From its boisterous founding in 1968 to its decertification following a disastrous 1981 strike, the Professional Air Traffic Controller's Organization (PATCO) represented the pent-up frustrations and middle-class hopes of thousands of civilian air traffic controllers. PATCO understood the essential role air traffic controllers play in American aviation and repeatedly leveraged the power of its members to secure higher pay, better working conditions, and safer skies. Though strategic miscalculations and anti-union backlash ultimately led to its untimely demise, PATCO demonstrated what could be achieved when public employees band together.
A key element in PATCO’s founding was the surge in commercial air travel after World War II. As the number of flights and passengers exploded, controllers struggled to keep up. By the early 1960s, most controllers worked mandatory overtime and rotating shifts, a situation that impacted both their health and family life. This stressful situation was made even worse by the actions of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) supervisors, many of whom harangued controllers to overlook safety regulations in order to move more air traffic. As the decade progressed, controllers became increasingly vocal in their complaints about the FAA, which they argued was failing to provide the personnel and equipment needed to perform their jobs safely. Alarmingly, accident statistics reflected these concerns—between 1962 and 1966, the FAA recorded an average of twelve fatal crashes each year.
Determined to confront these issues, veteran New York City controllers Mike Rock and Jack Maher organized a mass meeting in a hotel ballroom near John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 11, 1968. The roughly 700 controllers who flew in for the gathering quickly realized they all faced the same problems—too many planes and not enough staff or equipment. Equally important, the meeting revealed to the attendees that there was an appetite for a nationwide organization that could effectively pressure the FAA for reform. By the end of the evening, the majority of the controllers present had pledged their commitment to just such a group, and the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization was born.
In the months following the New York meeting, attendees spread the word about PATCO far and wide. Dozens of smaller meetings netted thousands of additional members and local unions emerged from Florida to Alaska. But enthusiasm for the organization would only go so far—if PATCO hoped to survive, it had to secure concessions from the FAA and deliver benefits to its members. To do this, PATCO leaders would have to build a movement of controllers who weren’t afraid to flex their collective muscles. The first major step in that direction was “Operation Air Safety.” From July to September 1968, PATCO controllers in several of the nation’s busiest airports systematically slowed down air traffic by strictly following the FAA’s rules on aircraft separation—the same regulations that FAA supervisors had often disregarded. Initially, the government officials tried to deny anything was happening, but as flight delays mounted and letters from angry travelers piled up, the FAA quietly agreed to recognize PATCO as the controllers’ representative and pledged to lobby harder for new staff and equipment. Congress also followed suit, adding emergency funds to the FAA’s hiring budget and passing legislation to permit overtime pay for controllers. Its strategy seemingly vindicated, PATCO emerged as one of America’s most well-known public employee unions.
Though Operation Air Safety had proven that PATCO activism could secure improvements, the years that followed demonstrated how vigilant controllers would have to be. PATCO adopted a two-pronged strategy to protect and extend its gains during the 1970s. Recalling its militant roots, the union continued to demonstrate a willingness to engage in slow-downs, sick-outs, and other job actions when FAA provocations demanded them. At the same time, new leadership also worked to cultivate a less confrontational relationship between PATCO and the FAA. Such diplomacy contributed to notable gains in controllers’ job classifications and retirement benefits. These reforms notwithstanding, controllers still faced significant headwinds as the decade’s downward economic trajectory turned formerly sympathetic Americans against public sector unions like PATCO. This antipathy manifested itself in lackluster contracts with the FAA, which in turn fostered greater sympathy for direct action among controllers who felt they were falling behind. As the 1980s dawned, rank-and-file discontent and growing government pushback led PATCO’s leaders to begin preparing for something they had never done before—an illegal nationwide strike of air traffic controllers.
In February 1981, PATCO’s negotiations with the FAA for a new contract quickly stalled over the controllers’ wage, hour, and retirement demands. When the FAA returned to the table in June, its updated proposal included across-the-board pay raises but said nothing about hours or retirement. Angry at the government’s lack of concessions, PATCO members overwhelmingly rejected the second offer and voted to go on strike. On the morning of August 3, 1981, picket lines began forming outside airports and control centers along the East Coast, and by the end of the day some 13,000 controllers across the nation had refused to report to work.
The federal government’s response to the PATCO strike was swift. Hours after the illegal walkout began, President Ronald Reagan appeared in the White House Rose Garden and gave the striking controllers a choice: return to work in 48 hours or be fired. Despite Reagan’s threat and a tidal wave of negative reactions from the press and public, the striking controllers remained remarkably united. When the president’s deadline passed, roughly 90% of those who walked out had refused to cross the picket lines. This solidarity was best summed up in a statement from Washington Center controller Ed Meagher: “I knew I couldn’t be a scab.”
Unfortunately, the strikers’ show of defiance did not force a retreat by the president. On August 5, Reagan followed through on his ultimatum, summarily dismissing 11,345 controllers and banning them from all future employment with the federal government. Efforts to establish backchannels with the White House were rebuffed and dozens of PATCO activists were prosecuted by the Justice Department for violating the federal no-strike law. The FAA responded by replacing the fired strikers with hundreds of supervisors, new recruits, and military controllers, most of whom had been specially trained for just such an event. These measures allowed the nation’s air traffic system to limp along for months, preventing the total collapse that PATCO leaders had envisioned—and that was essential to the strike’s success. By the time a federal panel decertified PATCO as the official representative of air traffic controllers on October 22, the outcome of the failed strike was clear. PATCO had been broken, and the hopes for a better life of those who built it would have to be fulfilled elsewhere.
