Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1397791
80 70 70 100 10.2 7.4 7.4 100 100 100 100 100 60 100 100 70 70 30 30 100 100 60 100 100 100 100 70 70 30 30 100 100 60 70 70 40 70 70 30 30 100 40 100 40 40 100 10 40 40 20 70 70 3.1 2.2 2.2 70 40 40 75 66 66 50 40 40 25 19 19 B 0 0 0 0 100 70 30 100 10 25 50 75 90 100 100 60 100 70 30 100 60 40 70 40 70 30 100 40 40 100 40 100 40 70 40 70 40 40 3 40 70 40 70 40 40 100 60 A 3% ISO 12647-7 Digital Control Strip 2009 12 C I N E M O N T A G E the support of other labor unions in the lead-up to the strike, the controllers were convinced that they would be able to defy the legal prohibition on federal employee work stoppages and exact the terms they sought. The controllers miscalculated. In an era in which unabashed, unrestrained union-busting had not yet become a tenet of Republican Party orthodoxy, PATCO had not anticipated the degree to which the administration would refuse to yield as a matter of principle. Notwithstanding the strike's immediate impact upon air traffic, or the long-term costs and safety consequences of firing and replacing more than 11,000 highly-trained profes- sionals, Reagan remained resolute. The close call outside of LaGuardia on the strike's first morning was not an isolated incident. PATCO inventoried a number of mid-air near-misses the union G E T T I N G O R G A N I Z E D attributed to inadequate skeleton crews of supervisors and scabs working the air traffic control towers. Confidential re- ports from a safety committee of the Air Line Pilots Association raised grave con- cerns about the ability of replacement controllers to ensure the integrity of the system. National Transportation Safety Board hearings even revealed evidence suggesting that error in National Air- port's air traffic control tower may have been a contributing factor in the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 into the Potomac River in January of 1982, killing 74. In addition to their implications for air safety, the PATCO strike and Reagan's decision to squash it exacted enormous economic tolls. Approximately 7,000 flights — roughly half of the nation's air traffic — were cancelled on the first day of the strike alone. Estimates of the strike's immediate impact placed the airlines' pooled losses at roughly one billion dollars per month. The cost to taxpayers just for the training of replace- ment controllers eventually amounted to $2 billion. The economic ripple effects of the slowdown in air traffic are harder to quantify, but colossal. At the start of the strike, the differences between PATCO's contract proposals and the Reagan ad- ministration's offer totaled $534 million — a huge sum, but merely a fraction of what the government and society at large The controllers miscalculated. Reagan remained resolute. WARNING: President Reagan said strikers were "in violation of the law … and will be terminated." P H O T O : A S S O C I A T E D P R E S S