Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

Center and Mike Rock at LaGuardia Tower—formed
the Metropolitan Controllers Association, which also
included Kennedy and Newark towers.
Quickly realizing that NAGE could not provide
enough support to help them expand, Maher
and Rock looked for a public personality who might
champion their cause. They were ecstatic when the
flamboyant, well-known attorney F. Lee Bailey, a private
pilot, agreed to head their budding group.
More than 700 people from twenty-two states
attended the first meeting of the Professional Air
Traffic Controllers Organization on January 11, 1968.
Bailey brought the cheering crowd to its feet eleven
times by endorsing their concerns and pledging to
highlight them before Congress and the news media.
Within a month, more than 4,000 controllers joined
PATCO, submitting their dues voluntarily since the
agency had no provision to collect the money by payroll
deduction.
‘Sicking’ It Out
Born at the end of a decade plagued by civil
unrest and a divisive war, PATCO’s rough and tumble
character was shaped by the times as much as
its close-knit, fervent membership. Before PATCO
was barely two years old, it scraped through another
work-to-rule slowdown and two sickouts with
mixed results.
15
Mar.
The three-year labor agreement between PATCO and the FAA lapses.
All provisions remain in force until a new agreement is negotiated, except
immunity under NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System. This program,
Following a nationwide slowdown in the summer
of 1968, unprecedented talks with the FAA
enabled jubilant PATCO members to claim a Triple
Crown victory that fall.
The FAA upgraded pay scales in Atlanta, Chicago,
Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington.
Thanks to a law passed by Congress, controllers began
earning time-and-a-half
at their regular pay
grade for overtime.
Capitol Hill also
appropriated
$14 million in
new money to
permit the FAA
to dust off its
training facility,
which had been
closed for seven years,
and hire 1,000 controllers
over the next few years.
Two subsequent job actions, however, showered
trouble on the growing union.
On June 17, 1969, television host Johnny Carson
invited Bailey on his program to talk about air
traffic control problems. Confusion plagued an accompanying
sickout aimed at pressuring the FAA
into further concessions and only 477 controllers
took part.
Chapter 1: ATC Comes of Age
which former FAA Administrator Langhorne M. Bond unilaterally canceled
for controllers in 1980, enabled them to report mistakes without the risk
of penalty in an attempt to solve common problems.
21