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Control Tower Rift Widens: FAA Faces Showdown with Controllers
May 21--In August 1981, the nation's airlines, already battered by a recession, faced the grim prospect that air traffic controllers would shut down air travel if their demands for better pay and work rules weren't met.
Those fears were realized when 12,000 union workers went on strike and were fired days later by President Ronald W. Reagan. The outcome was a turning point for the fortunes of organized labor and also fulfilled the airlines' fears: Flight delays and losses were common for years due to short staffing and as new controllers learned the ropes.
Now, a quarter-century later, history threatens to repeat itself.
The Federal Aviation Administration is battling with the replacement controllers over many of the same issues. While no strike is being considered, a stalemate threatens again to hamper aviation, which is going through economic pangs in spite of record numbers of air travelers.
"It's quite a game of chicken," said Robert Mark, a controller before the 1981 strike and an FAA supervisor after. "The traveling public probably remembers sitting on an airplane in Washington or Kansas City or Los Angeles and hearing that it can't go anywhere because the air controllers were on strike. Nobody wants that again, but the same stuff is at stake."
The concern now is how many of the 14,000 controllers will choose to retire if they don't like the provisions of their new contract. The FAA says it is training new workers and is prepared. But the controllers say there aren't enough replacements in the pipeline for technical and stressful positions that require years of on-the-job training.
Now, as then, the debate centers on pay and work rules.
The controllers' union wants pay to match the longer days, as airplane departures have more than doubled since the early 1980s to 11.5 million. It also wants a continuation of extra pay for supervising or working in the busiest airports.
The FAA wants to rein in pay increases that have far outpaced inflation and use the money to upgrade technology.
