Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization Strike and Similarities Today
By
Adam
Posted: 08-27-2008
The actions of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization have continued to have an effect on controllers well past the 1980’s. The FAA has continued to abuse their power and failed to negotiate with controllers since then. As the United States federal aviation system continues to grow, something must be done to boost morale within the people that control it all. To understand why the new air traffic controllers union, NATCA, is battling yet again with the FAA, one must understand how it all began.
Introduction
The United States operates the most complex and efficient air traffic control system in the entire world. On August 3rd, 1981 this system was disrupted when nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers walked out of their jobs with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and onto the picket line. The exact reasons for the strike varied from one controller to another, but one thing they all knew was that this was an illegal strike against the United States government. President Ronald Reagan gave the striking controllers a 48 hour window to return to work or they would be fired. Approximately 1,650 controllers returned to work, the other 11,350 to include a 34 year old man named Terry Paddack, did not and lost their jobs.
Terry had only been with the FAA for a short time when the strike occurred. Just the year prior in 1980 he had transferred from Tucson, Arizona to New York Terminal Radar Approach Control Facility (TRACON), back then called the Common IFR Room. This transfer, though he didn’t know at the time, would put him in the center of one of the biggest labor strikes in history. He was in the midst of training to become facility rated when talks of the strike first started to occur. Though Terry was fairly new to the administration he felt strongly about the strike. “Shorter working hours, higher salaries, and earlier retirement” (Bilstein, 1984), were three things most controllers could agree on.
The aviation community was booming in the early 80’s and everyone involved was benefiting from it except air traffic controllers. Flight attendants were making as much as controllers at an average of $34,000 a year and some 747 pilots were making $150,000 a year. Controllers felt they deserved higher wages due to the highly stressful nature of their job controlling aircraft but were told they were government employees and not really part of the aviation community (T. Paddack, email to author October 27, 2006). Several failed negotiations between the FAA and the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), the union which represented the majority of controllers, prompted them to overwhelmingly vote 86% in favor of a strike.
The Strike
Terry was certain with the number of air traffic controllers out on strike there was no way the aviation system could operate, especially in vacation hot spots such as Las Vegas and Hawaii. Finally his voice was going to be heard. In just a matter of days the President would approve of the $770 million proposed package the controllers wanted. Thirty-two hour work weeks, a $10,000 a year wage increase, retirement after 20 years regardless of age (Pels, 1995, ¶ 1), he could almost taste it.
