Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

car skidded along the slippery highway. As a resident
of Los Angeles, he was not accustomed to winter
driving. Suddenly, a semi-trailer truck passed by,
throwing up a wave of slush that cascaded across the
windshield and obliterated the road ahead.
Candaele hit the brakes.
The car spun around.
Sparks flew as the passenger
side scraped against
the guardrail along the
median. The car pulled
away, then banged
against the railing several
times, flinging more
orange embers into the
air before skidding to a
stop. Both men silently
thanked the presence
of the guardrail, which
prevented them from
careening into oncoming
traffic. Candaele looked
over at Molen.
“Gary was just as calm as could be—with a
kind of smirk on his face. Almost like, what did you
do that for?” Candaele recalls.
Neither man was hurt. Unfortunately, Candaele
had neglected to take out insurance and his bosses at
AFGE weren’t pleased about paying for the damage.
Other controllers joined Candaele as he ranged
farther afield in the West, including Dave Bottini, an
organizer from San Francisco Tower.
Bottini became involved after the tower chief
changed the seniority policy, denying him credit for
the time he’d spent at SFO while on loan from the
Defense Department.
Lack of job security for
a largely inexperienced
work force also con-
“
cerned him.
“If management
decid ed to look for technical
faults, they could find
things wrong. They could
make life miserable for an
individual,” he says. “You
always knew you could be
fired. That wasn’t fair.”
Bottini joined
Candaele and Skirlick
on a winter trip to visit
Albuquerque Center.
They had advertised two meetings at a nearby hotel.
The morning dragged by while they waited in a
conference room for someone to show up. Finally, a
lone controller appeared in the afternoon and warily
asked a few questions. No, we’re not here to get you
fired, the organizers stressed. We can’t strike. The
If management decided to
look for technical faults, they
could find things wrong. They
could make life miserable
for an individual. You always
knew you could be fired.
— O’Hare Tower controller Dave Bottini
June July
Citing financial constraints, AFGE lays off fourteen staff members,
including John Thornton and the rest of its organizing staff
except for the department’s director.
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Chapter 3: A Long and Winding Road
The FAA awards a contract to IBM to replace the 9020 computers
at en route centers with new 3083-BX1 “Host” computers.
The 9020s were installed starting in 1967.
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