Reagan initiated the decline of organized labor with the 1981 PATCO strike. The recent resurrection of labor unions indicates that workers are finally fed up with being left to the tender mercies of their unfettered capitalist overlords. There’s a through line from there to here.
I fervently hope voters connect the dots, vote blue up and down the ballot, and save American democracy in November. The hard work of rebuilding unions to fight for better wages and working conditions is child’s play in comparison.
Speaking of PATCO 43 years later, The Jacobin’s article lays out the carnage in this article:
(Snip)
“One contributing factor to the growing concerns about safety is a shortage of air traffic controllers. A recent internal study by the inspector general of the US Department of Transportation found that twenty of twenty-six critical facilities (77 percent of them) are staffed below the FAA’s 85-percent threshold. That includes the vital New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility, which manages one of the most complex airspaces in the world and is currently at 54 percent of its staffing target (which is jointly determined by the FAA and the controllers’ union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association). Less than 1 percent of FAA facilities are currently meeting 100 percent of their staffing targets.
According to the inspector general, the FAA “lacks a plan” to address the staffing crisis. To meet its needs while short-staffed, the agency has been requiring controllers to work overtime. The Times reports that some have already logged more than four hundred hours of extra time in 2023.”
https://jacobin.com/2023/09/reagan-patco-strike-faa-air-traffic-controllers-short-staffing-safety-crisis
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