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 14 C I N E M O N T A G E ment and labor are considered to be equal parties who jointly determine the conditions of the sale of labor power. ... [M]anagement and labor, both sides rep- resenting their separate constituencies, engage in debate and compromise, and together legislate the rules under which the workplace will be governed." A rg u a b l y, t h i s i d e a o f i n d u s t r i a l G E T T I N G O R G A N I Z E D would pay as a consequence of Reagan's refusal to negotiate. Historian Joseph McCartin asserts that, "It cost more to break the PATCO walkout than any other labor conflict in American history." But, costs be damned, the strike was broken, and broken decisively. While it would take more than a decade before the Federal Aviation Authority would be able to return staffing levels to their pre- strike state, PATCO was widely deemed defeated almost immediately after Regan followed through on his threat to fire the strikers en masse. On August 30th the editorial page of The New York Times declared "President Reagan has done it: he has proved that the air controllers' union could not extort a favorable wage settlement by stopping the planes." The editorial praised the President's hardline refusal to bargain as "a commendable precedent," although it advised the P resident to allow defecting PATCO members to return to work under their prior terms of employment, rather than banning them from air traffic control jobs for life. Reagan, though, showed little interest in moderating his stance. The strikers would be barred for life from future re-employment (until Clinton rescinded that order 12 years later), and their union was stripped of its negotiat- ing rights and fined into insolvency. Reagan's rout of the PATCO obviously had devastating consequences for the 11,000 air traffic controllers who lost their livelihoods. But it also had profound reverberations beyond its direct impact upon those workers and their families. I n a s e n s e, R e a ga n n o t o n ly b ro ke a strike, but broke the prevailing model of industrial relations. Labor relations in the period of post-war prosperity had at least notionally been predicated upon an idea of industrial pluralism. Writing in the June 1981 issue of The Yale Law Jour- nal, Katherine van Wezel Stone defines "industrial pluralism" as the view that collective bargaining is self-government by management and labor: "manage- pluralism — of management and labor as equal partners in jointly steering American industry — never truly de- scribed the relationships of power in the U.S. economy. But capital had at least felt an obligation to perform pro forma gestures acknowledging the legitimacy of organized labor as an opposition party. Reagan's response to PATCO shattered such norms. The President's example em- boldened private sector as well as public sector employers to forgo negotiations in favor of obdurate ultimatums. "It launched a new era of union bust- ing in the United States," in Erik Loomis's words, and "marked the beginning of the modern corporate war on organized labor." Such an understanding of PATCO as a watershed isn't limited to labor's boosters; more than 20 years after PAT- SEE PAGE 56 WALKOUT: Approximately 7,000 flights — about half of U.S. air traffic — were canceled on the first day of the strike alone. P H O T O : A S S O C I A T E D P R E S S 'It cost more to break the PATCO walkout than any other labor conflict in American history.'