P.A.T.C.O. AND REAGAN: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY
The Air Traffic Controllers' Strike of 1981
by
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PATCO members did not take congressional threats seriously. After all, no American government had ever fired its workers before. The government needed them. The government would never, could never, fire all of them. And so it was at 7:00 a.m. on August 3, 1981, when the nation's air traffic controllers walked off their jobs and, in a late-morning White House press statement, President Reagan announced to the nation that PATCO had called a strike. More than 13,000 controllers initially left their positions in support of the strike. In his speech to the nation, Reagan acknowledged that, as President of the Screen Actors Guild, he led the first strike called by that union. “But,” he proclaimed, “We cannot compare labor management relations in the private sector with government. Government cannot close down the assembly line....”
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About the Book
P.A.T.C.O. AND REAGAN: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY - The Air Traffic Controllers' Strike of 1981 - documents those ominous days leading up to, including, and after the fateful strike and consequent firing of over 11,000 federal employees by the President of the United States in August, 1981. Relying on primary White House research materials available in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library archives, the book concludes that both the strike and the dismissal were not only predictable, but inescapable scenarios, given the resolute and tenacious personalities of the leaders involved. It discusses in length, the compounding effects that the strike had on its members, society at large, and the White House.
P.A.T.C.O. AND REAGAN explores the motivations behind the strikers’ controversial actions and the corresponding rationales of their opponents, which included just about everybody else. It highlights the heightened emotions that fueled the union’s expectations before the strike and drove its fervent quest for redemption after the strike. The union’s inability to comprehend how the strike would be perceived ultimately doomed its efforts and condemned it to a collision course with the Reagan Administration, the general public, and even its own membership . As a consequence, organized labor in the United States would never be the same.
About the Author
Evelyn S. Taylor is the Archivist for the Honorable Robert J. and Norma M. Lagomarsino Department of Archives and Special Collections at California State University, Channel Islands in Camarillo, California. She has a Master's degree in History (concentration on the 1980s), with an emphasis in Archives from California State University, Northridge and a Master's degree in Library Science from California State University, San Jose. A lecturer in oral history, Ms. Taylor has also written CONDUCTING ORAL HISTORIES: A STUDENT'S GUIDE TO A SUCCESSFUL INTERVIEWING EXPERIENCE.