Reagan Should Rehire Air Controllers He Fired
With the proverbial stroke of a pen, President Reagan could dramatically ease the nation’s increasingly severe air traffic problems that threaten the safety of the system and have already cost the nation billions of dollars through lengthy flight delays.
Within the Administration and in Congress, there is strong pressure on Reagan to change his hard-line stance against rehiring a few thousand of the 11,300 air traffic controllers whom he fired in August, 1981, for striking despite a law against strikes by federal government workers.
But, so far, he has adamantly refused to offer amnesty to any of the fired strikers, whose personal lives have been badly damaged. Reagan may be correct legally. But he is wrong--if for no other reason than air safety--to refuse to forgive those who, perhaps mistakenly, violated the anti-strike law.
Another 2,000 or more controllers are needed to meet the country’s needs, including both those required to fill current vacancies and to replace those who may soon retire. The FAA says 2,600 are eligible for retirement.
William Taylor, head of a group called “PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) Lives,” estimates that there are 4,000 to 5,000 well-trained controllers who would be willing to return to their posts. None of them, he says, expects that they will all be recalled or replace those now on the job. But the President continues to insist that, in time, the need for more controllers can be met by training new ones.
Ever since the disastrous strike began, officials of the Federal Aviation Administration have been saying, over and over, that the nation’s air traffic control system is rapidly returning to normal. But so far--nearly six years later--that goal has not been achieved.
Numerous studies have been made by experts outside the FAA warning that there are serious air traffic safety problems. The latest came March 6 from the General Accounting Office, which warned that “the growth in air traffic activity has caused controller workload to reach a point where controllers are stretched too thin.”
The GAO said the FAA should impose new restrictions on airline flights until the agency’s goal for getting more controllers is met.
The GAO also charged that the FAA “is not responding to the concerns of controllers or their supervisors.” It was the failure of the FAA to pay any attention to the controllers’ often legitimate complaints that led to the the 1981 strike. One Administration official who wants Reagan to relent said:
“Amnesty is granted to all kinds of criminals. These people (the controllers) wrongly followed their leaders’ advice to go on strike to try and solve problems even the Reagan Administration itself agreed were serious back in 1981.”
The official, who asked not to be identified, was referring to, among others, a statement by then Secretary of Transportation Drew Lewis, who said that firing the strikers was proper but admitted that they had “legitimate grievances” and that the FAA was probably “a bad boss to work for.”
Reagan himself, who was endorsed for election in 1980 by the now-defunct PATCO, wrote before the election: “I have been thoroughly briefed by members of my staff as to the deplorable state of our nation’s air traffic control system. They have told me that too few people working unreasonable hours with obsolete equipment has placed the nation’s air travelers in unwarranted danger.” Reagan then blamed former President Jimmy Carter for the problems, writing that “in an area so clearly related to public safety, the Carter Administration has failed to act responsibly.”
Yet, since then, the FAA budget has been reduced, and more cuts are possible under the Gramm-Rudman law. And one of the key reasons that the controllers struck in 1981 was that the FAA had for years been promising to ease the tremendous stress on the controllers.
To achieve this, the controllers had sought a reduction in their workweek to 32 hours from 40.
Not only is their official work week still 40 hours, but many controllers are forced to work overtime. It is not unusual for many of them to work six days a week because of the steadily increasing workloads.
Budget cuts have reduced the number of inspectors who check on the system, and increased competition among the now deregulated airlines has pushed the carriers to reduce maintenance, operations and training to cut labor costs.
Before the controllers’ strike, the FAA had 2,012 airline inspectors, compared to 1,400 today. But the number of carriers to be inspected has jumped to 526 from 237, and the number of hours flown by the lines is up 66% since 1979.
While conceding that controllers are working “too much overtime,” FAA officials still insist that the air lanes are not unsafe.
But, even today, the problems of the 14,000 controllers now working are so serious that the scabs--those union members who crossed their own union’s picket lines--and the strikebreakers--those newly hired to replace the strikers--are signing union membership cards by the thousands.
The old union, PATCO, is dead. But two others are competing for the right to represent the controllers: the American Federation of Government Employees and the Marine Engineers Beneficial Assn.
The two unions say that between them, they already have more than 3,500 cards signed by controllers asking for a union representation election that could mean a new union for the very workers who helped Reagan break the old union.
The controllers’ problems today are so serious that a union victory is a real possibility, but the interunion rivalry is making it more difficult. Many controllers may conclude that they would rather be fighting the tough management of Reagan’s FAA without a union than to complicate their problems by getting involved in the battle between the two rival unions.
Ken Blaylock, the liberal, militant president of the government employees union, wants the AFL-CIO to name an arbitrator who would then decide which union has the right to organize the controllers. The more conservative marine engineers union--whose previous president, Jesse Calhoun, endorsed President Reagan--says it would accept a court-appointed arbitrator to make the decision, which could take much longer.
But, in any case, the unions should stop fighting one another and get on with the far more serious task of helping currently employed controllers increase air safety and persuading Reagan to rehire enough of the fired controllers to achieve that goal quickly.
Bird’s Decisions
California Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird’s liberal decisions have generally helped injured workers, and those decisions could add another dimension to the effort by conservatives to remove her from office in November’s election.
Most of the attacks on Bird have concentrated on her rulings involving the death sentence, although those rulings make up only a small fraction of the total number of decisions reached by the court.
But, supported by most of the other justices, Bird has written, or concurred in, many other decisions, including those that simply uphold the Legislature’s decades-old mandate that workers compensation laws must be interpreted in a “liberal” fashion, which usually works to the advantage of workers and against their employers.
A survey by the California Labor Federation shows that the state’s high court issued more than 30 workers compensation decisions since Bird took office in 1977, and almost all were favorable to the injured workers. Some examples:
- Workers can sue their employers for damages in addition to workers compensation payments if the employer is accused of intentional misconduct, such as hiding the dangers of asbestos or other toxic materials from workers.
- An injured worker who is entitled to temporary disability benefits can receive them even while waiting for the outcome of an employer’s challenge of the workers’ fitness for a vocational rehabilitation program.
- Injured workers are entitled to receive extra “penalty pay” in addition to regular benefits when an employer is found to have unreasonably delayed or refused to pay the benefits.
The debate over Bird’s election is likely to remain limited primarily to those death penalty rulings. But if her right to remain in office is to be decided by the voters based on their views of her decisions, the debate should be widened to include more than the relatively few involving the death penalty.
