Forty years ago this week, President Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored a court order to return to work and banned them from federal service for life. It was a defining moment early in his presidency.
Two days earlier, on August 3, 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) union declared a strike. President Reagan considered the strike a “peril to national safety” and ordered air traffic controllers back to work under the terms of the Taft–Hartley Act. That morning, he stated: “Let me read the solemn oath taken by each of these employees, a sworn affidavit when they accepted their jobs: ‘I am not participating in any strike against the Government of the United States or any agency thereof, and I will not so participate while an employee of the Government of the United States or any agency thereof.’”
President Reagan went on to say about the striking air traffic controllers, “they are in violation of the law, and if they do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated.” When only 1,300 of the nearly 13,000 controllers bothered to show up for work two days later, he followed through with his warning.
