{"id":324093,"date":"2017-09-01T04:43:44","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T03:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/re-labor-day-reagan-and-the-patco-strike\/"},"modified":"2017-09-01T04:43:44","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T03:43:44","slug":"re-labor-day-reagan-and-the-patco-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/re-labor-day-reagan-and-the-patco-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"Re Labor Day:  Reagan and the PATCO Strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>With Labor Day almost upon us, it\u2019s appropriate we discuss anything germane to what was once referred quaintly and respectfully (if not affectionately) as the \u201cworking class.\u201d\u00a0 Strikes, protests, street violence, the incremental passage of labor laws:\u00a0 All part of the American Labor Movement\u2019s dramatic history.<\/p>\n<p>Let us begin with a look back at what many labor activists regard as the precise moment when America\u2019s unions began their dreadful and inexorable decline, and what labor expert Joseph McCartin once called, \u201cone of the most important events in late twentieth century U.S. labor history.\u201d\u00a0 We\u2019re referring to the 1981 PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) strike.\u00a0 That\u2019s the one where President Reagan fired everybody.<\/p>\n<p>Because it was illegal for federal employees to go on strike, their startling walkout appeared to everyone (even hardcore union honchos were scratching their heads) as a clear-cut violation of federal law.\u00a0 Predictably, declaring the strike to be a threat to \u201cnational safety,\u201d Reagan ordered them back to work, citing the Taft-Hartley Act (1947).<\/p>\n<p>Of the nearly 13,000 who went on strike, only about 1,300 heeded the President\u2019s ominous warning and returned to work.\u00a0 Ultimately, Reagan wound up firing a total of 11,345 air traffic controllers.\u00a0 These well-meaning men and women were not only fired, they were banned for life from ever holding a federal civil service job.<\/p>\n<p>The PATCO debacle was huge, not&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/2017\/08\/re-labor-day-reagan-and-the-patco-strike\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With Labor Day almost upon us, it\u2019s appropriate we discuss anything germane to what was once referred quaintly and respectfully (if not affectionately) as the \u201cworking class.\u201d\u00a0 Strikes, protests, street violence, the incremental passage of labor laws:\u00a0 All part of the American Labor Movement\u2019s dramatic history. Let us begin with a look back at what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2525,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-324093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2525"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}