The Reagan Years - PATCO
By Gordonskene Tuesday Jul 14, 2009 12:00am
(PATCO - After this, Union Busting became trendy)
Today's episode puts us in August 2, 1981, literally hours before the members of PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) voted to go on strike. It features a Face The Nation interview with Senate Majority leader Howard Baker, brought out to do spin and denial that the Reagan administration had anything other than killing off this union in mind.
George Herman (CBS News): "Does this kind of government pressure historically play a successful role in ending strikes amicably and getting us back to work?"
Howard Baker: "No, they don’t. There’s a very poor record of judicial . . . maximum judicial effort to end strikes. But there’s also a precedent involved here that we’ve not dealt with before and that is, an avowed purpose of striking by Federal employees, who in this case are forbidden to strike by statute. And the reason for that is not capricious, the reason is the public safety, and to a remarkable extent the social welfare of t his country and its economic health depends on the air traffic controller. It depends on the ability of the air traffic network in this country to function. I would not favor frankly, arresting and jailing people who do not abide by the requirement of the law. But with the same token, short of that, I think the government should do everything that is necessary to make clear that we will not stand by and see the law violated, that we will not stand by and see the economy disrupted; the social fabric of this country rent, because the air traffic controllers will not go back to work, or will not stay at work. Now, they have grievances, they’ve got problems and I’m sympathetic. But they are holding a club of enormous weight and proportion over the head of America and they simply mustn’t do that."
The Air Traffic controllers had a legitimate beef - they wanted a 32 hour work week, rather than 40 because the pressure of maintaining a level of alertness essential to doing the job was crucial. And a full 40 hours took its toll and created a lot of unsafe scenarios.
In hindsight, it would almost seem the Reagan Administration had used this as a test case in their Union Busting campaign. Unions, along with regulations were a hindrance to the Reagan Administration. Over the next 8 years there would be a dismantling of just about every regulation that stood in the way of unbridled greed and corruption. It's important to realize the state our country and economy are now in are not the exclusive property of the Bush Administration - the roots and fundamentals go back to the 1980's, and most likely well before to the Nixon Administration. But it was The Reagan Years that created ultimately the most damage. PATCO was the first of many episodes. And of course, the outcome was not successful. But that's our next installment.
In addition to Face The Nation, I also tacked on The World This Week from CBS News, covering the events of the week of August 2, 1981. It appears to have been a rather busy week!
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I was just a pre-teen at the time, but I remember the PATCO strike. It went on for months and the airlines were almost shut down completely if it weren't for some "emergency" ATC's brought in (from the military IIRC) to handle a few "essential" planes. It was a huge mess that probably helped change the outcome of the election.
People annoyed by the strike voted for Reagan. Reagan came in, and almost immediately fired the whole damn union (that's when I learned ATC's are government employees, not employees of the airport).
I wonder how many of those striking workers, upset with Carter, voted for Reagan?
Mugsey,
Your preteen memory is flawed. Most likely you are a victim of RW History Revisionists.
Reagan was elected in 1980 and took office in January of 1981. He sought and received the wholehearted support of PATCO during his campaign. When they continued asking for what they were asking for in their contract negotions, they were ingored. They walked out and were fired a few days later. No negotions if no work.
The disruptions you remember (though I doubt that you were a "Pre-Teen" and remember) were due to the immediate termination of any PATCO member that didn't immediately go back to work. Part of the order from your hero, Ronnie was that they (fired PATCO members) could never EVER be hired back as AT controllers or any other US Government job. I know because I knew quite a few controllrs who lost their job.
Get your facts straight before you go off spouting RW talking points.
Icesailor
CMG
What did I say was "pro-Reagan"??? (I suspect my critique of Reagan was lost on you due to saying "whole damn union, which is a figure of speech, not a critique of unions.)
Your first paragraph is simply a regurgitation of exactly what I said above. I pointed out that Reagan came in and fired the very people that supported him in the '80 election.
I was 12 in 1980 (why you would question that is beyond me), and remember much of those years.
I know some of you kids are starting to see "trolls" everywhere, but I've been a Conservative critic for over a decade. The first time I voted for President was Al Gore in 1988.
(shaking head).
P.S. If you can't correctly spell my name as it appears two inches above your comment, how does one take you seriously?
Either
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWjOzNNs6X4
Ronnie "rotten brain" Reagan; the beginning of the end.
And I remember my father talking about how horrible unions were and as I grew up watching what the Reagan criminal gang was up to I couldn't help but feel that the whole purpose of putting Ronald Reagan into the White House was to make old people feel comfortible enough to allow any crime to take place and they would just say (as my parents did) that we should trust the government will do the right thing becuase Ronny is in charge!
Especialy after Nixon they needed to put a face on the next one that would allow people to remember a better time and not focus on the fact that we sent Death Squads to South America and started wars that were never approved by the congress and screwing up everyone else wasn't enough for these guys they had to give us the homeless epidemic, the brough crack to our streets at the same time as they closed down the drug rehab centers at the same time Nancy told us to "just say no".
As a matter of fact, I can't think of a single thing that Reagan did good for America and don't any lurkers try to throw that BS about ending the cold war. This guy was at best a phony and at worst a criminal responsible for mass murder. That is the Reagan legacy I know of.
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8ty0XWYBJw ](8:19)
I love it. Franken is wasting no time making wingnuts heads explode. Make Franken wait 7 months for the seat he won? Hell hath no fury like "a comedian" scorned!
♥
The do nothing Republican congress's changing the name of National Airport to Reagan National Airport was a slap in the face to both air traffic controllers and African Americans since DC has the highest concentration of African Americans in the country. Which shows the GOP is 1) tone deaf as hell or 2) vicious petty bastards who think nothing of rubbing salt in the wounds of those they trample upon.
Change the name back to National Airport!
Yes, I sympathized with some of the controller's gripes, and I've been a member of a (corrupt) union. I still feel unions are important for those at the bottom, but I have less sympathy for unions and union members that have overstepped their purpose and are willing to kill their companies rather than deal with new competive realities they cannot change.
It's easy to factually argue that the UAW killed GM and Chrysler by blackmailing those auto companies to win unsustainable wages and benefits and strangling work rules. It's also easy to show that unionized state and local employees now earn over $6/hr. more than comparable jobs in industry and also get fabulous medical and retirement benefits, the result being that the states and localities are the next to go bankrupt.
When unions start to figure out that they can be a problem as well as a solution, maybe labor relations will get back to some kind of even keel and employers will be more willing to deal with them.
I cannot beieve you deleted my comment. Was it more inappropriate than some troll blaming workers for the super rich screwing them? I am very disappointed in you C & L.
Sorry, I cannot be kind about this. These self-loathing trolls who hate their fellow working class citizens are the worst.
[I can't believe you decided to try to override my edit. Had I left it alone it would have been flagged five times by 8 am EDST. Had you decided to abide by our decision- and we delete that term any time we see it thrown around as an insult- the rest of your comment would have been allowed to stand. I've seen you commenting here for a long time, and I know you can come up with better, anyway. Next time try "simpleton" or "village idiot". Thank you. Site Monitor]
Thankfully I got to read that comment before it was deleted. Right on NoGW.
Dissent is not allowed.
[And you obviously didn't see what got edited the first time I had to do something with that comment. It wasn't violated because of dissent. Site Monitor]
It's OK now that Obama is prez. IOKIYAR.
I was making a comment to fmaston's comment, that most posters at this site don't like opinions that differ from the party line. NoGW's attack is a perfect example of what will happen to people that have a differing opinion
... not their own facts, that is something that you knuckle draggers don't seem to understand. Especially with your penchant to make sh*t up in a vane attempt at perpetuating your feeble view of reality.
Freedom of expression goes both ways: you can say all the shit you want, and we can point out how full of shit you are.
For proving my point.....
This is the typical: I am in favor of XXXX, but let me completely trash XXXX with right wing talking points.
Riiiiight.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Study the history of unions before you type and then YOU won't be part of the problem. "Ignorance can be fixed, Stupid is forever"
during his 1980 presidential run.
Yeah, that worked out well.
At the Reagan library, there is a special display section that pays tribute to his busting of the PATCO union. I wanted to take a piss in that corner right then and there. It made me want to puke.
shit in the driveway of that place, it would be a waste of a perfectly good turd
Busting unions was also awfully popular earlier in the century, but point taken. Reagan did so much damage.
I was a member of Patco. Reagan 'promised' during his campaign that he would address our concerns about antiquated equipment, etc. Of course when Reagan got in, nothing of the sort occurred.
Only two unions endorsed Reagan: Patco and the Teamsters.
in return. Why on earth would any sane Union have supported Reagan at all?
See, Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild.
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide.
Alas, I have always been astounded about how many people that sociopath was able to fool with his "affable old guy" persona.
he testified agaist his own union brothers during the McCarthy witch hunts. What a great union man.
Well I guess we should be grateful that they didn't just machine gun these folks or burn down their houses with them inside, like the coal operators did in the late 19th century. Who needs the Pinkertons when you have executive orders? That's compassionate conservatism I guess. Death by a thousand cuts. That's what the middle class is getting from our plutocracy.
... I was living in Paris, and met a couple nice American women who were over on holiday and struggling a bit getting around the city. They didn't speak any French, I'd helped out as a sort of ad hoc interpreter, they bought me lunch to say thanks. They were sweet, a bit ditzy and giggly, but nice enough...
Then one of them said something that made my blood go cold. The older one worked as some sort of admin clerk-typist at an airport. The younger, much ditzier of the two, used to be a colleague, until the air traffic strike. After the huge number of lay-offs, there was a scramble to find enough replacement ATC's - she'd been recruited straight out of the typing pool, trained in a hurry, and put to work in one of the busiest airports in America.
'Isn't that just fantastic?' she was burbling. 'I had, like, y'know, no chance of ever being an ATC before that, would never been able to qualify. And now, just LOOK at me, tee-hee, giggle giggle...' (Her friend had the sense enough to look a bit embarrassed, my horrified expression must have said it all.)
She was a nice lady, nothing against her personally. But she had no business directing any planes I wanted to fly in. Reagan made the skies less safe, and started us down that road to 9/11 and the general deterioration of the airline industry as it stands (or teeters) today. The quality of ATC's has improved greatly since the strikes and lay-offs, and I have nothing but respect for the vast majority of ATCs and pilots and ground crew who have and are continuing to pay the price for Reagan's short-sightedness and greed. And this is why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9hKGXvb4sc&fe... People like this keep airline travel as safe as it can be under the current economic climate, after so many years of Reagan/Bush policies have done their best to gut it.
And while I'm banging on about it, have a look at this as well, for a good look at the current state of our airline industry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKQesBlgw1Q&fe...
Captain Chesley Sullenberger, pilot of Fight 1549 testifies at the same hearing, and was very supportive of labor issues.
Among his remarks, he speaks of the problems of retaining competent pilots due to poor pay and how his own retirement funding was hacked away by the policies of the last eight years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekedrXxqVck&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRvy2o-hV-Y&fe...
NPR-Nov 2007 (!)
In the summer of 1981, 12,000 air traffic controllers went on strike, and President Ronald Reagan made a momentous decision: He fired them.
The thousands of replacement air-traffic controllers the Federal Aviation Commission hired back then are now eligible to retire — all at once. And they're leaving a lot faster than the FAA thought they would.
In 2006, the FAA unilaterally imposed a new labor contract on controllers. It slashed pay for new hires, froze pay for most old-timers and clamped down on everything from what they wear to where they can get coffee.
"We got controllers that are fatigued. We got them working longer times on position, longer workdays, longer work weeks, less breaks in between, and operational errors are on the rise," said Patrick Foray, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. "We haven't had any major accidents. Well, all the signs are leading up to the fact that we're going to."
The FAA naturally disputes this.
It concedes that operational errors — instances where planes get too close together — are up. There have been serious mistakes in the past few years. But overall, the FAA says, operational errors are down.
FAA officials say that in any case, the operational errors have had nothing to do with staffing or fatigue. (What, then?)
Be that as it may, with the looming retirements, the situation could get worse before it gets better.
...has so successfully propagandized against unions that its disgusting.
I once posted a deal on Fatwallet.com for sneakers. Fatwallet is where people try to maximize their purchasing power - find deals, etc. Understandably these people range from middle class with large families to support, to lower class, working poor. That's why they're there - money counts.
I posted a deal for look-alike Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers, but these were not made by Nike (who owns converse now) under slave labor conditions. They were made by UNION workers with health benefits.
Instead of the inflated Nike prices, these were $15.00. Nice looking, union employees well treated, yet much more affordable.
The overwhelming reaction was negative. These people - WORKING CLASS people, sneered, most said that under no conditions would they buy a union-made product DESPITE it being cheaper.
One brave person came forward with the meager defense that although "unions aren't necessary in America anymore," they still might be elsewhere. That's the most positive response there was.
Working class people struggling to save a buck saying "union-made? NO WAY, NO THANKS. NOT A CHANCE. NEVER."
The right was SO totally and successfully done a mind-fuck on this country. Devide and conquer. Send the jobs to China, and then get the people here to blame "Mexican illegals for taking our jobs!!!" etc. The right started a class war, and got their enemy - the working class, to blame each other and fight amongst ourselves.
Murkins are numbskulls
" it would almost seem the Reagan Administration had used this as a test case in their Union Busting campaign."
Almost?
But utterly typical of the way these particular criminals operate. The ultimate scam for destroying the earning power of labor was "Free Trade". Of course, you can't HAVE free trade in an economy that is centrally planned by bankers using monetary policy. That policy was designed to create a massive suction of wealth UPWARDS, and it worked. Now we're all poor.
JR
http://www.econocataclysm.com
For the American people.
But I am not so sure looking back that ronnie had as much to do with it as his advisors did.
Remember we had rumsfeld and chenny running around behind the seen then also, and a lot of other unsavory characters also like daddy bush. Poor old ronnie was most likely already in the early stages of alzheimers when he was elected. You will have to admit the dems had done a pretty bad job. There had been lots of riots, and the dems along with the racist republicans did everything they could to make it worse.
The republicans adopted the strategy of giving bad things good names. Only caring about what they could do for themselves all the while professing to have "values" while in reality the only values they have are criminal. Turns out the only reason any of them got into government in the first place was for the MONEY and POWER.
WE were ripe for change we wanted government out of our way and the ronnie was able to express it in a way that attracted enough vote to get him elected.
But it was the point that they adopted the lie about everything mode of operations that have led us to the point we have now.
We have the best government money can by of for and by the profits of the corporations and at the expense of the rest of the population.
We the people have been pushed aside by what the founding fathers would have called unfair advantage. It was one of the main reasons for the estate taxes. Money = advantage, Huge sums of money = unfair advantage. Unfair advantage is what you get when you never had to work for anything. That is what we have been given by republicans unfair advantage.
republicanism is a mental illness!
In March of 1986, a number of unions on the railroad I worked for in the Northeast went on strike against the Springfield Terminal system which was owned by financier Timothy Mellon. (Yes, Mellon Banks who owned a shitload of credit card accounts)
There had been a long period, nearly two years, of negotiations to settle the contracts with the various unions, but ST refused to budge, and a strike was called. I had been on strike before, and normally, most railroad strikes at the time were settled within a week, when, under the Railway Labor Act the President of US orders everyone back to work and appoints an abitrator to settle the differences. Not this time, for Ronnie Raygun wanted to display his anti-union cajones once again.
We remained on strike for nearly 2-1/2 months. I lost over $20,000 in wages and at the time, the Railroad Retirement Board, which is also our Unemployment and Disability benefit source was only paying $25 per day, much less than comparable State unemployment. The strike was finally settled when our pickets started showing up at Conrail locations in the Northeast and Reagan finally got off his dead ass and signed the back to work order.
We later found out how much the Mellon interests had robbed from the coffers of the railroads involved in addition to trying to bust our unions when they bankrupted them a year later.
In my mind, there was a direct connection between the Mellon big-business interests and the Reagan White House. We regarded Ronnie from then on as nothing but a braying ass.
And the stories he told me about having to work with old tube-type equipment and the problems they had maintaining the system were enough to scare the crap out of anyone sane.
The ATC's were being run into the ground with the work schedules, there were too many close calls thanks to increased air traffic and not enough trained, experienced ATC's, the bureaucracy was unresponsive...the PATCO strike was a signal flare to call attention to a disaster in the making. All for naught.
A lot of good people, my mentor among them, went to the wall for the sake of St. Ronnie of the Ray-gun's ideology - and his handler's wallets. And I can't help wondering to this day how many air accidents occurred thanks to that ideology and that greed.
I am among them. This paved the way for the IMF, World Bank, WTO, and all of the other modern greed/world domination machinations of the con-servatives to take root and put our world on a path of destruction...
Reagan was just the face man, but he had his hands in this stuff more than GWBush...
Make no mistake though, this was the Nixon boys revenge, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and especially GHWBush....this was their 1st 'presidency'/economic coup...
The different union chiefs in Washington were getting fat and happy at the time. They let a lot of this happen before they tried to get off of their asses but it was too late by then. My guess was they were taking money under the table from the same corporations/investors that they were supposed to be protecting us from.
In the name of progress, of course ;)
This wasn't about corrupt unions. Patco had Controller leaders and a recently elected President who was spoiling for a fight.
from a couple of isolated corruption cases a few decades ago to smear 99.99999999% of union officials.
Funny how you see all them movies about mafia and unions, but not a single damn flick about real stuff like the Ludlow massacre where Union guys and their families where massacred (most of the victims where kids actually) for protesting working conditions in the mines of Colorado, or the Pullman massacre which is actually remembered by the labor movement everywhere else in the world every May 1st (the US is the only industrialized nation which does not celebrate "labor day" on that day, even though "labor day" was established to celebrate the achievements of the American labor movement). Or there will never be a film about the Union guys in West Virginia who ducked it out with the corrupt mine corporations that were exploiting them. Heck even to this day the term "red neck" has been corrupted to mean something bad, even though initially it was the term used to refer to the guys who fought for their labor rights and who wore red bandanas on their necks to identify themselves against the thugs sent to squash their movement.
But who needs to make movies about those "boring" incidents and achievements, when Hollywood can just pull sh*t out of their ass about Unions and the Mafia... *sigh*
...would always say Reagan abused the working middle class like bigots treated n****rs.
The first face that came to my mind was Jefferson Beauregard Sessions.
Old droopy hound dog ears, lol
I was an Air Traffic Controller fired by Ronnie. We had no idea what the symbolism was for our actions. On PBS many years ago a Russian General was being interviewed and was asked when they knew Ronnie was serious. His reply was "when he fired the Air Traffic Controllers". After campaign promises acknowledged Controller working conditions and the empty responses for the GOP, it was if they were baiting us, and we walked right in and had our lunch handed to us. My Ex used to say you cannot blame everything on Reagan. Look around, yes you can.
But utterly typical of the way these particular criminals operate. The ultimate scam for destroying the earning power of labor was "Free Trade". Of course, you can't HAVE free trade in an economy that is centrally planned by bankers using monetary policy. That policy was designed to create a massive suction of wealth UPWARDS, and it worked. Now we're all poor.
--------------------
Every inflation ends in a deflation. The inflation phase began during Roosevelt and peaked in 1980. The down phase of inflation began under Reagan. We are now in the deflation phase.
The 1930's featured Smoot Hawley protectionism, during which unemployment hit 25%. Protectionism does not prevent depressions or prevent the destruction of earning power of labor.
and was president of one of the locals. There's a lot misinformation about that strike. The union was courted by the Reagan and Carter campaigns and supported Reagan in the election in return for some promises that his administration chose not to keep.
The FAA was one of the worst federal agencies to work for. It was run like a para military outfit. I even had one chief pull me off a hot position to tell me to go get my haircut. Many of the people who worked at regional HQs were controllers who couldn't cut it on the boards, and were farmed out so they wouldn't kill anybody. Needless to say morale inside the facilities was atrocious.
In the long run the strike was the best thing that ever happened to me. I have a good job and a great family, but almost 30 years later I still miss it at times. I continue to carry my PATCO card in my wallet and am very proud of it.
The controllers I worked with were good people, not criminals and not rabble rousers. Just people concerned about safety and wanting to have a survivable profession. Sounds like the folks working in these facilities today want the same thing and continue to be hindered by an inept FAA.
The PATCO strike happened because the government failed to address the very serious working conditions within the air traffic control system. Rather than address the issues as promised in the below letter to PATCO President Robert Poli, Reagan fired the solution and kept all the problems. Many controllers were arrested and thrown in jail, and thousands of strikers were banned from their profession for life.
As a PATCO striker stated during this time period……..
“Our struggle must not go unheeded, but rather, it should be allowed to have as much publicity as possible for the sake of future generations of Labor. We are an important facet of American history, and our story needs to be preserved, no matter if we are seen as right or wrong.”
Ron Taylor
President
PATCO
www.patco81.com
A Reagan Letter to Robert Poli, PATCO (Oct. 20, 1980)
“Dear Mr. Poli:
I have been briefed by members of my staff as to the deplorable state of our nation's air traffic control system. They have told me that too few people working unreasonable hours with obsolete equipment has placed the nation's air travelers in unwarranted danger. In an area so clearly related to public safety the Carter administration has failed to act responsibly.
You can rest assured that if I am elected President, I will take whatever steps are necessary to provide our air traffic controllers with the most modern equipment available and to adjust staff levels and work days so that they are commensurate with achieving a maximum degree of public safety....
I pledge to you that my administration will work very closely with you to bring about a spirit of cooperation between the President and the air traffic controllers.
Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan”
Reagan union position as President of SAG
As he put it in the mid-sixties “I was then and continue to be a strong believer in the rights of unions as well as in the rights of individuals. I think we have the right to refuse to work for just grievances. The strike is an inalienable weapon of any citizen”
PATCO web site @ http://www.patco81.com
... and again 30 years later. When Reagan fired the Unionized PATCO FAA employees EVERY union in the country should have went on strike also.
It was very obvious Reagan wanted a fight... albeit unions had bad names mostly from the auto industry blaming the workers for the junk that was coming out of Detroit.
And of course the misinformed
moronspeople supported Reagan... had NO idea what they where really supporting.This was more than a FAA/employees issue. The lack of support from all the other unions told Reagan and particularly the whole Republican party the unions where wimps. It was the beginning of the end of American unions.
The unions that Americans could now use began their demise by "The Great Communicator".
I'm still amazed how many people still like Reagan... people who voted against their own well being.
If you can get a copy of the live firing of the controllers and watch it carefully you will see what really happened. It will probably take a few showings. It may be necessary to construct a time line. The sequence is unique. There is no other logical explanations for the events. Be patient almost every one in America missed this. It's like the mistake on the first page of the Bible, it's obvious but no one sees it.
Whoever runs this site apparently deleted several comments regarding my earlier comment. That's nice; you enforce your rules. But, I wouldn't have minded if you'd left them in. People should be allowed to say whatever is on their mind and let everyone else judge them.
I said that I once belonged to a corrupt union; it was the Teamsters in the 60's when I was just a kid needing a job. Many years later, having become reasonably successful, I played a round at my country club and followed a foursome comprised of the major local union president and three most questionable characters - nothing had changed. Unions need to be more careful about their leadership, just as corporations do.
I believe in labor and management being honest with each other and looking out for the long term interests of the firm so that all will prosper to the extent possible. Managements are not all greedy SOB's, by far. I have a friend who is president of a non-union manufacturing company, a guy who has taken no salary for many months while paying his shop floor workers during this downturn; he needs their skills for the long haul. Can unions be so forward thinking during this tough period? So far, I've seen no indication of any willingness to chip in on the part of New York state employee unions, for example.
We will all be better off if we demand fact-based conduct from all parties involved in disputes. When we make judgments based on "he's union, like me", or "he's management, like me", we end up with wars that everyone loses.
[Make no mistake- it wasn't about protecting you from sticks and stones. It was a matter of which sticks and stones were being used. Site Monitor]
As a proud daughter of an ATC I read these posts from a different point of veiw. My dad, now deceased due to a massive heart attack in his early 60's brought on by STRESS at work , He could never seem to retire because the FAA never had enough controllers. The only ones who wanted to live in NY were from out of town and they would leave quickly too. The monster in this IS NOT Reagan, ITS ROBERT POLI, I hope where ever you are Poli , you know how many people F*** HATE YOU. What a b.s. garden path you took those PATCO members on. Alot of those members were only high school graduates and that was the best job they ever had and you made them throw it away. I grew up with alot of the PATCO members kids, they were neighbors and friends I knew for years and they stopped talking to us because my dad wouldnt strike , he took his vacation time they owed him. He said he couldnt go to work against guys he knew most of his life. He was sad that alot of the men who he went boating with and went to FAA picnics with for 25 years hated him because of what POLI talked them into doing. These were families who lost their homes and got divorced and had to move away after the strike, everybody lost out, EXCEPT FOR POLI WHO IN THE END MARRIED UP,
In the end, the strike destroyed my family, our friendships, and was the strike worth it? I think not. We all lost , except of course for ROBERT POLI.
I will never forget dropping my dad off at work not long after they were fired and seeing armed guards escorting fired workers off the property. I later found out they were emptying their lockers and had to be escorted that way like they were murderers. Some even committed suicide over being fired and losing it all. EXCEPT FOR POLI. How sad. I saw a few years later and they all looked like they aged 100 years
Anyway, HAPPY 28TH ANNIVERSARY PATCO AND ESPECIALLY TO POLI, WHERE EVER YOU ARE.
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