After the strike I went back to school and completed work on my Masters Degree in Business. Something I would have never done had I remained a controller.

After 15 years in upper level and executive level transportation management I received a call from the FAA inquiring as to my interest in becoming a Controller again.

On October 18, 1997 I was reinstated as a air traffic controller.

Now for my comments as to the union that replaced PATCO. SCAB SCAB AND MORE SCABS. CRY BABIES AND ALL ABOUT ME ME ME. That is why as we speak today the current union is about to give back money and benefits along with having to work under the new “imposed work rules”.

They are now getting just a small taste of what it was like to work as a PATCO controller. Every anniversry they will come up to me and make some comment as to the strike. This anniversry my comment to the SCABS was “at least when I drop my pants I can still see my BALLS”.

Thank you for remembering us. I was an air traffic controller until 8/3/81 at one of the busier airports in the Los Angeles area.

A couple of memories I’d like to share with you…I was a witness at just how effective the Reagan administration was at repeating one sound bite over and over again until it “took.” They succeeded at calling us greedy and that the strike was all about money.

The reality was that money was a much lower priority than working hours and stress. Less overtime. Better staffing. Training for second careers after a person couldn’t do the job anymore. This was definitely a young person’s game, like a professional athlete. After a certain age, the mental or whatever faculties required to work at a really busy tower or radar room deteriorated. And not everybody could be or wanted to be a manager. Aging controllers were “carried” by their younger colleagues, with somebody watching over a shoulder, relief when things got really busy, putting people on less busy shifts, etc.

Because they successfully made the issue money, it was difficult getting our message out to the Teamsters, Airline Pilot’s association, Machinists (mechanics). They were never going to honor our picket lines. We were dreaming.

Another big issue for me was the quasi-military management where a supervisor could discipline a controller over nothing, and it just sort of happened to the people they didn’t like. Sexual harassment happened under our noses. Discrimination against women controllers was rampant, I saw it. Some assholes felt emasculated if a woman controller was as good as them. Made it especially difficult to get certified, stuff like that.

I remember how great the unions were in doing what they could, our strike count was held at the Teamsters union hall at LAX, a building that was ironically torn down to make way for a freeway.

The Continental flight attendants let us use their office as our strike headquarters. They were so awesome, and how sad it was only a few years later when their union was one of the first in the airline industry to be broken when they went on strike.

The Communications workers (CWA) also gave us office space and great support.

And, for me, I will always thank and support the ILWU (Longshoremen) for letting us on the docks at LA and Long Beach harbors. What an experience, doing everything from unloading banana boats, to lashing container ships, to driving honda off the ship on to the dock. And they helped us pay the bills. I sat next to an ILWU guy on a plane years later and thanked him for how much they did for us.

I also got a standing ovation at a meeting of 1000 or so members of the United Teachers of Los Angles in a huge ballroom at the Biltmore hotel in front of Governor Jerry Brown. God I was scared to stand up in front of that many people, but they were all so great.

I was only 24 at the time of the strike and I didn’t understand a lot of the issues as well as I should have, and didn’t understand the power of the Reagan administration. Something that could be said for guys a lot older than me that lost everything. Marriages broke up, there were suicides.

But I’ve survived, doing a lot better now than if I had worked as a controller all these years, probably would have wound up as a stressed out alcoholic.

By the way, NATCA is, as far as most of us are concerned, a scab shill union. they conspired with the FAA, I mean,, wrote right into their contract, that hiring of patco controllers would be controlled and limited after Clinton lifted the ban in ‘93. Screwed a lot of people, and there are outstanding lawsuits to this day because of their shitty tactics.

NATCA has it really good compared to many controllers. The real danger is outsourcing of air traffic control to private companies, something that is taking place all over the country. Many of these controllers don’t make more than $20 an hour and have little, if any, benefits. Outsourcing means that previous contracts don’t exist.

A new Patco exists now, one representing these private controllers. Hopefully they will be able to do some good for these people by organizing and collective bargaining.

Mike

MikeInSeattle @ 78

Thank you for remembering us. I was an air traffic controller until 8/3/81 at one of the busier airports in the Los Angeles area.

A couple of memories I’d like to share with you…I was a witness at just how effective the Reagan administration was at repeating one sound bite over and over again until it “took.” They succeeded at calling us greedy and that the strike was all about money.

The reality was that money was a much lower priority than working hours and stress. Less overtime. Better staffing. Training for second careers after a person couldn’t do the job anymore. This was definitely a young person’s game, like a professional athlete. After a certain age, the mental or whatever faculties required to work at a really busy tower or radar room deteriorated. And not everybody could be or wanted to be a manager. Aging controllers were “carried” by their younger colleagues, with somebody watching over a shoulder, relief when things got really busy, putting people on less busy shifts, etc.

Because they successfully made the issue money, it was difficult getting our message out to the Teamsters, Airline Pilot’s association, Machinists (mechanics). They were never going to honor our picket lines. We were dreaming.

Another big issue for me was the quasi-military management where a supervisor could discipline a controller over nothing, and it just sort of happened to the people they didn’t like. Sexual harassment happened under our noses. Discrimination against women controllers was rampant, I saw it. Some assholes felt emasculated if a woman controller was as good as them. Made it especially difficult to get certified, stuff like that.

I remember how great the unions were in doing what they could, our strike count was held at the Teamsters union hall at LAX, a building that was ironically torn down to make way for a freeway.

The Continental flight attendants let us use their office as our strike headquarters. They were so awesome, and how sad it was only a few years later when their union was one of the first in the airline industry to be broken when they went on strike.

The Communications workers (CWA) also gave us office space and great support.

And, for me, I will always thank and support the ILWU (Longshoremen) for letting us on the docks at LA and Long Beach harbors. What an experience, doing everything from unloading banana boats, to lashing container ships, to driving honda off the ship on to the dock. And they helped us pay the bills. I sat next to an ILWU guy on a plane years later and thanked him for how much they did for us.

I also got a standing ovation at a meeting of 1000 or so members of the United Teachers of Los Angles in a huge ballroom at the Biltmore hotel in front of Governor Jerry Brown. God I was scared to stand up in front of that many people, but they were all so great.

I was only 24 at the time of the strike and I didn’t understand a lot of the issues as well as I should have, and didn’t understand the power of the Reagan administration. Something that could be said for guys a lot older than me that lost everything. Marriages broke up, there were suicides.

But I’ve survived, doing a lot better now than if I had worked as a controller all these years, probably would have wound up as a stressed out alcoholic.

By the way, NATCA is, as far as most of us are concerned, a scab shill union. they conspired with the FAA, I mean,, wrote right into their contract, that hiring of patco controllers would be controlled and limited after Clinton lifted the ban in ‘93. Screwed a lot of people, and there are outstanding lawsuits to this day because of their shitty tactics.

NATCA has it really good compared to many controllers. The real danger is outsourcing of air traffic control to private companies, something that is taking place all over the country. Many of these controllers don’t make more than $20 an hour and have little, if any, benefits. Outsourcing means that previous contracts don’t exist.

A new Patco exists now, one representing these private controllers. Hopefully they will be able to do some good for these people by organizing and collective bargaining.

Mike

Breaking PATCO is where Giuliani made his bones as a Real Rethuglican, and he got to be the US Attorney for the S.D.N.Y. as his reward. It was from there that he made the token inroads on Wall Street, getting a lot of press and notice, and from there to the Mayoralty, as Rudy Thuggiani.

Ever notice that, in the days post 9/11 when Thuggiani was on the pile of rubble, preening for the cameras, he never let the word “Union” escape his lips, and never really praised them, either. Despite a large percentage of the construction and other workers doing the work on the pile having been union workers. And yet, ignorant of his history, all those tough operating engineers and ironworkers and carpenters and laborers gatherered round to bask in the glow of their admiration for Thuggy and W?

I became a Democrat some years later. This tale still saddens me beyond belief. I knew many of the controllers and their families, and felt the sting of their resentment towards my father and Reagan, and I didn’t blame them one bit. However, perhaps as Ronzoni Rigatoni says, ‘a different strike-free approach’ was necessary. It still sucks all around.

After so many years of Republican-dominated government, we all need a revised Wagner Act. I would hope a new Democratic-dominated Congress has this issue on the agenda.