The PATCO Strike

The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organi­zation (PATCO) walked off their jobs on August 3, 1981, in violation of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA), which forbids strikes among civil service workers. That same day, President Reagan went on radio and television to announce that any striker who did not return to the job within 48 hours would be fired, and would also be permanently prohibited from being reemployed at any federal agency in the future.

Of those controllers who went on strike (some 4,199 did not), 875 returned to work before the expiration of the deadline set by the president. The remainder of the strikers, over 11,000 con­trollers, were fired.

The FAA had made preparations to meet the strike. Controller positions were staffed by those who had refused to strike, supplemented by supervisors, military personnel, and retirees who were called back. Within 10 days the АТС system was operating at about 70 percent effec­tiveness. The FAA recruited new trainees and ran them through its Air Traffic Service Academy to fill the remaining vacancies. When the air traffic system regained full operational capacity less than two years later, a head count showed that there were 20 percent fewer controllers required to run the system safely and efficiently, implicit proof that АТС was over-staffed when the strike began.

PATCO was decertified as the bargaining agent for FAA controllers. The FAA and the Airline Transport Association filed civil lawsuits seeking damages and injunctive relief, and the PATCO strike fund, which in August 1981 held over $3 million, was impounded to pay dam­ages and fines. Criminal proceedings were com­menced and federal court contempt orders were entered.

The controllers hired after the PATCO strike subsequently formed their own union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Union (NATCO), which represents controllers today.

Response from other union groups in sup­port of the strike was muted. ALPA, in fact, pub­licly countered PATCO assertions that the АТС system was unsafe. Any tepid support voiced for the strike was seen as merely symbolic. Still, union leadership countrywide was apprehensive over the effect of such a devastating defeat suf­fered by any labor organization. They could not help but notice the overwhelming support that the administration’s response to the strike had engendered.

The strike caused large airline losses at a time when the airlines were having a difficult time due to deregulation and the economic down­turn then ongoing. It inconvenienced millions of air travelers, and reinforced the wisdom of the anti-strike provisions applicable to federal employees. Unions also took note of the pub­lic resentment generated by the strike and by the disruptions that it caused. It might even be concluded that the PATCO strike and its after­math had a chilling effect on militant union activity—during the ensuing three-year period there were only two strikes in the airline industry, an IAM strike against Northwest in May 1982 and another IAM strike in August 1983, this time against Lorenzo’s Continental. Each of the IAM strikes deserves further comment.

The strike against Northwest was called by the mechanics after negotiations had produced agreements with all of the other crafts. It was also generally conceded that the company’s offer to IAM was substantial. Union solidarity, most visibly expressed by a refusal by one union’s members to cross picket lines set up by different unions, has been a traditional and effective tool in job actions. When IAM struck Northwest, the pilots crossed the picket lines and continued to fly, as did the flight attendants represented by the Teamsters, thereby greatly reducing the effec­tiveness of the strike.

The Continental strike is technically still in progress given that Continental’s entry into Chapter 11, and the subsequent firing of its employees under the Bildisco decision, caused the loss of all of those employees’ jobs.