As the US economy sputtered in the post-Watergate era, a backlash developed against public employee unions. With workers continuing to press wage demands and strike repeatedly while the economy suffered, unionized employees were now being painted as overpaid and taking advantage of taxpayers. In this anti-union climate, many politicians—both Democrat and Republican—realized that political gain could be had by getting tough on public employee unions. As Joseph McCartin explains, “By the mid-1970s, government officials at all levels dealt with the growing fiscal crisis through budget cutbacks, hiring freezes, and hardline union negotiations. As often as not, the austerity programs were instituted by Democratic administrations once allied to the public sector union movement.”1 Pollster Louis Harris told the US Conference of Mayors in 1975 “that the way to get elected was to get tough on public workers.”2 Some mayors even tried to goad public workers into striking in order to create fights with unions they were now confident they could win. For example, the mayor of Utica, New York complained to Business Week in 1975 that “I can’t get anyone to go on strike against me. I think city government needs a showdown with the unions.”3
The shift in the bargaining climate is best demonstrated by the changing fortunes of sanitation workers in the South. During the 1960s, the struggles of southern sanitation workers were embraced by the civil rights movement. In cities such as Memphis and Charleston, civil rights leaders were arrested on the picket lines while supporting striking workers. Even as late as 1970, when the white mayor of Atlanta threatened to replace striking sanitation workers, civil rights organizations lined up to oppose the move.4 With the civil rights movement still strong, and the memory of urban rebellion fresh in the minds of local officials, compromise was the preferred method of settling disputes. Joseph McCartin writes about how the sanitation strikes that erupted between 1968 and 1972 in cities such as Cleveland, Miami, Washington DC, Lubbock, Texas and Atlanta “were typical of a new pattern of municipal labor-management conflict…During each of these strikes, officials had the power to replace striking sanitation workers. Yet in each case officials either decided not to use this tactic or, after attempting to replace strikers, dropped the effort under pressure.”5
By the mid-1970s, however, with the country facing a fiscal crisis, “‘standing up to’ public sector unions became the litmus test of a politician’s sense of fiscal responsibility.” This was particularly true for Democratic politicians, “who had to fight the charge that they would ‘give away the store’ to their labor allies.”6 As an example, former civil rights activist Maynard Jackson had been elected Atlanta’s first black mayor in 1973. Facing reelection in 1977, Jackson wanted to win over middle class whites and the business community. Like many cities during this period, Atlanta faced a budget shortfall. When primarily black sanitation workers struck on March 28, 1977, Jackson took a tough stand, firing the workers and declaring the strike over. Jackson then began hiring replacement workers, rebuffing an offer by the union to end the strike if the fired workers could get their jobs back. Unlike in previous strikes, the major organizations in the African American community lined up against the striking workers. Isolated from allies in the civil rights movement, and with no strong labor support behind them, the union surrendered and ended the strike. While most of the striking workers managed to get their jobs back at their old rate of pay, the union had been dealt a crushing defeat.7
Following the failure of the sanitation strike in Atlanta, other Democratic mayors followed suit, with striking sanitation workers fired in San Antonio, Texas and Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Even Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, a former union organizer in a union stronghold city, threatened to fire striking sanitation workers if they did not end a wildcat strike.8 After workers represented by AFSCME struck in August 1978 despite a court injunction, Young ordered city officials to draw up termination papers for the 3,500 employees. Under threat of termination, the striking workers relented and ended their walkout. Half a decade before Ronald Reagan fired air traffic controllers in a move that put the government’s stamp on union-busting, Democratic mayors were already firing public employees for striking.
Union Busting and the PATCO Strike
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan famously fired over 11,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) for conducting an illegal strike, an action that is seen as signaling the federal government’s support of union-busting. Reagan’s firing of PATCO workers initiated a tougher approach to public employee strikes by the federal government, and helped dampen strike enthusiasm among public sector workers in the decades to come.
The experience of PATCO from the mid-1960s through the 1981 strike in many ways tracks the trajectory of the public employee labor movement. The union traces its origins to employee efforts in the aftermath of a December 1960 midair aircraft collision over Brooklyn, New York that killed 134 people. Concerned that the Federal Aviation Authority was deflecting blame from fundamental problems with the nation’s air traffic system, the air traffic controllers began networking and organizing. Initially turning to a federal employees union, the National Association of Government Employees, in the mid-1960s the controllers took a more militant turn and began looking to form their own organization. Aided by legendary trial lawyer F. Lee Bailey, the controllers formed PATCO in 1968.
At the core of PATCO’s formation were militant job actions, including slowdowns and sickouts. Joseph McCartin writes that, “Between 1972 and 1977, PATCO emerged as the most militant, most densely organized union in any bargaining unit of the nation’s largest employer, the U.S. government.”9 In 1968, the union engaged in a slowdown dubbed “Operation Air Safety.” The following year, frustrated by the FAA’s refusal to follow through on commitments made in the wake of the slowdown, the controllers conducted a sickout. In response, the FAA cracked down on the union, cancelling dues check-off and leaves of absences for union officials and engaging in retaliatory transfers. Choosing to fight rather than back down, one-quarter of the nation’s air traffic controllers participated in a strike in the spring of 1970, thinly disguised as a sickout. Despite incredible pressure, including threats of termination, lack of support from the pilot’s union, and injunctions, the strikers held out for nineteen days. The strike did not end well, with the firing of eighty controllers and none of the union’s demands met (the workers were later rehired in a deal with President Richard Nixon).
Despite this setback, PATCO rebounded and managed to negotiate its first collective bargaining agreement in 1973. This contract was in many ways the high water mark for PATCO, as with many public sector unions, bargaining became increasingly difficult as the 1970s wore on. By the late 1970s, the union was increasingly bumping heads with the Carter administration, which had been taking provocative action against the controllers, including canceling an early retirement program, rescinding a safety immunity program, and refusing to address pay, which was the number one issue for the union membership.10 Frustrated and angered by the government’s actions, support for a strike began building within the organization.
During the negotiations for a new contract, Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981. By threatening to strike, PATCO was able to reach an agreement with Reagan, “winning approval from a conservative president for a contract that far exceeded anything the federal government had offered a union before.”11 Although federal law does not permit negotiations over wages, PATCO was able to secure a pay increase, night differential and other improvements. The level of hostility against the government was too high among union members, however, and the contract was rejected by 95 percent of the membership. Even though the settlement contained impressive gains, opponents focused on the failure to win some of the more ambitious demands, such as a thirty-two hour work week.
On August 3, 1981, PATCO workers began the first officially sanctioned national strike against the federal government. Previous federal worker strikes had been local affairs or wildcat actions, such as the 1970 postal strike, which had not been supported by the national union leadership. The PACTO strike, in contrast, was an undisguised strike called by the national union which directly challenged the authority of the federal government. Unfortunately,
