Skip to main content

Incident at Reagan National the product of a 30 year history…

By

The incident at Reagan National Airport is almost poetic in its irony. Exactly 30 years ago this coming August, President Ronald Reagan fired all of the nation’s over 11,000 air traffic controllers, busting PATCO the controller’s union and replacing them with less experienced replacement workers. Not only did Reagan’s move turn out to be the opening salvo in a 30 year long war on the American working class, the latest battle of which we are seeing waged in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and other states currently, but it dramatically reduced safety for the flying public. It is one of the clearest examples of the right wing’s disregard for worker rights and public safety when it interferes with their objective of leaner, meaner government.


Over the past 30 years, the air traffic controllers were able to re-organize into the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), but their power is nothing like that of PATCO 30 years ago. One outcome of this reduced power is that their regular complaints of un-safe staffing levels have gone largely unheeded. On Labor Express Radio over the past several years, primarily through our WIN segment (Workers Independent News), which has had excellent coverage of this topic, we have continually addressed NATCA’s desperate calls for attention to sever staffing problems at our airport’s control towers. Nothing highlighted the problem better than the Aug. 27, 2006 incident at the airport in Lexington, Kentucky when 49 people lost their lives aboard Comair Flight 191 because there was only one controller in the tower handling multiple controllers' responsibilities.


Now we see the right wing pushing for severe budget cuts at the federal and state levels for everything from fire departments to nuclear power plant safety. At the same time they are attempting to savage public sector unions much like Reagan did in 1981. Infamous Republican Governor Scott Walker regularly attributes his inspiration to his hero Reagan. How many lives will be lost to the Reagan philosophy on government and public safety? How many families will pay the price of the right wing’s budget cuts and union bashing either through increased poverty or lost family members? And for God sakes, can we now rename Reagan National for a real American hero as opposed to the right wing’s favorite anti-labor cult figure? How about for Steve Wallaert, President of PATCO Local 292, the first PATCO member to be JAILED by Reagan when he resisted the firing of the air traffic controllers. Now there’s a hero for you.


Here is a link to NATCA’s statement on the recent incident at Wallaert (I mean Reagan) National Airport…


http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/natca-statement-on-safe-staffing-for-air-traffic-control-shifts-118589264.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The occupation has ended but the struggle goes on…

By
The occupation of La Casita at Whittier was brought to a close tonight. The Whittier parents are declaring victory in the battle of La Casita as Ron Huberman’s office put in writing today the guarantee not to demolish the field house and to lease it to the parents group at $1 a year. However the war is far from over… The issue of the library is yet to be resolved. CPS still insists that they can find space inside the school building for the library. The parents insist there is no space in the school and that the library should be located in the field house. The parents insist that Huberman and Alderman Solis already agreed that TIF funds would be used to complete the repairs necessary at La Casita. Huberman’s letter today did not make this clear. A half block away from Whittier is the abandon police station on Damen which has sat vacant for several years. The parents say that Solis promised them that the build...
Post a Comment
Read more

R.I.P. UAW…

By
OK, I realize those are harsh words, but I can’t help feeling real sadness today as I read reports of what the UAW agreed to in its settlement with GM. As I am sure you have all heard already, the strike was ended today (after just two days), with the announcement by Gettelfinger that a tentative agreement had been reached. The exact details of the agreement won’t be known till at least late this week, when the members vote to ratify (or not) the contract. You can listen to audio of Gettelfinger’s announcement here… http://www.uaw.org/ Now I am not saying we should relish the idea of a long strike. Strikes are always much harder on the individual worker than they are on their corporate bosses. No one wants a long drawn out strike that leads to workers losing their homes, pulling kids out of college, sinking deeper into debt, etc., etc., etc. Let me say right of the bat, even though I have been a labor activist for 15 years, I have never myself had to endure the pain of a strike. But I ...
7 comments
Read more

Financial Crisis Brings Historic Opportunity…

By
www.whatnowtoons.com Wow, what a difference a few weeks can make. Less than a month ago, every mainstream mass media outlet, U.S. politician, economic analyst, and probably the majority of average citizens would still have been singing the praises of the unfettered free market. Regulation was still a dirty word and privatization was still equated with efficiency and prosperity. Granted, the sand had already begun to shift under this ideological edifice of 30+ years. The sub-prime mortgage crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble had seriously shaken the confidence of some in the system. I had mentioned repeatedly on Labor Express Radio over the Summer the glaring contrast between the soaring gas prices we experienced here in the laissez-faire fuel market of the U.S. as compared to the low and stable prices maintained by the state oil company of our neighbor to the south. But none of that seemed to really change the mainstream belief in this country that free markets solve all prob...
7 comments
Read more