PATCO: Union Busting and The Decline of Unionism.

The Professional Air Traffic Controller Organization, or PATCO, historically had endorsed Democrats since their founding in 1968, until Ronald Reagan came into the picture. When PATCO was deciding which canidate to support in the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan wrote to them, Reagan had promised to take “whatever steps are necessary” to provide up-to-date equipment, adjust staffing levels and schedules, and appoint individuals to government organizations who were “highly-qualified” and who could “work harmoniously with the Congress and the employees of the government agencies they oversee.” He ended with the statement, “I pledge to you that my administration will work very closely with you to bring about a spirit of cooperation between the President and the air traffic controllers.”

Needless to say, Reagan, who was himself once the president of the Screen Actors Guild, won them over, and, in a landslide, Reagan won the vote in 1980.

Only two months after Reagan's inauguration, The FAA and PATCO's contract was up. After eight weeks of talks, and a tenetive agreement that was rejected a couple months later, 13,000 Air Traffic Controllers went on strike in early August of 1981. 

While PATCO got local, national, and even international attention and support, Ronald Reagan declared the strike illegal and demanded them back to work within 48 hours or they would be terminated. After the 48 hours had passed, JFK and Logan sitting still with passengers not able to fly out, Reagan had made it official to terminate 13,000 of the striking Air Traffic Controllers. Even after their termination, the strike carried on.

Two months after the 13,000 Air Traffic Controllers were fired, they had been replaced by military controllers, and controllers in training. Even though the workers who were on strike had voted and supported Reagan, many of them were arrested and put in jail, many of them ended up homeless, and PATCO in October, 1981 was bankrupted and dissolved.

Reagan's action towards PATCO started a trend for companies in the private sector. The refusal to negotiate with unions, union busting, and the general handling of employees in the private sector. This trend also lead to the decline in trade union membership and militancy within trade unions at a faster rate than it already had been.