It’s been called the strike that forever changed unions.
On Aug. 3, 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization called an illegal strike to seek better working conditions, higher pay and a shorter work week. In turn, President Ronald Reagan — in office for less than seven months — declared the PATCO strike a threat to national safety and ordered the air traffic controllers back to work.
Only about 10 percent of the nearly 13,000 workers PATCO represented complied. Two days later, after the PATCO workers’ refusal to return to work, Reagan permanently fired the more than 11,000 remaining strikers, an action that had a profound and lasting effect on U.S. labor relations.
In “Collision Course,” Joseph A. McCartin writes that the PATCO strike was more than just a labor dispute about a single issue. It was the culmination of 20 years of conflict, recurring airline disasters and the struggles of individual air traffic controllers to better their livelihoods. McCartin, a history professor at Georgetown University and an expert on labor unions, retraces those 20 years that ultimately ended with the confrontation with the Reagan administration.
Yet, McCartin argues, President Reagan was not a “union buster,” as popular opinion may assert. Reagan had been reaching out for union support and, in PATCO’s case, he agreed to concessions that were more than any other granted to a public employee union by a president.
It was PATCO’s arrogance, McCartin contends, that forced Reagan’s hardline stance that ultimately led to the union’s demise.
“The memory of PATCO’s destruction still haunts American workers,” McCartin writes, with unions reluctant to push back against a steady loss of benefits and wages. More than any other labor dispute of the past 30 years, Reagan’s confrontation with PATCO undermined the bargaining power of American workers and their labor unions, according to McCartin, while at the same time polarizing politics in ways that prevented the public from addressing the root cause of economic troubles.
Written with a clear and well-paced style, “Collision Course” delivers an interesting and informative take on one of the most important events in U.S. labor history.
Bob Kustra is president of Boise State University and host of Reader’s Corner, a weekly radio show on Boise State Public Radio. Reader’s Corner airs Fridays at 5:30 p.m. and repeats Sundays at 11 a.m. on KBSX 91.5 FM. Previous shows, including an interview with McCartin are online and available for podcast at http://boisestatepublicradio.org/readerscorner.
