PATCO WAS one of the few unions, along with the Air Line Pilots Association, to endorse Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election. But when Reagan won the White House in 1980, it was Corporate America, not his union endorsers, that he was eager to prove himself to.

While Reagan launched the attack on PATCO, the previous administration of Democrat Jimmy Carter prepared the ground. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under Carter conducted a management campaign of harassment against union controllers. And 12 months before the government’s contract with PATCO was set to expire, Carter formed a “Management Strike Contingency Force” to prepare for a walkout–including the use of scabs.

Reagan happily finished what Carter started. In February 1981, a month before contract negotiations began, the FAA and the Justice Department drew up a list of PATCO militants to arrest. Just four hours into the strike, Reagan got on TV to threaten strikers that they would be terminated if they didn’t get back to work in 48 hours.

Then the movie actor-president told reporters a story about an unidentified striker who supposedly resigned from PATCO, saying, “How can I ask my kids to obey the law if I don’t?”

Nevertheless, PATCO members stood strong. On the first day of the strike on August 3, 85 percent of union controllers went out. More than 6,000 flights out of a daily load of about 14,000 were immediately canceled. Two days later, Reagan fired the striking controllers.

During the walkout, the FAA was able to keep air traffic at 70 percent of pre-strike levels, largely thanks to its scabbing operation. But the administration also depended on something controllers hadn’t anticipated–total disregard for public safety. According to the union, 481 near misses were reported in the first year of the strike–compared to 10 reported in the 10 years before the walkout.

Union Leaders had a chance to show what solidarity was all about. But they passed it by. AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland denounced Reagan’s attack on PATCO. But he also sent a letter to AFL-CIO affiliates, discouraging them from taking any type of strike action in solidarity.

“I personally do not think that the trade union movement should undertake anything that would represent punishing, injuring or inconveniencing the public at large for the sins or the transgressions of the Reagan administration,” Kirkland wrote.

Striker Terry Duffy had a response for Kirkland, published years later: “For those of you who think it is revolutionary for government workers to strike, I tell you that this is the only country in the free world that does not allow government workers to strike. I know a strike causes inconveniences. It is supposed to.”

William Winpisinger, president of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) and a self-described “socialist,” could have dealt a serious blow to Reagan. If IAM members who serviced the planes had walked out, airports across the country would have been shut down.

But Winpisinger refused to call out IAM members, citing the IAM’s no-strike clause with the airlines. Other union leaders never mobilized the solidarity that they could have–with a few saying that PATCO got its just desserts for supporting Reagan.

Controllers in Canada walked out briefly in solidarity with PATCO before they were threatened with huge fines and suspensions. And the sentiment existed to take on the bosses in the U.S.

The Reagan administration used everything in its arsenal to teach PATCO–and every other union–a lesson. Militants were arrested, jailed and fined. Some PATCO members with federal mortgages lost their homes. Others were denied when they tried to adopt children. The union was fined millions of dollars, and its $3.5 million strike fund was frozen. Eventually, the government succeeded in decertifying PATCO.

Only 1,300 of the nearly 13,000 controllers returned to their jobs, also disobeying a federal court injunction ordering an end to the strike.

On August 5th, following the PATCO workers’ refusal to obey his order, Reagan fired the 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored the order and banned them from federal service for life. PATCO was also decertified by the Federal Labor Relations Authority a few months later.

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