Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

26
1981
Against the Wind
28
other things, Reagan stated, “You can rest assured that
if I am elected president, I will take whatever steps
are necessary to provide our air traffic controllers
with the most modern equipment available and to
adjust staff levels and workdays so that they are commensurate
with achieving
a maximum degree of
public safety.”
Armed with this
apparent support, Poli
and his contract team
started negotiations with
the FAA in February
1981 demanding three
key items (along with
ninety-three others): an
across-the-board annual
raise of $10,000, plus
sem iannual
cost-of-living
raises
1½ times the rate of inflation; a 32-hour
workweek (controllers elsewhere in the
world labored 29 to 38 hours a week); and
retirement after twenty years at 75 percent
of base salary.
When contract talks continued with
little progress, Poli turned up the heat at PAT-
CO’s national convention in May by announc-
June July
The FAA commissions the twentieth DARC system at Minneapolis
Center.
“
It was like the proverbial
locomotive on the track. Once
you get a head of steam up,
how do we stop it?
ing a strike deadline of June 22. “If they [the FAA] do
not come to their senses, I vow to you that the skies
will be silent,” he declared to a thunderous standing
ovation. 5
Three hours before the threatened walkout,
Transportation Secretary
Drew Lewis made
the FAA’s final $40 million
offer. It included
a $4,000 pay increase
— George Kerr,
former PATCO Eastern Region VP
2
(equal to 11.4 percent,
although 4.8 percent represented
a raise that all
federal workers would receive)
and overtime when
controllers worked more
than 36 hours a week.
Having just been
informed that PATCO’s
membership strike vote
fell short of the required
80 percent, Poli accepted the offer. But after vocal
arguing, the union’s Executive Board recommended
that the membership turn down the proposal. Local
presidents asked controllers for their vote in public,
an intimidation tactic that helped overcome some reluctance
and boosted the rejection rate to 95 percent.
When the Reagan administration steadfastly opposed
further concessions, Poli declared a second strike
PATCO’s Executive Board unanimously recommends that controllers
turn down the FAA’s “final” offer. The board believes
the level of militancy will never be higher to achieve its goals.