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StumbleLETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Striking air traffic controllers made their own beds
Saturday, March 20, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.
Regarding Keith Hubbell’s Wednesday letter to the editor, headlined “Three decades of attacks on organized labor”:
Hubbell wrote that President Ronald Reagan fired union air traffic controllers in 1981, “sending a message to corporate America that it was open season on organized labor.”
PATCO, the air traffic controllers union, went on strike in an attempt to hold the flying public hostage solely for its own monetary gains. Air traffic controllers took an oath not to walk off the job and abandon the public. They were notified that they had 48 hours to return to work, but most did not.
So they broke the law and were terminated. I was there; I was an air traffic controller at the time.
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So what are you saying? That people should just take it and take it and take it, like teachers do here, because they do not have the mythical union power in Las Vegas that everyone assumes teachers have? Teacher lack of power is not good for children who are in classrooms with people who are terribly overworked and massively stressed out, but not receiving compensation that would counter those working conditions. Unions are a balance to the whims of the wealthy and powerful. If they aren't perfect, then the unions need work, but they do not need to be abolished.
Getting rid of the unions is not the answer. Workers need to be protected. Without the unions there will be no middle class. Just the rich taking advantage of the poor. And don't kid yourself, the rich take advantage of the poor as much as possible with the unions intact, but at least there is something to keep them from running rampant.
Mr. Reagan fired them, nobody missed them, they were replaced and the airlines kept flying just as well without them. I wonder why that would not work with the $250K firemen here in Clark County.
if you can fire the air traffic controllers...
you sure as hell can fire the firemen...
these clowns are hurting the community...
they must be fired...
right now!!!
So what are you saying? That people should just take it and take it and take it, like teachers do here, because they do not have the mythical union power in Las Vegas that everyone assumes teachers have?
__________
No, I think what he is saying is that union thugs have no right to hold the taxpaying public hostage to their demands. Hear that firefighters?
Hey Dan, The way I understood it was you people had a no strike clause but you went on strike anyway, which would have put you and your people in default of the union agreement. Others ways of disagreeing would have saved your jobs. They were in direct violation of their agreement.
@ teacher
How long are the taxpayers supposed to take it and take it? We don't have as much representation as you union people have.
"Air traffic controllers took an oath not to walk off the job and abandon the public. They were notified that they had 48 hours to return to work, but most did not."
Long -- the White House and ALL branches of our Republic should be so strict in holding ALL sworn officials and officers to the same standard. Government at every level would get cleaned up in a hurry.
Calthompain
God help you if you ever need one of our overpaid heroes. When was the last time you saved anyones life, risking your own in the transaction?
I agree that taxpayers need a break, but the wealthy should provide it, not the middle class, who, btw, are also taxpayers.
Ha! Ha! Ha! It's beyond funny. The people who believe that the "teachers union" in the Clark Country School District actually has power....
Wow! I didn't know that....I guess that's why teachers in the CCSD have such great salaries and have such ideal working conditions.
Why if the union doesn't get what it wants from the school district, they just take the teachers out on strike.....
That's happened several times in the last 20 years.....Ha! Ha! Ha!
Right, and water runs up hill and pigs can now fly! I just saw the Sun come up in the West this morning....what a beautiful sight!
@ Aprilgirl12
The first time I saved a life was March 10, 1966 in the A Shau valley. At that time it was a very bad neighborhood.
The second time was when I walked away from a hippie in the San Francisco airport after he called me a baby killer and then spit on me.
Life is nothing but a sh*t filled Twinkie April, and every day is another bite.
Nobody owes you nothing, least of all the rich people.
Hmmmmmm....after reading jlb101's post I see no reason why we should have air traffic controllers at all. He said:
"Mr. Reagan fired them, nobody missed them, they were replaced and the airlines kept flying just as well without them."
Maybe what we should do is fire all of them and just tell all the pilots that the first plane to reach air space with in a few miles of the airport is the first to land.... sort of a "survival of the fittest" approach.
Other wise, we're encouraging the pilots flying those planes to become parasites, hanging on & depending upon whatever the air traffic controllers tells them to do...
Of course, this might also encourage more competition among the air lines..... Those that can't cut it will fail and there will be more work for those that survive. Those passengers who live to fly another day will be tougher & more competitive in our society.....sounds like a plan to me! Ha! Ha! Ha!
I'm a member of the LMC-a union member and full-time worker. My life is all about working every day. No one owes me or gives me anything I didn't work for. I pay my share of taxes. My point was that the super rich have way more than they need and if anyone should pay more, it would be them. Many of them want to break the unions, treat their employees like dogs and pay the lowest wage possible; while they reap all of the benefits of the hard work by their employees. Then they want to go to fancy balls and "donate" to the underpriveleged. They should respect the unions and the workers who make the money for them in the first place. Eliminating the middle class is not going to help anyone.
Calthompian, the saying you are what you eat is true. If I were you, I'd stay away from the twinkies.
Think "unions are bad", and "banish unionism" forever, and that will give business a boost.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I think Aprilgirl12 has hit the nail on the head!
Her statement saying "eliminating the middle class is not going to help anyone" is very true.
American corporations are making hundreds of billions of dollars in profit, but sooner or later they're going to discover that the goods that they are making in the "dirt cheap labor markets" of the world will go unsold in this country.....
The reason being of course, is that Americans will not be able to buy those goods... The typical American wage earner will be priced out of the market.
Henry Ford knew that very thing when he was manufacturing automobiles approximately 100 years ago....that was one reason Henry paid his workers a great deal more than what his competitors paid their workers.
Henry was paying his workers $5.00 a day when the average wage in other industries was $2.50 a day.
This allowed Henry's workers to buy the cars that they were making.....this allowed Henry to not only sell more cars, but also to make more in profit.
Of course, the middle class in this country grew under the leadership of business people such as Henry Ford...
Seriously, how ignorant have Americans become? Open a history book. Big business makes profits that are orders of magnitudes (use a math book) higher than any SALARY a union employee will ever make. One Wall Street broker (read as crook) makes 3, 4 and 5 times a union employee's salary for STEALING people's money. But they're COOL, right? A high school dropout actor or athlete or rapper is worth $10,000,000 but a fireman, teacher, sanitation man is not? I have more respect for the guys who haul away my trash than I do for Trump,Bloomberg,Gates,actors, athletes, rappers, singers, etc. Grow up America!!!
"Think "unions are bad", and "banish unionism" forever, and that will give business a boost." - PierreBeauRegard
With only 12% of the work force belonging to unions, how is it possible they are wreaking all of this havoc?
Middle class wages have stagnated for the last 20 years, is that because of unions?
Prior to unions the middle class didn't exist.
quixotic59 has it right, open a history book and read. It seems some of you would rather get misinformed by the "boob tube", or should I use "plasma"?
Who many types of union in the US?
VernosB again hits the nail on the head...No surprise there!
His statement saying, "Prior to unions the middle class didn't exist" is 100% true.
Yes, the very fact that only 12% of the work force belongs to unions brings up the question, "how is it possible they are wreaking all of this havoc?"
Only 12%? That's amazing that they can do the damage that many anti-union people claim they are doing and yet be so small in numbers.....
History is a great teacher and predictor if we allow history to do it's job....It's a shame that so many people are limited in their knowledge of history...
"Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it."
(George Satayana)
Workers in the USA have to learn to fight for everything they get.
Unions unite workers. Workers have a safer working environment.
If we do not have a large middle class, then Las Vegas will be a dull memory in about 10-15 years.
$12 per hour Walmart workers will not sustain this place, and there ain't enough rich people to keep all these megaresorts going.
So you Republicans, who hate working people, get a clue! You are cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Diamonddogg.....
I agree with you...the demise of this country's middle class will bring about the end of this country. Las Vegas can't continue to depend upon the tourist dollar to make it, and jobs at WalMart and low level paying casino jobs do little to move this area forward...
We could & should learn a lot from the current recession, but I doubt that happens...
Dan, I was there as well and respectfully disagree with your summary of the PATCO walkout in 1981. Every failed marriage has two sides.
1-PATCO supported Reagan and he pledged to fix our equipment and staffing problems if elected as president.
2-All we wanted while he supposedly was working on our computer problems was "flow control" iow, do not launch too many airplanes when you know the computers can't handle them.
3-We wanted a four-day work week and computers that worked. Greed was not the issue.
4-In 1984, in a speech before the Supreme Soviet (Russian Congress), Reagan said, "It is every citizens inaliable right to strike against the gov't", speaking of the Polish shipyard workers on strike at the time.
5-I think that President Reagan was overall a great president and I never harbered any ill will towards him, but in my current career as an airline pilot, if I lost an engine twice a week (like the computer failures at Oakland Center during my time) I would walk away from this job as well.
6-I loved ATC but getting fired was the best thing (professionally) that ever happened to me.
All the best to you,
Chester Gault