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| Book | Searching... Groton Public Library | 331.892 MCC | 37003701384902 | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... North Andover - Stevens Memorial Library | 331.892 MCCARTIN | 31478003097293 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
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 decisiveness and hostility to organized labor. As Joseph A. McCartin writes, the strike was the culmination of two decades of escalating conflict between controllers and the government that stemmed from the high-pressure nature of the job and the controllers' inability to negotiate with their employer over vital issues. PATCO's fall not only ushered in a long period of labor decline; it also served as a harbinger of the campaign against public sector unions that now roils American politics.Collision Course sets the strike within a vivid panorama of the rise of the world's busiest air-traffic control system. It begins with an arresting account of the 1960 midair collision over New York 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 that disaster and went on to found PATCO, it describes the efforts of those who sought to make the airways safer and fought to win a secure place in the American middle class. It climaxes with the story of Reagan and the controllers, who surprisingly endorsed the Republican on the promise that he would address their grievances. That brief, fateful alliance triggered devastating miscalculations that changed America, forging patterns that still govern the nation's labor politics. Written with an eye for detail and a grasp of the vast consequences of the PATCO conflict for both air travel and America's working class, Collision Course is a stunning achievement.
Reviews (3)
Kirkus Review
Labor's Great War: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy and the Origins of Modern American Labor Relations, 1912-1921, 1998, etc.) revisits the most consequential labor dispute since the New Deal. As a two-time governor of California, Ronald Reagan regularly bargained with public-service employees and, as president (the only one in American history ever to have helmed a union), he offered PATCO, one of the few labor organizations to endorse his candidacy, an unprecedented contract in 1981. When PATCO rejected the proposal and called an illegal strike, Reagan issued a 48 hour return-to-work ultimatum. He ended up firing the vast majority of the more than 10,000 highly specialized controllers, destroyed PATCO and set a precedent that continues to reverberate. An expert on the labor movement, McCartin reviews the origins and evolution of public-sector unions--once universally decried, even by iconic liberal presidents--outlines and translates for the general reader the applicable laws and delivers a detailed history of PATCO from its 1968 founding to its demise. Demonstrating a thorough understanding of PATCO's culture, the author powerfully describes the high-pressure world of air-traffic control, examines the historically contentious relations between the controllers and the hidebound FAA and charts PATCO's increasing militancy, even as a powerful anti-union backlash gathered in the country. Although his union sympathies are clear, McCartin, for the most part, plays it straight, relying on extensive interviews with government and union officials, rank-and-file members, pilots, airline executives and politicians to get the full story behind this dramatic confrontation. Breaking the strike proved more expensive to the federal government than meeting the controllers' demands. But the chilling effect of Reagan's swift dismissal of seemingly indispensable workers has proven more costly to organized labor. With the collective-bargaining power of public employees under fierce assault, McCartin's story couldn't be timelier or more important.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Choice Review
McCartin (history, Georgetown Univ.) has written a comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), providing an incredibly detailed examination of the issues leading up to the 1981 firing of the striking members of PATCO and of the aftermath of that strike. If he places more weight on the destruction of PATCO as an explanatory factor in the ongoing decline of union influence in the US and too little emphasis on larger economic factors (especially as these have affected private sector unions), as this reviewer think he does, his book nevertheless allows readers to gain a clear picture of the state of labor relations in the US in early 1980s. McCartin makes the concerns of PATCO's members come alive and illuminates the decisions made within the union that preceded (but were not themselves causes of) the strike. Clearly organized and written, Collision Course is a strong and compelling book. In his conclusion, McCartin aptly relates the PATCO strike to the recent efforts to effectively destroy public sector unionism in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Public and academic library collections, lower-division undergraduate and up. D. A. Coffin Indiana University Northwest
Library Journal Review
"No strike in American history unfolded more visibly before the eyes of the American people.than the PATCO [Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization] strike," writes McCartin (history, Georgetown Univ.; Labor's Great War) of the 1981 nationwide walkout of air traffic controllers, a signal event of the Reagan administration. The President fired the controllers, broke the strike, and, in doing so, "decisively altered the course of U.S. labor relations." In this deeply researched history, McCartin shows what was less visible as well-the issues that originally led the controllers to organize in 1968; the accumulated grievances that produced the militancy of 1981, and the negotiations of that year, in which (contrary to legend) Reagan authorized concessions beyond the law; and the strike's long aftereffect, which, McCartin argues, has had its most devastating impact on private-sector management-labor relations. VERDICT McCartin interviewed dozens of principals on both sides of the PATCO strike, giving his story an immediacy that will appeal to many general readers. Scholars in labor history and public policy will also be drawn by the depth of this book. Highly recommended.-Bob Nardini, Nashville (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Getting The Picture | p. 1 |
| 1 The Main Bang | p. 15 |
| 2 Pushing Back | p. 35 |
| 3 Wheels Up | p. 64 |
| 4 Confliction | p. 90 |
| 5 Course Correction | p. 120 |
| 6 Flight Ceiling | p. 145 |
| 7 Turbulence | p. 176 |
| 8 Down The Tubes | p. 202 |
| 9 Pilot Error | p. 227 |
| 10 Dead Reckoning | p. 250 |
| 11 Trading Paint | p. 277 |
| 12 Aluminum Rain | p. 300 |
| 13 Debris Field | p. 328 |
| Black Box | p. 359 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 371 |
| Abbreviations Used in the Notes | p. 377 |
| Notes | p. 379 |
| Index | p. 451 |