PATCO Strike of 1981

Since its formation in 1968, PATCO or the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization had a long history of “sickout” protests against the rigid edicts placed upon them by the controllers employer, the Federal Aviation Administration or FAA.

The sickouts caused major delays at airports across the United States and abroad, yet by existing federal law, the government union was unable to strike. While PATCO had endorsed Democratic Party candidates since its inception, in 1980, the union refused to back President Jimmy Carter due to ongoing poor labor relations with the FAA, instead backing GOP presidential candidate Ronald Reagan.

Air Traffic Controllers Strike Fails

When contract negotiations began in February 1981 between PATCO and the FAA, citing safety concerns, PATCO called for a reduced 32-hour work week, a $10,000.00 pay increase and a better retirement package than the one they currently enjoyed. When the FAA refused to budge on a shortened work week, at 7:00 A.M. on August 3rd, 1981, the union declared a strike.

Despite supporting Reagan in 1980, Regan declared the striking federal workers a “peril to national safety,” ordering them back to work under the terms of the Taft-Hartley Act. With only 1,300 of the nearly 13,000 controllers responding to Reagan’s order, on August 5th, two days after the strike began, the president fired 11,345 striking federal controllers.

The mass firings left a huge shortage of certified controllers, forcing airlines to dramatically cut back on the number of flights the system could handle, prompting the FAA to move supervisors and military controllers into control towers across the nation.

While the FAA initially claimed that staffing levels would be restored within two years, in reality, it took tens before pre-strike staffing levels were finally achieved.