On August 3, 1981 nearly 13,345 of the 17,500 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) walked off the job, hoping to disrupt the business and flights within the airlines industry. Purposefully, PATCO, a U.S. trade union that operated from 1968 until its decertification in 1981, conducted an illegal strike that was directly broken by the Reagan Administration.

President Ronald Reagan fired approximately 11,345 air traffic controllers who ignored his order to return to work. The sweeping mass firing of federal employees slowed commercial air travel, but it did not cripple the system as the strikers had forecast. Some 7,000 flights across the country were actually canceled.

PATCO sought an across the board annual wage increase of $10,000 for the controllers, whose pay ranged from $20,462 to $49,229 per year. Also it sought a reduction of the five day, 40 hour work week to a four day, 32 hour work week. The FAA made a $40 million counteroffer, far short of the $770 million package that the union sought.

In the end, the FAA’s contingency plans worked. Some 3,000 supervisors joined 2,000 non striking controllers and 900 military controllers in manning airport towers. Before long, about 80 percent of flights were operating normally. And, air freight operations remained virtually unaffected.

Lastly, Reagan imposed a lifetime ban on rehiring the strikers. In October 1981, the Federal Labor Relations Authority finally decertified PATCO.

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