Today in Labor History October 20, 1980: As a presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan wrote a letter to PATCO President Robert Poli promising that if the air traffic controllers union endorsed him, he would “take whatever steps necessary to provide them with the most modern equipment available and to adjust staff levels and work days so that they were commensurate with achieving a maximum degree of public safety.” The union naively endorsed Reagan and, within a few short months, President Reagan fired the air traffic controllers for engaging in an “illegal walkout” over staffing levels and working conditions. Their nationwide strike began on August 3, 1981, after workers rejected the government's final contract offer. Most of the 13,000 strikers ignored orders to go back to work and were fired on August 5. The mass firing of unionized workers, and the inability of the labor movement, as a whole, to respond to the crisis, led to the rapid downhill spiral of union power and membership. For example, in the years immediately after the PACTO strike, other major employers chose to fire striking workers en masse and replace them with scabs (e.g., Phelps Dodge, 1983; Hormel, 1985-1986; and International Paper, 1987). In the 14 years leading up to the PATCO strike, an average of 2.3 million U.S. workers per year were engaging in strikes and job actions. In the 10 years immediately after the PATCO strike, there was an 80% drop in strikes, with an average of 414,000 people on strike each of those years. And from 2001-2017, the number of U.S. workers who were striking each year had declined even further to an average of only 84,000 per year. There was a slight uptick in 2018 and 2019 with over 400,000 strikers each of those years, and again in 2023, with nearly 478,000 workers on strike. (Data is still pending for 2024, which is looking like another high number). But to this day, there has not been a single year where the number of striking U.S. workers has risen above 20% of the average prior to the PATCO strike.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #patco #AirTrafficControllers #reagan #unionbusting #phelpsdodge #hormel #solidarity #strikewave

Today in Labor History July 1, 1983: Copper miners began a strike against Phelps-Dodge in Clifton, Arizona. During the strike, company-owned railroad bridges were set on fire and strikers smashed windows of scab vehicles. Governor Bruce Babbitt repeatedly sent in state police and National Guardsmen to suppress and ultimately crush the 3-year-long strike. Replacement workers then voted to decertify the union in the largest mass decertification in U.S. history. 35 locals of 13 different unions representing Phelps-Dodge workers were all decertified. Within a couple of years, their profits skyrocketed 15-fold to $420 million per year. This was one of the most effective and historically significant union-busting campaigns of the post-WWII era, along with the PACTCO strike, and Reagan’s mass-firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #copper #miners #arizona #unionbusting #union #strike #police #policebrutality #phelpsdodge #patco #Reagan #scabs

Today in Labor History March 28, 1977: AFSCME Local 1644 struck in Atlanta, Georgia, for a pay raise. This local of mostly African American sanitation workers saw labor and civil rights as part of the same struggle. They saw their fight as a continuation of the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike. For several years, they organized to get black civil rights leaders elected to public office. They succeeded in getting their man, Maynard Jackson, elected mayor of Atlanta. After all, as vice mayor, Jackson had supported their 1970 strike. Yet, in his first three years as mayor, he refused to give them a single raise. Consequently, their wages dropped below the poverty line for a family of four. Jackson accused AFSCME of attacking Black Power by challenging his authority. He fired over 900 workers by April 1 and crushed the strike by the end of April. Many believe this set the precedent for Reagan’s mass firing of 11,000 air traffic controllers during the PATCO strike, in 1981.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #AFSCME #PATCO #strike #atlanta #CivilRights #sanitation #blackpower #wages #poverty #reagan

Managed to take four new #trains today:

* Amtrak's Pennsylvanian
* SEPTA subway
* SEPTA trolley
* PATCO Speedline

https://legoktm.com/w/index.php?title=Trains&type=revision&diff=318&oldid=296

Probably won't take the Pennsylvanian again since the seats were all backwards - I assume this is because it turns around in PHL to head west to PGH and that's the longer leg. NE Regional is frequent enough that I can avoid it if I'm just going down to Philly.

#Amtrak #SEPTA #PATCO

(Thanks) @Lana

January 20 2025
Trump fires FAA Director

January 21: Trump freezes Air Traffic Controller hiring

January 22: Trump disbands Aviation Safety Advisory Committee

January 28: Trump sends buyout/retirement demand to existing FAA employees

January 29: First American mid-air collision in 16 years

(So Trump blames collision on not me Others-them-DEI )

Trump 2025 extends Reagan 1981
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_(1968)

#Airlineworkers #AirTrafficControl #laborMovement #PATCO #Reagan #unions

Kenso Baby

https://photos.reasonably.social/Y52/i-PTkq2QH/A

#photography #JpegPhotography #Philadelphia #PATCO #Subway #EndStageCapitalism