LABOR's Forum on COLLISION COURSE

I'm grateful to LABOR: STUDIES IN WORKING-CLASS HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS for organizing a Bookmark forum on Collision Course.  In that forum, I was honored to have my book discussed by four smart and knowledgeable people: Jack Metzgar, whose own book on the 1959 steel strike is one of the best ruminations ever written about a strike; Liesl Orenic, a fellow laborer in the vineyards of aviation labor history, from whose work I have learned so much; Rosemary Feurer, whose book Radical Unionism in the Midwest, 1900-1950 demonstrated a keen understanding of internal labor dynamics of the sort that I wrote about; and Dave Sapadin, a former air traffic controller who lived through some of the events in the book.  LABOR Online, the blog of the Labor and Working Class History Association has posted the contributions to this forum this week along with an introduction by Rosemary.  You can find it here.

F. Lee Bailey Back in the News

The attorney F. Lee Bailey, who played a crucial role in forming and building the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) during the years 1968-1970, was back in the news this week.  Bailey, who has relocated to Maine, sought admission to the bar there (he had been disbarred in Massachusetts and Florida in the early 2000s).  Bailey passed the Maine bar exam last year (I last spoke with him when he was studying for that exam), but this week it became public that the State of Maine Board of Bar Examiners ruled on his application and voted 5-4 to reject it.  The majority ruled that "Mr. Bailey has not met his burden of demonstrating by clear and convincing evidence that he possesses the requisite good character and fitness necessary for admission to the Maine Bar."  For more on this story, check this in the Lewiston Auburn Sun-Journal.

The FAA Explains Air Traffic Control (1963)

This public relations video produced in 1963 by the Federal Aviation Agency (the predecessor of the Federal Aviation Administration) gives a sense of how air traffic control worked in the years when air traffic controllers first began to organize.  The visuals here say a lot about FAA culture, the homogeneous composition of the controller workforce, and the the way technology worked in those days.  While the video might seem hokey in some ways when looked at from today's perspective, it evinces a level of respect for the vital role that federal workers play in the nation's life that seems all to absent from today's public discourse.

Mike Rock Tells the Story of PATCO's Origins

This week will mark the 31st anniversary of the 1981 air traffic controllers' strike.  With that in mind, I thought it would be a good time to post an interesting bit of historical memorabilia.   This is a video of PATCO co-founder Mike Rock taken on January 10, 1979, as he told the story of the origins of the air traffic controllers' union, recounting the working conditions controllers faced in the 1960s and the long struggle that led them to decide to form their own organization.  The film was made at the AFL-CIO's training center in Silver Spring, Maryland, as Rock spoke to PATCO activists who were beginning the union's preparations for the 1981 contract expiration.  The quality of the video isn't the greatest.  It was preserved and copied several times by Mike's friend, and PATCO legend Jack Maher (who passes briefly across the screen in the videos opening moment).  But Jack gave it to me with the hope that it would help explain why he and Mike and their colleagues began organizing in the first place.  This is the opening excerpt of a several hours worth of history that Rock shared with his PATCO colleagues in 1979.  I cut off this segment just before Rock recounted PATCO's founding.  I'll be posting more of the Rock lectures once I edit them.  Enjoy:

Calling Bob Poli

Occasionally I get a letter from a former PATCO member who inquires about Bob Poli, who led the union during the 1981 strike.  I was not able to interview Bob Poli for my book.  The letters I sent to the addresses I had for him were not answered and those who offered to contact him on my behalf were unable to put us together.  He has tended to guard his privacy in recent years: he did not come to the two PATCO reunions I attended.   (Poli's son, Robert P. Poli, did drop in to meet me after the book was published, however, and I signed a copy for him.)  I heard recently from Larry Sawatzki, of Kansas City, who told me that he wanted to reach out to Poli.  His letter and its postscript is representative of many that I've gotten from strikers.  I'll reprint his letter below with his permission. 

Dear Professor McCartin,

My name is Larry Sawatzki.  I was a member of PATCO Local 332, MCI TRACON, Kansas City, MO.  I was hired by the FAA in 1973 after four years in the Navy.  I was an active member of the union, serving as facility rep in Kansas City, as well as terminal voting representative for the central region at the last two PATCO conventions.  I was a friend of Jack Maher, Mike Rock, and Gary Eads, as well as many others you mentioned in your book.  I was with Bob Poli in the lobby of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel on election night 1980.  When the national news networks projected Reagan as the winner we, along with numerous colleagues, proceeded to celebrate.

Fathers and Sons

I've now talked to a fair number of controllers whose fathers or sons were also controllers.  Their stories never fail to interest me for inevitably they are stories of passion--passion in their relationships (sometimes marked by conflict), in their attachment to the work they did as controllers, and in their feelings about what happened to them and their families.  (Pictured to the left is a PATCO striker and son, 1981.)  This week I've heard from another strike veteran, Pat Garrett, who wrote to tell me his story about being fired and about his dad, who was also a controller, and who, as Pat explains, embodied the passion to which I refer.  I post Pat's letter now in the spirit of Father's Day. 

Dear Mr. McCartin,

I just read Collision Course.  Thank you, for a well written and researched  book.  It provided new details of the union and the strike and brought back a flood of memories, emotions and some responses. I am a fired PATCO member from Santa Barbara, CA and the son of an air traffic controller of 25 years. He retired just before the strike.

Beginning at age 25 I worked as a controller for almost three years with prior experience in retail and a BA degree in geography.  My Dad encouraged me to accept the job. I hesitated because of his negative stories as a controller.  He emphasized that I'd really like the work but may have difficulty

Collision Course wins Richard A. Lester Award

On May 17, it was announced that Collision Course won the Richard A. Lester Award for Outstanding Book in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics published in 2011.  The award is presented by the faculty of the Princeton University Industrial Relations Section to "the book making the most original and important contribution toward understanding the problems of industrial relations, labor market policies, and the evolution of labor markets."  A full explanation of the award can be found here.
   The best thing about the award is that it might induce economists and industrial relations scholars to read the book.  It seems to me that we historians don't tend to read enough work in those fields, and in turn economists (the IRS faculty excepted!) don't tend to read enough history.  So my thanks to the Princeton IRS faculty for promoting this cross-over.