Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) Records
Established in 1968, PATCO was certified as the exclusive representative for all FAA air traffic controllers. A little more than a decade later, union members went on strike demanding better working conditions despite the fact that doing so was in violation of a law banning strikes by government unions. In response to the strike, the Reagan administration fired the strikers, more than 11,000, and decertified the union. Over time the union was eventually reformed, first in 1996 as an affiliate with the Federation of Physicians and Dentists union, and later as an independent, national union in 2004.
Correspondence, financial records, notes and memos documenting the activities of the Boston area branch of PATCO. Letters, announcements, and planning documents leading up to the 1981 strike shed light on the union’s position.
Background on the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, Local 215 (Boston Tower)
After a series of airline-related tragedies, Congress passed the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, leading to the founding of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, who began hiring of thousands of air traffic controllers. As air traffic increased dramatically in the 1960s, working conditions for controllers became increasingly stressed. According to the “History of PATCO” in the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) newsletter:
Overtime was in abundance due to short staffing, no breaks were available for lunch or otherwise, buildings and working conditions were shabby, relief from sectors was at the end of the shift, grievance procedures were unknown, contracts were not mentioned, and medical retirements were lost in rules and regulations conveniently hidden from controllers. The normal work week was six days, ten hours a day.
Believing that the existing professional organizations — the Air Traffic Controllers Association (ATCA) and the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE) — failed to provide the necessary attention to controller issues, air traffic controllers created a professional organization devoted exclusively to protecting their interests. The noted attorney F. Lee Bailey was engaged as legal counsel, chosen not only for his legal expertise but for the knowledge of piloting and air traffic control issues he had gained as a jet fighter pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps in the mid-1950s. With his assistance, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) was founded on January 11, 1968. Bailey became the first Executive Director and Michael J. Rock was designated Chairman of a Board comprised of controllers from across the United States. Rock and Jack Mahar founded the New York Metropolitan Area Association, the first of many local branches of PATCO, and soon, other branches were born.
Initially, PATCO saw itself solely as a professional organization, and at its first annual convention in Chicago in July 1968, drafted a constitution and undertook other efforts to establish itself as such. However, PATCO also wanted to be an organization that could bargain or negotiate. In 1969, the Civil Service Commission ruled that PATCO was a trade union, not merely a professional organization. In the summer of 1969, controllers from several facilities in the new union organized a “sick day,” the first of several they held over the next several years.
Relations between PATCO and the FAA continued to deteriorate into the early 1970s. PATCO sought the advice of the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association (MEBA), a branch of the AFL-CIO and a well-established labor union with similar issues. A second 3-week “sickout” was called in March 1970, in order to avoid repercussions for going on strike, and — at the request of the FAA — resulting in intercession by the courts ordering the controllers back to work. At the third national convention in Las Vegas in April 1970, PATCO voted to affiliate itself with the MEBA.
PATCO Local 215, also known as the “Boston Tower PATCO,” represented workers at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in March, 1970, Boston Tower PATCO grew slowly over the next several years from approximately 30 members to more than 80 in 1981. In Boston, as elsewhere, job-related stress was a major topic that gradually gained the attention of the medical community. Between 1964 and 1980, a number of medical studies drew attention to both the physical and psychological health implications of the ongoing stress of being an air traffic controller, citing increased rates of cardiac problems, hypertension, impulse control issues, anxiety, depression, and gastrointestinal issues. Other reports addressed topics such as aging in the air traffic control profession, fatigue, and the relationship between chronological age, length of experience, and job performance. In 1972, Local 215 produced a “Staffing and Morale Report” to pressure the FAA to improve conditions at the Boston Tower. Ongoing staffing shortages throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, however, continued to erode morale.
The strength of the organization, and of Boston Tower PATCO in particular, increased in the 1970s. Local 215 members were well represented at union “fly-in’s” — informal exchanges of information and ideas, at seminars for the Eastern Region (including the NY and Washington D.C. areas), and the national conventions. Local union representatives made themselves known to Congressional senators and representatives, and began building support for their cause. Boston Tower PATCO developed strong working relationship with several key groups, including Massport (the facilities organization that oversees Logan Airport), ALPA (the Air Line Pilots Association), and with several airlines.
Boston Tower PATCO also attempted to build public support for their cause through charitable activities as well as through various public relations efforts. In addition to issuing numerous press releases, they initiated a speakers’ program, open to “career days” at local high schools, in which they made air traffic control representatives available for any group that requested. In January 1979, WBZ television station in Boston aired a 10-part news series entitled “Logan: How Safe is Safe?” that represented the voices of Boston Tower PATCO (through Michael Fermon), FAA representatives, and pilots.
Among the ongoing issues for controllers in Boston was the reclassification of control towers. Each tower was classified (up to a top rating of GS-15) according to factors such as radar facilities, the complexity of landing at that airport, the type of traffic (e.g., military, air carrier, general aviation), and the configurations of the runways. Air traffic controllers were also rated according to their level of experience with different towers and air traffic situations, and salaries were tied to their level of GS rating. PATCO National felt that the FAA’s classification system was unfair, and the issue spent five years in federal courts before being referred to the Civil Service Commission. Following the recommendations of a joint FAA/PATCO committee, Boston Tower was ultimately reclassified upward to GS-14, and to maintain staffing levels, some personnel were promoted to GS-14, despite the objections of the union that argued that the controllers had not received the requisite training. When training was then arranged, PATCO members in Boston complained to management about the quality of the sessions and claimed that the trainers lacked the requisite knowledge. When union members tried to record the training sessions to make their case, the instructors objected, and in the end, several PATCO attendees walked out. The reprimands they received for their actions only serve to stoke the tensions already building in Boston.
Among the most serious issues that Boston Tower PATCO had to contend with was the ever-changing air space landscape as the FAA revised air traffic routes to address noise issues for the communities surrounding Logan Airport. Noise abatement became a particular priority in the years between 1972 and 1980, and the new air traffic patterns that were introduced created a challenging, rapidly changing, and highly complex environment for the controllers. In 1979 and 1980, the noise abatement issue came to a head. Massport asked the FAA to study alternative procedures for aircraft departing on runway 22Right, which generated not only an environmental impact statement that needed to be addressed, but local activism in Hull, Hingham, Scituate, Cohasset, and other noise-affected communities. Michael Fermon, then President of Local 215, appeared as a speaker at several rallies to provide the air traffic controller’s perspective of the proposed changes.
As the 1980 presidential election drew near, PATCO as a national organization was faced with the choice of whom to support. Candidate Ronald Reagan wrote to PATCO National President Robert Poli, assuring him that he understood the nature of the unreasonable working conditions, and promised to take “whatever steps are necessary” to provide up-to-date equipment, adjust staffing levels and schedules, and appoint individuals to government organizations who were “highly-qualified” and who could “work harmoniously with the Congress and the employees of the government agencies they oversee.” He ended with the statement, “I pledge to you that my administration will work very closely with you to bring about a spirit of cooperation between the President and the air traffic controllers.”
As talks between PATCO and the FAA continued to be non-productive, however, talk of an air traffic controllers’ strike began to surface. In March 1981, the contract between PATCO and the FAA expired, and by April, Local 215 was in communication with other local Boston Area towers to assess how many potentially striking controllers they had. In early June, talks between PATCO and the FAA had lasted for 8 weeks, involving 37 sessions and 95 unresolved issues, so the national union set a date of midnight of June 21 to agree on a contract or PATCO would wage a strike. The current Local 215 president, Kevin Brophy, reached out to Boston mayor Kevin White asking for his support in lobbying Massachusetts senators and representatives to urge the FAA to come back to the table for good-faith bargaining, and wives of the Boston Tower PATCO controllers wrote to Reagan directly to plead their case. After the FAA provided a settlement offer on June 18 that PATCO rejected, Brophy issued a statement outlining the repercussions of a strike on the public. PATCO and the FAA reached a tentative agreement four days later, but as word of the agreement spread nationally, discontent over the terms swelled within the rank and file, and once again, local branches started taking headcounts of potential strikers. In an effort to tell their story, Boston Tower PATCO put together the “Boston Tower Report,” chronicling, over a 10-year period, their exchanges with management and their efforts to improve safety and working conditions at the Boston Tower.
PATCO rejected the tentative agreement, and on August 3, 1981, almost 13,000 air traffic controllers went on strike. Reagan responded by declaring the strike illegal, since government employees were legally prohibited from striking, and ordering all workers back to the job within 48 hours under threat of dismissal. Hundreds of flights out of Logan were canceled. Local 215 organized itself into picketing teams with “call PACs” (political action committees) — quick telephone communication systems to inform the membership through daily reports from the picket lines. When workers did not return to the job, Reagan carried out his threat and fired them.
As the strike went into effect, PATCO was not without support. Support appeared from various other unions, both local, national and even international; Kevin Brophy received a letter from the British Vice-Chairman of the Society of Civil and Public Servants, offering advice from their own struggles and echoing support for PATCO’s efforts. Support even appeared from various airlines; Delta Airlines, Eastern Airlines and United Airlines each provided meals, free of charge, to Boston Tower air traffic controllers who showed up for duty.
As the strike wore on, controllers were replaced by a combination of military controllers and controllers-in-training (“developmentals”). Some controllers, including a number from Boston Tower PATCO, appealed their firing to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), one of three organizations that had replaced the former Civil Service Commission and whose responsibility it was to hear appeals from federal employees regarding potential abuses by management. According to Richard Sharpe,
The strikers were often working class men and women who had achieved suburban middle class lives as air traffic controllers without having gone to college. Many were veterans of the US armed forces where they had learned their skills; their union had backed Reagan in his election campaign. Nevertheless, Reagan refused to back down. Several strikers were jailed; the union was fined and eventually made bankrupt. Only about 800 got their jobs back when Clinton lifted the ban on rehiring those who had struck. Many of the strikers were forced into poverty as a result of being blacklisted for employment. (Retrieved from http://review31.co.uk/article/view/23/laying-down-a-marker.htm)
In October 1981, the union was decertified, and was later dissolved. The PATCO strike is seen as a turning point for the labor movement in the United States. Reagan’s refusal to negotiate and his insistence on upholding the firing of the controllers set a precedent for employers in the private sector in handling employees, whether striking or not. The impact on other unions was profound, and contributed greatly to the erosion of workers’ rights and the strength of organized labor.
The following list of significant personnel is provided to help distinguish who was internal vs. external to the labor union. The list is not exhaustive, but represents names that appear frequently throughout the collection:
Presidents of Boston Tower PATCO (in order of service)
- Stanley Matthews
- F. Robert (“Bob”) Sweezy
- Michael Fermon
- Kevin Brophy (during 1981 strike)
PATCO Regional Officers
- John Lapine
- George Kerr
- Michael Fermon
PATCO National Officers
- John Leyden
- Reobert Poli
- David Trick
FAA Boston Tower Chiefs
- Gary Tucker
- William Keepers
- John Boyce
FAA Regional
- Ferris Howland
- John Mattson
FAA National
- Langhorne Bond
Contents of Collection
The PATCO collection documents the activities of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, Local 215 (a.k.a. Boston Tower PATCO) based at Logan Airport in Boston prior to and during the air traffic controllers’ strike of 1981, a turning point for the labor movement in the U.S. The collection provides an in-depth record of the activities of Local 215 in the context of this increasing national friction between the air traffic controllers, the F.A.A. and the U.S. government.
The collection consists of four series: Administrative materials of Local 215; Air Traffic Control policies, procedures and records that the controllers had to work within; “Union Activities,” and “Printed Materials.” “Union Activities” makes up more than half of the collection, and consists of records of labor-management disputes, documentation of numerous safety concerns and related action, political activity and relevant legislation, public relations efforts, litigation activities, communication within the union as well as with organizations external to the union, meeting records, and activity leading up to and during the strike of 1981. One noteworthy report is the “Boston Tower Report,” chronicling the plight of Local 215 over a 10-year period, in essence telling their story as it unfolded through a chronological ordering of significant documents. There is also a small collection of unidentified color photographs showing various members of Local 215 during labor meetings or rallies.
This series includes records both of the everyday administrative activities of Local 215 and of several sets of reports related to employee health. In this series, researchers can find personnel policies, membership records, financial reports, and information on the bidding process that air traffic controllers followed as they vied for various positions. As the health implications of the stresses of air traffic control work became more apparent, a number of health-related research reports were conducted by outside researchers, and some of those published reports are included here. Complementing those reports are records and a report related to staffing and morale compiled by the union.
Documenting various aspects of the work of air traffic control, this series focuses primarily on operational concerns of the controllers in Local 215. This series includes records of frequent and ever-changing standard operating procedures issued by the F.A.A. as well as air traffic statistics and interactions with the airline pilots association, Massport (the organization overseeing the Logan Airport facility) and various airlines. Of particular note in this series are records related to noise abatement efforts involving the issuance of an environmental impact statement and the reconfiguration of take-off and landing routes. Also of note are records related to the reclassification of various air traffic control towers including Logan Airport, an action that led to some unrest and discontent among the Logan controllers.
The largest of the four series in this collection, this series includes records of the varied activities of Local 215. As would be expected for a union, there is a large collection of records related to labor/management relations, including both grievances and unfair labor practices, as well as elections of officers both nationally and locally, and communication within the union as well as with others outside the union, frequently with F.A.A. management. Local 215 members’ political activity is documented through correspondence with members of Congress to try to gain support for their position, with copies of relevant legislation, as well as congressional testimony from various leaders at the national union level. Their public relations activities included press releases, and a speaker program that included visits to local high schools’ career days. Of note here is the transcript of a 10-part TV series entitled “How Safe is Safe?” that aired on WBZ TV in Boston. In Box 9, the series includes a 16mm film of the news program and a reel-to-reel audio tape of several radio broadcasts on air safety that feature Michael Fermon in two interviews. Note that a digitized file of the radio broadcasts is available, though the digital file does not contain the entire set of radio broadcasts due to the unstable condition of the audio tape..
Of great interest are the records of Local 215’s activities leading up to and during the strike of 1981, including the organization of picketing activity, and internal organizational efforts and communication during the strike. The collection includes a copy of the letter from Ronald Reagan prior to his 1980 election, outlining his campaign pledge to support the controllers. The series also contains records of litigation primarily of controllers appealing their firing after the strike to the Merit Systems Protection Board. Finally, organizational history records include Local 215’s “Boston Tower Report,” a chronologically-arranged set of records that document Local 215’s telling of their own story, compiled to share with outside organizations and congress.
Various newsletters, newspaper clippings, reports, brochures and booklets make up the Printed Materials series. The newsletters originate primarily from PATCO, though the AFL-CIO and the F.A.A. are represented as well. Of note is information about the publication of the book, “Pressure Cooker: The Story of the Men and Women Who Control Air Traffic,” by Don Biggs, published in January 1980.
Administrative information
Access
The collection is open for research.
Language:
English
Provenance
Received from PATCO via John Frye in 1989
Processing Information
Processed by Susan E. Creighton, February 2018.
Copyright and Use (More information
)
Cite as: Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, Local 215 (Boston Tower PATCO) (MS 479 bd). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.