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In August 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) called an illegal strike. The new president, Ronald Reagan, fired the strikers, establishing a reputation for both prompt resolution and hostility to organized labor. As Joseph A. McCartin writes, the strike was the culmination of two decades of bitter hostility between labor management that stemmed from the high-pressure nature of the job and the controllers' lack of control in the workplace. The fall of PATCO not only ushered in a long period of labor decline; it also served as a harbinger for the current campaign against public sector unions that now roils American politics. Collision Course sets the strike within a vivid panorama of the rise and near fall of the world's busiest air-traffic control system. It begins with an arresting account of the mid-air collision in 1960 over Park Slope, Brooklyn that cost 134 lives and exposed the weaknesses of an overburdened system. Through the stories of controllers like Mike Rock and Jack Maher, who were galvanized into action by the disaster and went on to found PATCO, McCartin describes the camaraderie and professionalism of those who sought to both make the airways safer and enter the ranks of a burgeoning middle class. It climaxes with the story of Reagan and the controllers, who surprisingly endorsed the Republican on the promise that he would address controllers' grievances. That brief, fateful alliance triggered devastating miscalculations that changed the course of history, establishing patterns that still govern America's labor politics. Written with an eye for detail and a grasp of the vast consequences of PATCO conflict for both air travel and America's working class, Collision Course is a stunning achievement.
Show moreIn August 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) called an illegal strike. The new president, Ronald Reagan, fired the strikers, establishing a reputation for both prompt resolution and hostility to organized labor. As Joseph A. McCartin writes, the strike was the culmination of two decades of bitter hostility between labor management that stemmed from the high-pressure nature of the job and the controllers' lack of control in the workplace. The fall of PATCO not only ushered in a long period of labor decline; it also served as a harbinger for the current campaign against public sector unions that now roils American politics. Collision Course sets the strike within a vivid panorama of the rise and near fall of the world's busiest air-traffic control system. It begins with an arresting account of the mid-air collision in 1960 over Park Slope, Brooklyn that cost 134 lives and exposed the weaknesses of an overburdened system. Through the stories of controllers like Mike Rock and Jack Maher, who were galvanized into action by the disaster and went on to found PATCO, McCartin describes the camaraderie and professionalism of those who sought to both make the airways safer and enter the ranks of a burgeoning middle class. It climaxes with the story of Reagan and the controllers, who surprisingly endorsed the Republican on the promise that he would address controllers' grievances. That brief, fateful alliance triggered devastating miscalculations that changed the course of history, establishing patterns that still govern America's labor politics. Written with an eye for detail and a grasp of the vast consequences of PATCO conflict for both air travel and America's working class, Collision Course is a stunning achievement.
Show morePrologue: Getting the Picture
1. The Main Bang
2. Pushing Back
3. Wheels Up
4. Confliction
5. Course Correction
6. Flight Ceiling
7. Turbulence
8. Down the Tubes
9. Pilot Error
10. Dead Reckoning
11. Trading Paint
12. Aluminum Rain
13. Debris Field
Epilogue: Black Box
Acknowledgments
Joseph A. McCartin is Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University and Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
"Mr. McCartin deals with policy but also with personalities, and
the book is better for it. For anyone at all interested in labor or
business history, I recommend it."--The New York Times
"[C]onvincing...draws a vivid picture of a culture and how, as much
as the realities an organization faces, that culture can determine
the group's behavior."--The Philadelphia Inquirer
"[McCartin] patiently lays out the full background and aftermath of
the PATCO tragedy in Collision Course, an absorbing, detailed and
shrewdly observed chronicle of the strike and PATCO's unlikely rise
and fall."--The Nation
"The definitive account of the PATCO strike...Collision Course's
treatment of worker and political power should help inform trade
unions' strategies today, and perhaps prompt discussion of how to
revitalize the greatest source of worker power: the strike."--In
These Times
"The air traffic controllers' strike in August 1981 was a defining
moment for the Reagan presidency and the American labor movement.
By firing the air traffic controllers, and successfully replacing
them, Reagan heralded the end of a political era when labor
unions--and the workers they represented--were an integral part of
the American social contract. Joseph McCartin tells the story in
gripping detail. It's must reading for anyone interested in the
recent
history of American politics and labor relations."--John B. Judis,
author of The Folly of Empire
"The signal event in the evisceration of the American middle class
was Ronald Reagan's breaking the air traffic controllers' strike in
1981. In Collision Course, Joe McCartin brilliantly and
compellingly tells this tragic tale, and situates it in the broader
narrative of middle-class America's long and sickening
decline."--Harold Meyerson, Editor-at-Large of The American
Prospect and op-ed columnist for The Washington Post
"In an age of obscurantist academic historical writing, Collision
Course stands out as a model of accessible and relevant
scholarship."--National Review
"The Air Traffic Controllers strike of 1981 was one of the most
important struggles in American history, and by breaking the union,
Ronald Reagan dealt a blow to organized labor from which it has
still not recovered. If you care about the labor movement, you need
to read Collision Course and even if you don't, you'll be
transfixed by the drama of McCartin's story-telling."--E.J. Dionne,
syndicated columnist and author of Why Americans Hate
Politics
"[A] wonderfully good book....In this admirable account of
President Ronald Reagan's destruction of the Professional Air
Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) in 1981-1982, McCartin
shows not merely where that destruction fits into a long narrative
of the decline of organized labor in the United States but also how
tensions between controllers and the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) might have been resolved
differently."--Journal of American
History
"McCartin tells the story of PATCO before its inception to years
after the conclusion of the strike, a fascinating story with many
twists and turns."--Contemporary Sociology
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