to maintain their right to collective bargaining — which would be curtailed under the proposed legislation.
Organized labor is in a much weaker position today than it was during the air traffic controllers’ strike. A recent Pew Research survey found that favorability of labor unions is at one of its lowest levels since 1985. Gallup’s seven-decade track on public approval of labor unions has found a similar trend.
Moreover, the Wisconsin dispute is coming at a time when financially stressed state governments are seeking to roll back the benefits of state government workers. The Pew Research poll found that only about half (47%) favor decreasing pensions for government workers to balance their state’s budget. Yet that option is much more palatable than either cuts in program funding or increased taxes.
Even so, it is not clear whether the public nationally will support Wisconsin Republicans’ efforts to prevent government workers from unionizing. In the Pew Research survey, which was conducted before the Wisconsin protests drew national headlines, people were asked for their reaction when they hear of a disagreement between a labor union and a state or local government: 44% say that when they hear of such a dispute they side with the unions while 38% say they side with the governments.