Recovered history: The air controller's strike of 1981

Erik Loomis , Lawyers, Guns, Money - On August 3, 1981, the nation’s air traffic controllers went on strike in arguably the greatest disaster in the history of American organized labor. Ronald Reagan’s busting of the union led to a new period of corporate anti-union attacks and served as a precursor to the current Republican-led campaign against public sector unions in Wisconsin, Ohio, and across the country.

The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association was founded in 1968 and quickly proved to be an important and active trade union of public sector employees. This was a period of rapid growth for public sector unions, reaching nearly 40% of public workers by 1980. The air traffic controllers were mostly working-class people who had acquired their skill in the military. For them, the union meant a middle-class lifestyle without attending college. These people were living the idealized American Dream, the one that encourages us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. But of course, the employers don’t really want people to follow through on that mythology en masse, for doing so means understanding the need to wrest power from the bosses.

PATCO had a pretty militant membership and strong leadership. But with striking by federal employees illegal, their options for workplace actions were limited. In 1969, PATCO workers implemented safety rules that maintained large distances between aircraft, which effectively proved to be a slowdown. In 1970, PATCO engaged in a sick out to protest understaffing and stress, leading the government to hire more air traffic controllers and increase modernization efforts. But with public sector strikes illegal, the air traffic controllers had limited options to achieve its aims. Moreover, PATCO had a very bad relationship with Jimmy Carter. So in 1980, the union endorsed Ronald Reagan for the presidency. Reagan, a former union leader who had led the Actors Guild on a strike in 1952, said favorable things about their union despite his conservatism.

Supporting Reagan didn’t exactly pay off for PATCO.

On August 3, 1981, PATCO went on strike for better pay, improved working conditions, and a 32-hour work week. The union wanted an across the board $10,000 pay raise and fully funded retirement after 20 years. It was an audacious set of demands that would have cost taxpayers $770 million. The government came back with significantly less, but still a shorter work week and a 10% pay increase for a few workers. 95% of the membership rejected the deal and authorized a strike.

But it was illegal for government workers to go out on strike. Congress passed a law in 1955 that made strikes government workers punishable by a year in prison, which the Supreme Court upheld in 1971. Ronald Reagan, flexing his muscles as a new president who represented an invigorated right-wing movement, decided to repay PATCO for its support in 1980 by destroying the union. Reagan used the Taft-Hartley Act to force the workers back on the job, but the large majority stayed out. The strike aimed to cripple the nation’s flight capacity, but through automation and quickly sending in scabs, flights were reduced only by about 50%. When the union refused to go back to work, Reagan fired the 11,345 strikers. He did not have to do that. The law did not require the firing of striking public sector workers and no one expected Reagan to do this. He also banned them from government employment for life. Finally, Bill Clinton rescinded that ban in 1993, but only about 800 returned to government employment. That October, the Federal Labor Relations Authority decertified the union. This was probably the greatest disaster in the history of American labor.

MORE