Thirty years ago over 11,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization struck for better pay and working condition including a shorter workweek. The Union had backed Ronald Reagan for president and Reagan rewarded them by firing over 11,000 of them for refusing to return to work in response to Reagan using the Taft Hartley Act against them. They were forbidden to work in their industry for life. Clinton rescinded that order 20 years later but very few of them ended up back in their jobs.
It was one of the most important events of the era with catastrophic consequences for organized Labor and working class Americans. The entrenched bureaucracy of the AFL-CIO led by the moribund Lane Kirkland did nothing, much like today. Their actions are nothing but criminal, or should I say, inaction. The bosses were very grateful as they saw that they were given the green light. They went on the offensive and crushed strike after strike sometimes with direct cooperation of the top trade Union leadership like the Hormel strike in Austen Minnesota. PATCO had earlier job actions like sick outs around the issue of job safety and the bosses needed to crush them given their important position controlling air transport. They were, after all, professionals and professionals don't go on strike. And as a government Union they were forbidden to strike. Their defeat and more importantly, the Labor leaderships cowardly response to it hastened the capitalist offensive that is continuing today.
The waster Alan Greenspan talking about the Reagan years said of the strike 2003:
"Perhaps the most important, and then highly controversial, domestic initiative was the firing of the air traffic controllers in August 1981. 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. President Reagan prevailed, as you know, but far more importantly his action gave weight to the legal right of private employers, previously not fully exercised, to use their own discretion to both hire and discharge workers."
I remember talking to one of the PATCO strikers back then at a Labor day picnic that the Labor Council has every year as a platform for Democratic hopefuls. It was clear that this job was a very stressful one despite the propaganda in the media about them being greedy and that the dispute was all about money.
"Do you play PacMan?" the striker asked me referring to a popular video game of the time.
"I do" I replied
"Well my job is a bit like that except when my blips collide I lose three hundred people."
These sort of jobs, looking at screens for long periods are not easy. We have all been reading about the controllers falling asleep on the job over the past period. The US government is now introducing new work rules that would give them more time to rest between shifts. But what is needed is less time at work, something PATCO demanded when they went on strike, increased employment and shorter shifts.
These developments show how right the PATCO members were and how disgraceful the Labor hierarchy are for allowing Reagan to do what he did. The bosses haven't changed their spots by any means. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he won't tolerate sleeping on duty even though studies show that it is one way of combating fatigue.
"On my watch, controllers will not be paid to take naps. We're not going to allow that," LaHood says, . "They are going to be paid to do the job that they're trained to do, which involves guiding planes in and out of airports safely. But we are not going to pay controllers to be napping."
The FAA has said that falling asleep is a "widespread problem" but LaHood, like the rest of his cronies, thinks working people are just like them. That we don't care enough about our responsibilities and jobs enough to stay awake. Germany and Japan, among others provide sleeping rooms for controllers on break at night but the arrogant scumbag LaHood says that controllers should take "personal responsibility for the very important safety jobs that they have." It is an example of how bosses and their political representatives see us that he thinks we don't care about personal responsibility. But working people are the most conscientious and loyal, to society and even to bosses much to our detriment.
Thirty years on it is not only the heroic strike of the Air Traffic Controllers that we must remember but the role played by the heads of organized labor who allowed Reagan to do what he did. Things have not changed. We have just seen yet another opportunity lost as 100,000 people came on to the streets of Madison and the Labor leadership yet again turned what could have been a victory in to a defeat, derailing an independent working class movement in to the Democratic Party and a ridiculous recall campaign.
I was at a meeting last night of mostly leftists of one type or another including left officials from the bureaucracy, I heard a lot of talk about rank and file this and rank and file that but the question was never asked about why the Rank and File didn't turn up. I would suggest that the reason was the defeat in Wisconsin and its quite possible the strategy of the left in the trade Union movement. A struggle over the right to negotiate away workers' wages benefits and working conditions was defeated, the law is passed, the concessions made, the governor got his way, collective bargaining is on the way out.
The Union leadership and others in the movement can dress that up as a victory all they like; workers are not stupid. Why would a worker looking a way forward to come hear about that?
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