Remembering PATCO: 25 Years
A quarter of a century ago, more than 12,000 air traffic controllers walked off the job; 11,541 were fired by President Ronald Reagan.
As time passes, former Professional Air Traffic Control Organization members recall how the events of Aug. 3, 1981 helped bring together a group of people torn apart by one of the largest union busts in the nation’s history.
“[Controllers] became brothers and sisters who fought, scratched, got knocked down, got back up, punched, screamed, became politically educated, and finally began winning some of the most important battles ever fought in any labor movement,” said retired controller Bob Butterworth of Indio, Calif. “Now here we are after all the battle scars, almost back to square one. Since I am retired, I will not be fighting the battles of the next few years, but having fought these exact same battles back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I know what it will take to win. In one word: unity.”
IND controller and former PATCO member Larry Patrick sees quite a few similarities between the summer of 1981 and the present. “Like 1981, the current administration only cares about their current agenda and wants to take back control of their agency from those nasty, pesky controllers.” Patrick also remembers the negative impact the firings had on friends and colleagues. “I lived through divorces of associates, suicides of friends, and bankruptcies of many. I’m one of the lucky ones who not only got another chance to do the job I love, but to make it to retirement when I chose to leave.”
To acknowledge one of the largest battles in organized labor history, Stephanie Saxe, filmmaker and daughter of PATCO/PHF controller Paul Fulenwider, has created a documentary titled “Blacklist of the Skies.” Saxe produced the film in order to show what life is really like for air traffic controllers then and now, as well as the impact of external forces which have shaped the current system. Some of the topics covered in the documentary include the philosophy of the union and state of the labor movement, technology and its impact on the air traffic system, and the consequences of the strike on the civil liberties of the controllers.
“I was thinking about doing a documentary about the strike prior to the 2001 PATCO convention; attending confirmed my desire,” said Saxe. “Having worked as a production manager on student films and microbudget independent pictures, I felt that I was the only one to bring this project to fruition. I wanted to know all the facts of before, during, and after the strike, since that day directly affected my family for decades. What many people think they know about the strike is based on innuendo and rumor. I wanted to dispel all of that and set the record straight.”
A special screening of the film was held August 3 during the PATCO 25th anniversary reunion. Saxe is currently in negotiations for its release either in theaters and/or on television, with the film eventually becoming available on DVD.
Saxe wants viewers to understand the impact of this particular job action on labor history and the families involved. “Overall, I would like the viewers to remember that unions are about people. All of us are passionate and flawed and we should view each other with more compassion and less ‘they got what they deserved.’ As striker families have experienced, no one deserves to have the U.S. government roll over on them.”
