Remembering in the House of Labor

I was honored to have an opportunity to speak about Collision Course on December 14 in the Samuel Gompers room at the headquarters of the AFL-CIO in an event hosted by the labor federation's president, Richard Trumka.  With me were two former PATCO strikers who lost their jobs in 1981, Elliott Simons, who worked then at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, and Jim Morin, who worked at LaGuardia Airport in New York, as well as Ken Moffett, who headed the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in 1981, and who hosted the failed negotiations that preceded the controllers' walkout.  It was an emotional event for some of those who had been around in 1981.  Some PATCO strikers felt cut off from the rest of the labor movement thirty years ago, and for them it

The Offer PATCO Rejected: Answering a Query

Recently, I had a very good set of questions directed to me by a PATCO brother, whose knowledge and views I respect, asking about the way I characterized the offer that the Reagan administration made to the union in June 1981 (the offer the union ultimately voted down before deciding to strike).  This brother was skeptical about my account characterizing the offer as precedent-setting.  He remembered the offer as adding nothing at all to what controllers had prior to the strike.  My dialogue with him reminded me that the disjuncture between the way controllers saw the June offer (as giving them very little indeed) and the way neutral observers like the federal mediators Ken Moffett and Brian Flores saw it (they saw it as path-breaking) is one of the enduring puzzles of the PATCO story for those who want to understand the strike.  Which was it?  Path-breaking or completely inadequate?  In fact, as I discovered and explain in my book, the June offer was both.  Explaining this paradox helps put to rest two bogus myths about the strike: 1) that it was the result of controller greed and union overreach on the one hand; or 2) that it was the fruit of a prearranged plan by the Reagan people to trap and destroy PATCO as a way to undermine organized labor altogether.  In fact, neither of these myths is true.   The reality was more complicated, and more tragic.  To explain it, let me begin with the memo pictured above, which was written from Secretary of Transportation Drew Lewis to White House counselor, Ed Meese, on June 11, 1981. (To follow this, read below the jump.) 

One of the "Oklahoma City Five" Remembers

Among the most difficult things that striking air traffic controllers faced in 1981 was the prospect of prosecution for violating the law and leading a work stoppage against the United States government.   In the book, I wrote this about the emotions that one controller's family felt in confronting this prospect:  "As the clocked ticked down toward the strike vote, many tearful conversations took place in controllers' families.  'Daddy may even have to go to jail,' the wife of one Vermont controller told her children.  If he did, they should not 'be ashamed,' she said.  Instead, they should 'be very proud of him,' because if that happened it would be 'for a great cause.'"  

    In reality, of course, the prospect of defying the federal government was frightening, no matter how deeply one believed in the cause.   Recently, I received two e-mails from a controller who did defy the government on August 3, 1981, and suffered for it.  His name is Tim Berlekamp; he is currently President and CEO of Altec Limited, a consulting company that provides sustainable business solutions.  In 1981 he was one of the "Oklahoma City Five," a group of five strikers who were singled out and prosecuted for their actions (such prosecutions happened in a number of cities).  His reflections appear below the jump:

An Actor/Musician Reflects on PATCO, Unions, and Strikes

This week I received an inspiring note from a former student of mine from back when I taught at SUNY-Geneseo.  His name is Lucas Papaelias, and he now makes his living as an actor and musician in New York City.   Lucas was moved by my account of the PATCO strike to talk about his own recent experiences during the 2007 strike by Broadway stagehands, members of Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.  He explains why he supported that strike, even though it might have potentially cost him a chance to appear in a high-profile production with stars Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner.  He tells that story, goes on to explain how his other union, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, came to his rescue in another dispute, and reflects on the importance of unions for all workers.  Here is what he wrote: 

i was unaware of the scope of the '81 PATCO strike.... i think it is an incredible subject matter and a true American story. it is inspiring, and got me to think of my own experiences.
in fall 2007, at the same time the Screen Actors Guild Writers strike was in full-swing, there was also an unprecedented strike conducted by the Local 1 stagehands union, which shut down most of Broadway for several weeks during november. the Actors Equity Association (my union since '00) was in full support of the strike, which affected me directly; i was making my Broadway debut at the time in a production of Cyrano de

Book Launch Event at Georgetown, Oct. 18, 2011

At Georgetown University on October 18, 2011, I (standing at left) led a discussion with a distinguished panel of people whose interviews helped shape my book.  Seated from left are: Jim Stakem, strike leader at Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center (Washington Center) in 1981; Ken Moffett, Reagan-era director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service who mediated the failed 1981 negotiations; Stan Gordon, who helped organize PATCO at New York Center in Islip, New York, in 1968; Richard Jones, formerly of Washington Center, who co-founded the Coalition of Black Controllers but did not participate in the 1981 strike; and John Leyden, who served as president of PATCO from 1970 to 1980. 
     We had a fascinating exchange regarding the strike and its long-term impact on both the controllers who lost their jobs in 1981 and on patterns of U.S. labor relations since.  For more on that event, click here.

From the PATCO Strike to the Wall Street Occupation

Thirty years later, it is clear that the PATCO strike was a turning point in recent U.S. history.  Will the Occupy Wall Street protests one day be seen as an equally important turning point, but of a different kind?   And why has organized labor, which has traditionally refrained from participating in leaderless protests of this sort, begun to lend some support to this movement.  I consider these questions in a recent blog post at Oxford University Press. To read it, click here.

The Case of Ron Palmer

On page 233 of my book, I included a few sentences about the case of Ron Palmer, a Miami controller who was accused in 1980 of giving an instruction to a Braniff pilot that pointed him into a thunderstorm in retaliation for Braniff's refusal to honor controllers' requests for familiarization flights on the airline.  I pointed out that an arbitrator looked into this case and cleared Palmer of the charge, which would have cost him his job had it been substantiated.  But FAA officials distrusted the arbitrator's judgement and saw the case as one more example of growing militancy in the controller ranks.  Now Ron Palmer, whom I had not had an opportunity to meet or interview before writing the book, has written to me to provide more documentation for his case than I was able to find in the records of PATCO or the FAA.  He sent me his explanation of what happened and an interview from the period that further explains how he came to be accused and nearly fired.  His story helps illustrate why so many controllers felt that the FAA was the aggressor in the year leading up to the strike, and why so many felt that they had to stand up to what they felt was government mistreatment.  His communication with me and a link to the documentation appears below the fold.