Feature Stories

27th Anniversary of Air Traffic Controllers Strike

Twenty-seven years ago today, 13,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Union (PATCO) which represented all FAA air traffic controllers at that time, went on strike over staffing conditions, pay, and other issues with the FAA. Unable to reach an agreement, then President Reagan called the strike illegal and ordered all air traffic controllers back to work within 48 hours. Those that did not return to work would be fired and banned from working for the FAA forever. Two days later, nearly 12,000 PATCO air traffic controllers lost their jobs and the FAA undertook a $20 billion effort to modernize facilities - increasing automation in an attempt to lessen the need for greater numbers of controllers. Existing facilities were staffed with the remaining controllers, supervisory staff and military controllers. The FAA then began the process of hiring and training replacement controllers at lower wages and without union representation. In 1987, the replacement workers, listing many of the same complaints as their PATCO predecessors, formed a union of their own - the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA).

In a 1995 University of Virgina paper authored by Rebecca Pels, Ms. Pels notes that there were two converging forces, a militant union in PATCO, which while effective in gaining benefits for controllers was accused at times of overreaching and needlessly antagonizing FAA management; and mismanagement at the FAA - which ignored government studies as early as 1970 reporting increasingly low morale among the nation's air traffic controllers and recommending that the FAA work with employees to remedy these issues. While the ban on hiring former PATCO represented air traffic controllers was lifted by President Clinton, PATCO representatives claim the FAA still discriminates against those former employees. Since 1998 when Washington National Airport (DCA) in Washington, DC was renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to honor the former President, some pilots and controllers in sympathy with the former controllers, refuse to refer to DCA by its new name. PATCO has regained its certification as a labor union.