By: Ronald Reagan
Date: August 3, 1981
Source: White House Press Release. "On the Air Traffic Controllers Strike." August 3, 1981.
About the Author: Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) served as the fortieth president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Noted for his conservative politics, the popular Republican focused on economic reforms that reversed some of the gains made by labor during previous presidential administrations.
INTRODUCTION
Ronald Reagan's high-profile battle with the Professional Air Traffic Controllers' Organization (PATCO) served as a pivotal moment in the labor movement. Besides showing Reagan to be tough and confident, the struggle gave notice to business executives that the federal government approved of breaking the power of labor unions. Reagan reversed fifty years of federal support for unionization.
PATCO members ran the sophisticated technology that controlled air traffic in the U.S. They regarded themselves as highly trained professionals in stressful jobs, made worse by long hours and outmoded equipment. During the 1980 presidential campaign, Reagan had met with the president of PATCO to promise that he would take every necessary step to provide the best air traffic equipment available and to improve working conditions by hiring more controllers. PATCO then became one of the few labor unions to endorse Reagan over incumbent Jimmy Carter. After the election, Reagan changed his course. The PATCO contract expired in March 1981 and Reagan's advisers warned him that the administration's position in those negotiations would send signals to several other unions. Particularly worrying, the contract of the massive postal workers' union was set to expire shortly after the PATCO contract. Reagan was also warned that a strike would possibly cost the nation $150 million per day in lost domestic commerce alone.
PATCO sought a $10,000 per year raise, a thirty-two-hour work week, and a better early retirement package. Reagan offered $2,300 in additional benefits and pay. The controllers were banned from legally striking or staging a slowdown because they were federal employees. However, in years past, controllers had effectively slowed plane traffic at various airports to win improvements in every area from staffing to pay. On August 2, 1981, the controllers went on strike. The action was inconveniencing and potentially dangerous as well as illegal. In a press conference on August 3, Reagan joined Secretary of Transportation Drew Lewis and Attorney General William French Smith to announce that the 15,000 striking PATCO members would be fired if they did not return to work. Lewis added that there would be no negotiations during the strike and that supervisory personnel, joined by 150 military controllers, had the system running at fifty percent capacity.
PRIMARY SOURCE
This morning at 7 a.m. the union representing those who man America's air traffic control facilities called a strike. This was the culmination of seven months of negotiations between the Federal Aviation Administration and the union. At one point in these negotiations agreement was reached and signed by both sides, granting a $40 million increase in salaries and benefits. This is twice what other government employees can expect. It was granted in recognition of the difficulties inherent in the work these people perform. Now, however, the union demands are seventeen times what had been agreed to—$681 million. This would impose a tax burden on their fellow citizens which is unacceptable.
I would like to thank the supervisors and controllers who are on the job today, helping to get the nation's air system operating safely. In the New York area, for example, four supervisors were scheduled to report for work, and seventeen additionally volunteered. At National Airport a traffic controller told a newsperson he had resigned from the union and reported to work because, "How can I ask my kids to obey the law if I don't?" This is a great tribute to America.
Let me make one thing plain. I respect the right of workers in the private sector to strike. Indeed, as president of my own union, I led the first strike ever called by that union. I guess I'm maybe the first one to ever hold this office who is a lifetime member of an AFL-CIO union. But we cannot compare labor-management relations in the private sector with government. Government cannot close down the assembly line. It has to provide without interruption the protective services which are govern-ment's reason for being.
It was in recognition of this that the Congress passed a law forbidding strikes by government employees against the public safety. Let me read the solemn oath taken by each of these employees, a sworn affidavit, when they accepted their jobs: "I am not participating in any strike against the Government of the United States or any agency thereof, and I will not so participate while an employee of the Government of the United States or any agency thereof."
It is for this reason that I must tell those who fail to report for duty this morning they are in violation of the law, and if they do not report for work within forty-eight hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated.
SIGNIFICANCE
In the wake of the firing of the PATCO members, it still remained more difficult to fire a union member than a non-union worker. Union membership had started to decline before the PATCO strike, despite claims that the episode led to a weakening of unions. In 1945, thirty percent of Americans belonged to a union. As industries deregulated, new business formed around high-technology products, and less-educated workers failed to join unions, union membership dropped to twenty-three percent by the start of Reagan's presidency.
The PATCO union, however, was destroyed. On August 5, Reagan announced that thirty-eight percent of PATCO members had returned to work. On August 13, the government announced that 10,438 controllers had been fired and flight schedules had returned to eighty percent normal. On December 9, Reagan confirmed his position that fired controllers would not be rehired, although they could apply for other government positions. Polls showed that sixty-seven percent of Americans approved of Reagan's handling of the strike, including sixty-one percent of blue-collar workers who would normally back labor unions. In 1987, controllers approved the National Air Traffic Controllers Association as their bargaining agent. The new union gained support because of disputes among the controllers and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that reprised many of the issues that had angered PATCO members: poor labor-management communications, inadequate staffing levels, high traffic volume, and outdated equipment. In 1987, the U.S. air traffic control system handled three million more flights than it had in 1981 with 3,000 fewer controllers than in 1981. By 2006, 4,000 of the 16,000 controllers hired after the 1981 strike were ready for retirement. Union leaders predict an upcoming shortage of controllers.
FURTHER RESOURCES
Books
Northrup, Herbert R. and Amie D. Thornton. The Federal Government as Employer: The Federal Labor Relations Authority and the PATCO Challenge. Philadelphia: Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 1986.
Pemberton, William E. Exit with Honor: The Life and Presidency of Ronald Reagan. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998.
Reeves, Richard. President Reagan: The Triumph of Imagination. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005.
Shostak, Arthur B. and David Skocik. The Air Controllers' Controversy: Lessons from the PATCO Strike. New York: Human Science Press, 1986.
An air traffic controller took to TikTok recently to answer the request to, “name one thing in your industry or profession that the general public would be shocked to know about?”
And his answer apparently did shock tens of thousands of people. In his own words:
“I’m an air traffic controller, and there are about 139 Federal stand-alone Air Traffic Control Towers in the United States. I work at one. And every night 84 of those, about 60 percent, shut down and all the controllers go home and there’s nobody there to work traffic and then they come back in the morning and reopen. And during those hours when the control tower is closed, it’s the pilots’ responsibility to talk to other pilots and make sure that they’re not going to hit each other.”
I can see why this claim might be shocking to people because I’m aware of some common misconceptions about the most basic ways that air traffic control works to interface with the flight crew of planes flying in the National Airspace System. Let me correct those misunderstandings.
1. Many air traffic control towers do indeed close at night. But not to worry. Those towers are mostly at lesser-traveled airports and, generally speaking, when those towers are closed there is very little traffic for pilots to keep an eye on. Rest assured that the air traffic control towers at JFK and O’Hare and other major airline airports are open 24/7. When the tower is closed, what happens? Nothing out of the ordinary. All pilots are trained from flight lesson number one on how to fly at airports without an operating control tower. It’s “how to fly” 101. Moreover, at night, when most of these closures are in effect, it’s easier to see other traffic than it is during the day, when planes can and do blend in with the background. Position lights at night are relatively easy to see. And for flights that are flying more regimented types of flying, called Instrument Flight Rules (IFR), the controllers that handle the different sectors of airspace from coast to coast are always on duty. Typically, it’s just the last few minutes of a flight to a smaller airport that airplanes are on their own, and even then, the controllers often have radar to use to give pilots a heads-up about other traffic.
2. Air traffic controllers tell pilots where to fly and keep planes from hitting each other. This is only partly true. In practice, that kind of kit glove handling is reserved for only some of the aircraft (IFR flights) in the air at any given time. For all intents and purposes, airliners get this kind of hand-on attention on every flight for every step of the way. Planes that are flying under visual flight rules and that are not in heavily regulated airspace are on their own and have been since the days of the Wright Brothers. It’s the job of pilots not to hit each other, which they accomplish because, one, you need to be very unlucky indeed to hit another plane in the first place, and, two, pilots keep an eagle-eye for other planes. On top of that, most planes have advanced electronics to show them where other traffic is so they can avoid it.
3. The system works really well as it is. The regular closure of towers at night has a negligible effect on flying safety. Although airlines have in the somewhat distant past run into other airplanes, new equipment requirements and tighter airspace regulations, most of which are more than 50 years old at this point, put an end to such collisions (knock on wood). There hasn’t been a fatal mid-air collision involving an airliner since 1990, 32 years ago. And everyone on board the airliner, which hit a small plane, survived. So your chances of the airliner you’re flying in hitting another airplane, statistically speaking, is very close to zero.
And there’s no doubt that the air traffic controller who made the viral Tiktok comment knew this. And now you too know what the real truth behind the “shocking” fact he shared.
@doaviation #stitch with @annaschozer air traffic control isn’t 24/7 at some places #airtrafficcontrol #pilot #plane #airport ♬ original sound – doaviation
Read the story on Newsweek’s website here.