This Week in NATCA/Labor History
Thursday, December 09, 2010


THIS WEEK IN NATCA/ATC HISTORY:

Dec. 9, 1981 — Strike aftermath:  President Reagan rescinds an order banning fired controllers from seeking federal work for three years. However, they are still barred from returning to the FAA. Many controllers who subsequently apply for work in other government agencies and at overseas ATC facilities claim they have been blacklisted because it’s nearly impossible to get hired.

Dec. 5, 1985 — Controller organizing takes shape: Gene DeFries invites Howie Barte to Washington, D.C., to discuss organizing, and agrees to Barte’s request to include two other controllers: Joe O’Brien and Dan Keeney, representing Eastern and Southern regions, respectively. DeFries asks Barte to serve as national coordinator, but he declines and recommends John Thornton, who takes the job.

Dec. 5, 1996 — Equipment modernization: The FAA installs the first Display System Replacement at Seattle Center.

Dec. 7, 2000 — FAA reorganization: President Clinton signs an executive order mandating the FAA to reorganize its air traffic control operations into a performance-based Air Traffic Organization. He defines such services as “inherently governmental.” Clinton names five members to a board of directors that will serve as an oversight committee and directs that a chief operating officer be hired.


THIS WEEK IN LABOR HISTORY:

1869: African American delegates meet in Washington, D.C., to form the Colored National Labor Union as a branch of the all-white National Labor Union created three years earlier. Unlike the NLU, the CNLU welcomed members of all races.

1907: Three hundred sixty-one coal miners die at Monongah, W.V., in nation's worst mining disaster.

1931: More than 1,600 protesters staged a national hunger march on Washington, D.C. to present demands for unemployment insurance.

2009: Delegates to the founding convention of the National Nurses United (NNU) in Phoenix, Ariz. unanimously endorse the creation of the largest union and professional organization of registered nurses in U.S. history. The 150,000-member union is the product of merger of three groups.