Publictakeover's Weblog

PATCO Strike 8/5/81

Michael Moore shares a little edifying history about the US, the labor movment, and the decline of the middle class:

On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who’d defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.

It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only two unions that had endorsed Reagan for president!

I was just out of college at the time. I was afraid that unions had become so powerful they were going the threaten the solvency of the government. I’d been brought up in a Republican home, went to a Republican school in a Republican community. This was the time when the first glimmer of light began to invade my cave-dark political consciousness.