benefits, but at the same time it can be what is accelerating media for this psychosocial epidemics. >> great. thank you so much for your time. >> thank you very much. >> the c-span campaign 2012 bus visits communities across the country. to follow the bus' travels, visit www.c-span.org/bus. >> and now on booktv, joseph mccartin recounts the professional air traffic controllers' organization call for an illegal strike in august of '81 and the subsequent firing of the strikers by president reagan. this lasts an hour, ten minutes. it took place at the jimmy carter presidential library and museum in atlanta, georgia. >> hey, everybody, thank you for

coming tonight. um, before i introduce joseph mccartin, i'd like to say a few words about what led to the collaboration between the two libraries on this event. some of them you may know that the southern labor archives which is part of southern collections and archives at georgia state university library houses the records of the professional air traffic controllers' organization. dr. mccartin used the collection before the collection was processed and opened for research. peterson, who was the grants librarian, and i, began writing a grant in hope of getting portions of the records digitized. we contacted dr. mccartin to see if he would write a letter of recommendation. when i made this first contact, he told me that a book he'd been working on would be published in the next year or so. cut to december of 2010. we received notification from the national historic publications and records commission that our grant proposal was accepted and that we would receive funding to digitize, um, close to 169,000

scans for, from the records. so what better way to get the word out about the grant than to invite joseph mccartin to atlanta to give a book talk? because he had performed research at the carter library as well as at the southern labor archives, he suggested that we reach out to them to see if we could co-sponsor the event. so, again, many thanks to the carter library for providing tonight's venue. and now to introduce joseph. b joseph a.m. mccartin is a historian of the u.s. labor movement and 20th century u.s. social and political history. he received his ph from the state university of new york at binghamton. he has been an associate professor of history at georgetown since 1999. for the last two years he's directed the initiative for labor and the working poor. the struggle for industrial democracy and the origins of modern american labor relations

won the phillip taft award. he has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from the national endowment for the humanities, the woodrow wilson international center for scholars and the charles bourne center at harvard united states. his essays have been published in such publications as the new republic, "the new york times" and journal of american history, among others. his current research explores the impact of public sector labor organizations on politics, government and private sector labor relations. this is the interests that led him to write the book he is here to speak about this evening, "collision course: ronald reagan, the air traffic controllers and the strike that changed america." please help me welcome dr. joseph a. mccartin. [applause]

>> thank you very much, traci. appreciate that introduction, and thank you very much for your work, preserving the labor movement in the southern labor archives at georgia state university. um, without that repository, i couldn't have written this book, and we would know much less, i think, about one of the most important events in recent american labor history. thanks, too, to my hosts here at the carter center, especially tony clark and director jay hakes. i did an important segment of my research here at the carter library and worked at other presidential libraries, the kennedy library and, of course, the library of ronald reagan. for those of you who don't though them, these presidential libraries are really a treasure-trove of american history, and we're all indebted to the folks that maintain these records and make them available to future historians and really to the public and american

citizens. so it's a pleasure to be here to speak with you tonight about my book, "collision course: ronald reagan, the air traffic controllers and the strike that changed america," which is officially released, in fact, today. when more than 12,000 members of the professional air traffic controllers' organization, patco, walked off their jobs with the federal aviation administration on august 3, 1981, one shrewd analyst noted their illegal strike had been in the making almost since the moment that their unionon was founded. it was the inevitable choice because most of patco's 12-year existence appears to have been preparation for this moment. the controllers had such a long history of militancy before 1981

that it was not surprising in some ways that they became the first union to stage carefully choreographed and planned nationwide strike against the federal agency. and yet the journalist was puzzled that white collar workers with what this journalist called a keen appreciation for the professionalism of their calling, that workers like this would strike against the government. newspaper columnist jimmy breslin made a similar observation as he watched patco strikers and their families gather on long island to rally two days after their strike began on august 5, 1981. at precisely the moment when they were about to be fired for defying a deadline set by president ronald reagan to return to work. breslin wrote: at the moment that they were supposed to be fired on order of the president,

these members of suburban, white america -- all these air traffic controllers and their wives and children -- became silent, and now their fists shot up into the air in what the surprised columnist called a stokely carmichael salute. the '60s were long gone, breslin mused, but here he wrote, quote: 13 years and more later suburbanite america finally catches up. here were people from north battle on long island shooting their fists into the air in protest existence their government -- against their government. these journalists were clearly fascinated by the seeming incongruities of the patco strike and illegal walkout by highly-trained professional workers, a brazen defiance of a conservative president by a union that had endorsed his election only months earlier.

a rejection of reagan's ultimatum by workers who appeared to be among his most loyal constituents. air traffic controllers, after all, were overwhelmingly suburban, white male military veterans. the typical reagan constituency in many people's eyes. so much about the patco strike seemed to suggest its exceptional nature, to emphasize its ab represent character. aberrant character. these very characteristics, i think, have made it hard for scholars to understand the strike in more than a superficial way. most treatments of the controllers have tended to use their strike to make a point. labor defenders use the strike as a milestone marking the onset of a period of aggressive union busting in the united states. or as a cautionary tale meant to

criticize the timidity to have afl-cio's leadership before reagan's act of busting patco. union opponents cite this strike as a blow against union tyranny. as proof that collective bargaining has no place in government, or they state it as the galvanizing moment of the reagan presidency, reagan's singlemost significant, symbolic act. but as i try to argue in this book, probing more deeply into the story behind this conflict moves us beyond superficial observations and sheds light on the forces that remade america between 1960 when this story began and 1981 when the air traffic controllers struck creating a defining moment in recent american history.

understanding those forces, i think, gives us important lessons for today. to set the context for this and to explain more about what i mean here, i'd like to read a passage from the introduction to my book. the intro is called, "getting the picture," and that title refers -- i know there's at least one controller here tonight, one former controller, maybe others. folks who know air traffic control know what that phrase means. it refers to the procedure that air traffic controllers go through as they prepare to come on duty and take over a sector from somebody else who is working it. they sit down, they plug in, and they listen to the air traffic controller working until they can report to that controller, i've got the picture. i understand what's going on in the sector, and i'm prepared to take over. here it carries a double meaning, for it refers also to

the process by which one of the book's main figures -- patco's co-founder jack maher -- came to realize suddenly the enormity of the event that was unfolding on a hot august day in 1981 as the union that he had helped to start and create found itself locked in battle with a popular president. the opening of my book juxtaposes this tense moment in 1981 with an event that took place more than 20 years earlier. an event that haunted jack maher and anybody who was working in air traffic control at that time. for much of their careers. it was an event that occurred over new york city on december 16th, 1960, when a mid-air collision occurred resulting in the loss of 134 lives.

jack maher had been working in the facility that was handling air traffic that day. he was not at fault for this accident, in fact, no air traffic controller was. but he knew the controller whose screen belatedly showed the two blips or targets coming together just before the moment they collided on that awful morning. and he and his coworkers were changed by that horrific event. that event, as i show, was the spark that started controllers like maher organizing in the early 1960s. they had long complained of their faulty equipment, their mandatory overtime hours, six-day workweeks required at that time. faulty equipment, inadequate staffing. when they realized in the aftermath of this strike that

their employer, the faa, was more concerned with avoiding blame for the accident than with responding to the real problems in the system, they decided that they had to organize. so the book opens by describing that and then moves forward 20 years to a point when jack maher found himself witness to another horrible collision about to happen. more than 20 years later retired from air traffic control and live anything south carolina, jack maher could still not shake the memories of that dreadful morning, december 1960. he had been working on the radar screens in the hangar 11 then, and he had directed the twa for a few minutes over eastern pennsylvania beforehanding it off to other controllers. he knew the radar controller most affected by the accident,

ronnie. the events of that december day were forever seared into his consciousness. those memories came flooding back again on august 3, 981. -- 1981, when maher awoke, turned on his radio to hear the news. over 12,000 air traffic controllers, three-quarters of the work force of the federal aviation administration, had walked off their jobs. the men and women who normally directed air traffic to, from and between more than 400 airports in the largest air traffic system in the world were defying laws that made it illegal for federal workers to strike. pledging not to return until the government raised their pay, shortened their workweeks and took other measures to reduce the stress of their jobs. the walkout was more than a news story to maher.

the strikers were members of the professional air traffic controllers' organization, patco, a union that had grown out of the per sint efforts of maher and other veterans of hangar 11 to organize in the aftermath of the 1960 disaster. it took several years and some abortive efforts to build that union. maher was its co-founder. he gave it its name. in 1981 he was no longer formally connect today patco having resigned from its staff in a squabble with its president a year earlier. he had decided then to move south to confront his alcoholism, but in truth maher's heart was still with the union he had helped to found. during the summer of 1981, he had closely followed its contract talks with the administration of president ronald reagan, the announcement that the negotiations had broken down and patco was striking did not surprise him.

he knew the 1981 contract negotiation would be difficult. the union had prepared for three years for this moment and decided long before that if government did not address its demands, it would organize something unprecedented. a coordinated national strike. maher had led the effort to design that strike plan. he had recruited and trained the key strike organizers. he understood every aspect of the union's strike strategy. he knew that if patco was calling a strike, it leaders believed they were in a position to shut down the nation's air traffic. as maher reflected on the 20 years of struggle that had led to this moment, his thoughts turned to his longtime friend and partner in the finding of

patco, mike rock, another veteran of hangar 11. maher knew exactly where rock would be at that moment. and the union's strike headquarters, a secret safehouse, the bunker. maher or himself had picked it out on a rundown street near the capitol in washington. from that location rock was helping to direct something never before seen, a carefully planned, illegal strike stretching from puerto rico to guam, from key west to anchorage against the most powerful government in the world. maher resolved at that moment that he had to go to washington. he was determined to stand in solidarity with rock and his friends. jumping in his car, he sped to i-95 and headed north. as the miles rolled by, the car

radio carried frequent bulletins of the walkout. announcers reported that scheduled flights had been cut in half that morning, and a skeleton crew of nonstrikers, supervisors and hastily-deployed military air traffic controllers was scrambling to handle the remaining flights. rental car agencies and train and bus depots were swamped with worried travelers. analysts were offering staggering predictions of the strike's potential cost if it continued for more than a few days. it seemed to maher that the plan was working. there was no way the government could refuse to improve its contract offer in the face of this strike, he thought. his optimism was not diminished by president reagan's statement from the white house rose garden at 11 a.m. reagan announced to the assembled press corps and millions watching on television

that his administration would not negotiate with controllers engaged in an illegal strike. be if strikers fail to return to work within 48 hours, he explained, they would be terminated from their jobs and permanently replaced. what lesser action can there be, reagan asked, the law is very explicit. they are violating the law. maher thought reagan was posturing, talking tough for the cameras while behind the scenes negotiators were probably discussing details of a possible settlement at that very moment. that was how patco's previous, albeit smaller-scale confrontations with the federal government had gone, maher remembered. there was no reason to believe that the pattern would not be repeated now with three-quarters of the nation's air traffic controllers out on strike. maher was sure that reagan would

not fire more than 10,000 skilled specialists that the government had spent hundreds of millions of dollars and many years to train. not when they were seeking only improved working conditions and fair compensation after years of seeing salaries lag behind inflation, not when dismissing them would ultimately cost more than meeting their demands. yet at maher sped toward washington, the ironies of the situation in which his friends and former colleagues found themselves were obvious. air traffic controllers tended to love their work as much as they hated the faa's management style, complained about government pay scales and griped about their stressful workplaces. on this hot august morning, thousands of them were risking the careers they had hoped would

guarantee them a middle class lifestyle. although they were breaking federal law in an unprecedented effort to shut down the nation's air travel, they were hardly radicals. on the contrary, the vast majority of them were suburb-dwelling military veterans who like maher had first learned air traffic control while in the service. the strike's field coordinator hand-picked by maher was a deck decorated vietnam war hero. most of the thousands of veterans in the union's ranks had not been drafted into the service, they had willingly enlisted. after their discharge, they had applied for jobs with the faa because they found the work better paying than their other options because it was exciting, and because it offered them something unavailable to americans who lacked college careers as most controllers did; the chance to become professionals. they were striking now because they felt that they had to

protect their profession from the degradation of diminished real earnings and increased stress. i don't even think air traffic controllers should have the right to strike, explained jim stacum, the 33-year-old strike leader at the faa's air route traffic control center outside washington in leesburg, virginia. we're striking against the federal government now because for ten years we have exhausted every means at our disposal with the government. at this point we've been forced to strike, he said. a marine veteran of the siege of cant yen, one of the or bloodiest fire fights of the vietnam war, stacum was not intimidated by the president's ultimatum. i'm standing up for something i believe in, and i'm not about to fold, he added. as jack her well knew -- maher

well knew, strikers meant what they said. he found the irony in the situation almost too excruciating to contemplate. ronald reagan, past president of the screen actors' guild, the only former union official ever to occupy the oval office, a man whose election patco had endorsed only nine months earlier condemning good people like jim as lawbreakers and threatening them with dismissal, perhaps even jail? but in many ways it was not surprising that the air traffic controllers and reagan found themselves in a showdown on august 3, 1981, for in a sense the conflict had been long in the making. both reagan and patco were, in many respects, products of the 1960s although disparate products, to be sure. the seeds of reagan's political

career and patco's to have mission, in fact, were both sewn during the presidency of john f. kennedy. a new deal liberal in the days when he led the screen actors' guild after world war ii, ronald reagan gradually drifted rightward in the 1950s as his movie career faded. but he remained nominally a democrat until the kennedy administration's policies convinced him to leave the party of his youth. kennedy's liberalism appalled reagan. writing to richard nixon, the man kennedy had defeated in the 1960 election, reagan lashed out at the sitting president and his policies. under the tussled, boyish haircut is still old karl marx, reagan wrote, first launched a century ago. there is nothing new in the idea of a government being big brother to us all. switching his registration to

the republican party in 1962, reagan began to map out the political career that would eventually carry him to the white house. the same year, kennedy signed executive order 10988 which allowed millions of federal workers to join unions and to bargain with the u.s. government over some of the conditions of their work. kennedy's order inspired many states and localities to also allow their workers to join unions and bargain collectively, prompting a massive wave of unionization across all levels of government in the 1960s and '70s. it was the kennedy order that cleared the way for a union-organizing drive among air traffic controllers. among them, maher and his co-founder of patco, mike rock.

an organizing drive that would culminate in the founding of patco in 1968 in a hotel room only 10 miles from the site to have mid-air collision that had started the organizing eight years earlier. both the conservative movement which reagan was identified with and the public sector labor movement that produced group ons like patco gathered strength as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s. in a sense, these two '60s spawned forces had been on a collision course for years, and on august 3, 1981, the day of reckoning had arrived. the confrontation came at a crucial moment in american political and economic history. as the reagan revolution began refashioning the role of government in american life in

1981, cutting back regulation and spending on social programs, american workers were entering a period of enormous absolutely network. vulnerability. already the economy was sliding into a recession that would push unemployment to 10% in 1982, its highest levels since before world war ii. income growth had stagnated for most worker, indeed, inflation-adjusted hourly pay had begun to decline in formerly vibrant sectors like manufacturing. moreover, the labor movement -- once the bulwark of the liberal order -- seemed unable to resist these trends. unions had been severely weakened by the economic developments of the '70s as container ships began disgorging imports in bulk, as oil prices skyrocketed, as stagflation appeared, as factories closed in

waves and as employers began fighting unions with a level of determination unseen since the new deal. as the share of workers organized and unions slipped under 22% in 1981 down from its high of 35% after world war ii, the labor movement was already losing clout. one indicator of the shift little noticed at the time was a subtle change in strike activity, a careful study of statistics showed that employers were more likely to try to break strikes after 1975 than they had been for the first 30 years after world war ii. increased employer resistance was already beginning to have an effect by the spring of 1981. the annual number of work stoppages or strikes recorded by the bureau of labor statistics fell by 20% in 1980.

it seemed that workers' confidence in their ability to win strikes was wavering. just as the controllers' walkout began. at this most significant strike of the late 20th century was unfolding in the public sector among government workers was it ironic. the rise of public employee unions in the years after kennedy's order in 1962 had been one of the happiest developments for organized labor since the new deal. the growing numbers of unionized government workers, like air traffic controllers, had partially offset the falling rate of private sector unionization. but on august 3rd the tables suddenly turned. the public sector union movement that had buoyed labor's fortunes for nearly two decades was now the source of a potentially devastating blow. an illegal and unpopular strike by patco's federal employees

erupting just as employers' resistance to strikes was rising across the board, threatening to place all of organized labor on the defensive. yet jack maher was not primarily concerned with the political implications or the historic significance of the patco strike as he drove toward washington. .. only when the comptroller coming

on duty assured the first comptroller that he quote had the picture. as he arrived in washington late in the day on august 3 from his long drive, maher's first instinct was to get the picture so he rushed to patco a north capitol street pumping everyone he saw for information. when maher learn patco president robert was out of the office, he assumed that he was in secret negotiations with the reagan people but no one maher was aware of any negotiations underway. as far as anyone in a patco off his new. the white house was refusing to talk while the comptrollers remained on strike. the one bit of news maher did pick up he judged to be insignificant, a rumor about some former secretaries of labor were offering to mediate the

conflict. and the person who share this with him sworn to secrecy about it, subi began to worry. if that rumor was the best pet -- patco have the situation was worse than he anticipated her go there might be no back channel negotiations undertaken before reagan's 48 hour deadline passed. yet as maher left the headquarters he still believe that as long as the strikers ranks held the union would prevail. the next morning he decided to get the views of his longtime collaborator, mike brock who is still in patco's secrets a thousand miles from the capital. as maher wind it his way towards the secret location he thought about the many jams he and rob had found themselves in over the years since they have helped bring patco to birth in 1968. it had never been an easy proposition organizing a strong

union in the federal sector under rules that made it illegal not only to strike but also to negotiate over pay or benefits. maher and roth had to push the legal envelope many times before and threatened repeatedly with firing or worse. but they had never faced the situation quite as serious as this one. if anyone had the nerve to steer the union to victory maher thought it was surely roth. mike strike as the patco members jokingly call him. gets one rough open the szabo store maher's confidence was not inspired by the sight of his friend. roth was worried. this was unlike him. impasse battle the government rock and on this day maher found his friend uncharacteristically subdude. thinking that roth might only be tired and hoping to pick up his

pals spirits, maher recounted the news he had claimed that the union's headquarters the night before including the rumor about potential mediators. isn't it the silliest thing? this guys wearing me to secrecy over the offer of a committee? maher chuckled. that roth did not share the laugh. instead, he delivered his own grim diagnosis. reagan was determined to break the strike roth said and when a president takes a stand like that, no union can force them to back down. then turning to the man who had helped him found patco am a roth says while jackie, we got to the end of the road. it's all over now. maher was incredulous. mike strike ready to throw in the towel in only one day into the walkout? he tried to shake roth from his

bunk. all was not lost he insisted. patco still held high charge. he reminded that roth of the logic behind the union strike strategy. the government would be forced to come to terms with the strikers maher argued no matter what the president said. reagan could not fire recorders of a air traffic control workforce and hopes to operate in air transportation system or long. americans will never tolerate paying many billions more to break a strike when it would cost patco's contract demands. training 10,000 new recruits and reducing flight schedules for years to come would be a price too high for the government to pay. roth disagreed. now the patco was on strike he countered, reagan would welcome the chance to demonstrate that his administration would pay any price rather than yield to pressure from the union.

try as he might, maher could not convince him otherwise. when their visit came to an end maher left the safe house fervently hoping that roth was wrong. the situation couldn't have been more unnerving for jack maher. with a deadline fast approaching and what was our day shaping up to be the most momentous american strike of the second half of the 20th century, the man whose judgment maher most trusted believe that the union that they had found it together was about to be broken and destroyed. making matters worse, maher realized that it might already be too late for patco to change course. it was doubtful that comptrollers would heed a last-minute back to work order from the union's national leaders unless it was accompanied by a new contract offer from the government. the strikers have assumed all along that the government might try to dismiss them before

ultimately compromising. indeed, this assumption was built into the strike plan that maher had helped to conceive. organizers had prepared the union's members in advance for this strike. they have also explained if the striker stuck together they would make it impossible for the government to carry through a mass firing. as the deadline approached patco's ranks were holding firm. like jim stake in of northern virginia air traffic comptrollers were standing up for something in which they passionately believed and they were not about to fold. instantly, the patco reagan standoff assumed the aspect of a tragedy inexorably unfolding with each tick of the clock. with the president's deadline only 24 hours away, a collision now seemed inevitable. that coalition not only threatened disaster for striking

air traffic comptrollers, it also have the potential to undermine the long-term integrity of the air traffic control system, lucinda moral restraints that it caps private sector entity union -- anti-unionism in check and exposed a glaring flaws of the american system of labor relations before tens of millions of workers whose incomes and dignity depended upon its presumed protections. workers who have never boarded an airplane, let alone seen the inside of the control tower. it was an aircraft that comptrollers worst nightmare. the sickening scenario that had haunted maher's dreams ever since that grim december morning in 1960. two targets were converging, each sweep of the radar saw them draw closer to a collision. but it was too late to issue any

new beck tears. too late for course corrections. all maher could do was watch helplessly as the targets came together, hoping that his friend was mistaken, praying that a disaster could be averted. and wondering how it had come to this. so this is how i opened the booe realization even at the moment that the strike was still in its first 24 hours, that it portended possible disaster not only for maher and his friends, but for the country in many ways. in the pages that follow, i explain how that moment came about and how that moment changed this country and i believe it did. the story picks up in the aftermath of the 1960 disaster

and traces air traffic comptrollers efforts to organize a union in the 1960s that explains how they were both simultaneously inspired and frustrated by john f. kennedy's executive order, which gave them the promise of bargaining with the government but so restricted with a good bargain about. it barely changed anything they felt. and it explains the resistance by the faa to any organization that comptrollers that was there from the very beginning in the early 1960s, a resistance that set in place i didn't hamm between the air traffic comptrollers and their employer that else over time and that ultimately led to the 1981 strike. the book goes on to show how the comptrollers adopted ingenious methods to build an organization despite the government's resistance in the 60s. how they enlisted a famous trial

lawyer f. lee bailey to help them organize their union. how they used a variety of tactics, slowdowns, work for rule actions, sick outs one of which by the way was signaled by a code phrase uttered by bailey when he was appearing on johnny carson's late-night show, the tonight show. how they use tactics like these to try to pressure the government to listen to them. it shows how they stage the first air traffic control strike in 1970 under the guise of a sick outs under the cover of a sickout. they called in sick for three weeks. about 3000 air traffic comptrollers. they tried to get the government to listen to some of their concerns. it shows how in the aftermath of that conflict they cut a secret deal with the nixon administration that a boy to comptrollers jobs permanently for basically striking against

the government in 1970, and in fact even won recognition for patco within a couple of years at that job action. it shows how the union grew over the course of the 1970s under a pretty remarkable union leader named john lehman who was able to balance various factions within the union and to project just enough militancy to try to get the government to respond to patco's concerns without endangering the union. but the book goes on to show how come over the course of the 1970s, the comptroller's efforts to have their voices heard became increasingly frustrating for them. and they found it, they found themselves unable to negotiate over the things that mattered most to them. they were forced to fight over ancillary issues like free

training flights and in the meanwhile the faa continued to resist most of their efforts to win reforms. it was during the carter years and i did important parts of the research for this but here in the carter library. it was in the carter years the book argues that things really began to get very difficult for patco, and patco begins to lurch toward the conflict that ultimately happened under reagan in 81. patco found itself caught between restrictive federal collective bargaining rules on the one hand and the social, economic and political changes that were underway in america in the 1970s on the other. all of this serves to weaken the grip of john layton on the leadership of the union. comptrollers saw their dreams of using their skills become upwardly mobile professionals challenged in the mid-70s by

the bane that challenge much of americans in those years, inflation, which nipped at the heels of federal workers. in effect federal workers as a whole were suffering a 3% wage cut in real purchasing power for their wages over the course of the middle part of the 1970s. most federal workers didn't feel they could do much about that, but muttered under their breath, air traffic comptrollers however got the idea that they could challenge that and they could try to win back further militancy, wages that inflation was taking from them. the book describes how the deregulation of the airlines in the 1970s created a situation that complicated air traffic control and made many air traffic comptrollers feel that their work was being sped up and becoming harder, and it recounts also the way that the air

traffic comptroller workforce changed over the course of the 1970s as african-americans and women began to diversify that workforce that had once been predominantly white male until very slowly and with resistance often did this diversification take place. and, how the union was changed by the culture of comptrollers who came into the ranks of air traffic control facilities in the mid-1970s who were affected by the 1960s and especially by the vietnam era and the vietnam conflict. many comptrollers, more than 80%, came out of the military. many of them were disillusioned already with their government because of vietnam and what they experience there and what they saw at the faa deepened their dissolution. amid all of these changes sentiment began to build on long comptrollers that they could win for themselves if they stuck

together, real changes in their work laces, that they could force the government to do something that had never done before, to fully recognize the collective bargaining rights of workers. that is, allow air traffic comptrollers to bargain over their wages and benefits in other parts of their jobs. they came to believe that they could win this. it was at precisely this moment that ronald reagan entered their lives and into the picture. as comptroller militancy was growing in the late 70s at their determination to improve their situation grew, then came the election between jimmy carter and ronald reagan. by this point, the comptrollers were so disaffected with the carter administration's faa that they didn't consider really endorsing carter's re-election. they thought it would be more of the same.

they began negotiating with reagan's campaign and ultimately arrived at an agreement. they would endorse reagan and in return reagan would promise to help them if he was elected president. the book goes deeply into this and i will be happy to answer more questions about it if you have them. but i will just simply say that, that bargain created expectations on each side that were unrealistic and that couldn't be fulfilled, and each side misread the other. the reagan people believed that they were bringing into the republican fold reagan democrats. most patco members were democrats though they endorsed reagan, but they were socially conservative very often and they were sympathetic to much of what reagan stood for an strong foreign-policy, etc.. republicans thought they were bringing in part at the labor movement behind the reagan

coalition. once elected, they wanted to work with patco to us for patco a contract that they felt would reward patco for that endorsement also signal to others, unions and more conservative union members that allying with ronald reagan with a good for you and actually in the negotiations that broke down that summer in 1981 the reagan administration went further than any previous administration had gone in trying to offer the comptroller something. they actually did bargain with patco over what the law did not allow them to bargain over, wages and benefits but primarily wages. they made an offer to patco that no previous administration had done. the problem was that by that point, that offer was so small compared to what the comptrollers believed that they would get, and their expectations were quite different that they ended up

rejecting the offer. comptrollers looked at reagan and i thought, this man will help us really fundamentally change the system that so bothers us and having broke in with the rest of the organized labor to endorse him, they expected a big breakthrough at the bargaining table. they were disappointed by what reagan offered. and then they misread reagan as well. they sought his willingness to go that far as evidence that they pushed them a little further, they could get more from him. and they determined to do it. they would shut down the nation's air transit system. and so came to pass the moment that jack maher began to fully grasp that was left -- less than 24 hours left before reagan's deadline and the cold war context at that moment ensure that it would do maximum damage

to these comptrollers. i think publicly set a 48 hour deadline on national television. ronald reagan was not inclined to waiver lest he sent signals he was not a resolute leader. for the same reason he later rejected all pleas for mercy and the rehiring of comptrollers even those coming from other republicans like jack kempe, then representative future vice presidential candidate for the republican party. jack campbell supported reagan's ultimatum on august 3, but after months passed it was clear that the strike had been broke in, kempe pleaded with reagan and said you know mr. president, you have one, rehire these people or at least most of them. save the country money and improve air safety, and show mercy. it will be good. but reagan was not interested. in many ways the more expensive,

the more dangerous is busting of patco was, the more that act was bound to impress one that reagan was determined to impress, soviet leaders. so it came to pass that jack maher, so came to pass that moment that jack maher and so many others thought would never,, the mass firing of more than 11,000 skilled specialists and their banishment not only from their jobs for from their careers for there was no other employer for people of this training in the united states. in many ways i think we are still picking through the wreckage from that collision that occurred 30 years ago now. one of the last legacies of that fateful events of turns out was the rapid dissolution of all

u.s. workers ability to use strikes as leverage in dealing with their employers. when reagan came into the rose garden on that first morning to lay down his ultimatum he was quick to distinguish the patco strike from strikes and the private sector. he steadfastly supported private-sector workers rights to strike. he said indeed he reminded the audience that he had led the screen actors guild on its first strike in 1952. but the distinction that reagan drew between patco comptrollers and private sector workers was quickly blurred. once the president of the united states legitimized strike again by firing patco's strikers, many their employers followed suit. the 19 '80s saw many prominent cases of strike raking after patco. the number of busted strikes

began to rise after 1981. workers grew afraid to use strikes ymore. the u.s. had averaged about 270 major strikes, that is strike that involved at least 1000 workers each. about 270 a year before 1980. after 1981 that number plummeted quickly. just two years ago it was five, from 270 down to five and in 2009 the total number of workers in the united states that engaged in a strike was about 12,000. all workers, which is roughly the number of people who walked out on august 3, 1981 and one particularly infamous strike. workers no longer had the power to strike and they did not in the united states today. no one likes strikes that we may come to like a strike list world

even less than a world in which workers feel that they have that power. for there is no doubt that the erosion of workers ability to pressure employers even the unreasonable ones, the loss of that power has accelerated the inequality that is now so rampant in this country. income inequality that now is approaching levels not seen in a century. i think there is one final legacy that i will touch-tone about the patco strike. just as reagan's decision to last patco changed patterns of private-sector labor relations it also bore genu political patterns i think in this country. remember, ronald reagan entered political office seeking the support of the union, seeking its endorsement with patco. when he left office he largely

gave up on the prospect of a republican labor alliance. nor did any republican successors to reagan show much interest in reaching out to the labor movement. in fact reagan's act of strike breaking helped inspire a new generation of conservatives far more antiunion than reagan the former union leader had ever been. we see evidence of this i think all around us today. last spring for example when governor scott walker was in wisconsin prepared to roll back collective bargaining rights in his state, he pointed to reagan's breaking of patco as an inspiration. never for a minute did walker consider that reagan, his hero, had never opposed collective bargaining for government workers are going deep reagan had gone further than any previous president in an effort, in his efforts to bargain with patco.

he had only opposed strikes by federal workers, but by 2011 this to longer mattered. time to it changed what it meant to be a conservative. conservatives now by and large oppose unions in any form and as a result partisan bickering now paralyzes all efforts to discuss, let alone passed, any effort to reform an and outdated labor laws. i think in many ways, what happened to patco 30 years ago helped lead us to the moment we are now and as a nation. it is not i think a good moment to be a worker in the united states. indeed, it is not a good moment for america in many ways. my books of one is meant to allude as much to this moment is the one that came about in 1981.

surveying the state of working-class america today, declining real wages and an inability to claim productivity gains that come from workers labor back to workers in the form of increased income. retirement is growing increasingly insecure. workers are too afraid to risk organizing unions. it's hard to escape the conclusion that we are on an unsustainable path as inequality grows and that we are headed for a collision that could make the tragedy of 1981 pale in comparison. headed for a collision between the thwarted aspirations of today's workers and the grim realities that they are now facing in which the future seems to hold less promise than the

past for american workers. and so by telling this story of a tragedy for this nation and workers in 1981, this book is also meant to serve as a warning, a warning that we take stock of our own moment, that we hear the cries of those for whom our system has ceased to work, the forgotten people who work out of sight. i was often struck by the fact that one of the real problems the air traffic comptroller faced is that nobody saw them do their work. you see your flight attendant, you see your pilot, and at the end of the flight the pilot is there and you can thank them but the other people who got you there are invisible. and in many ways i think they are a metaphor for much of america today, who are invisible

to us and who are suffering out of sight. it is important i think that we think about this moment in light of the story that i have to tell. and, that they think about the wisdom that comes in a proverb that i used to open this book and that we heed that wisdom. the proverb goes like this. the beginning of strike is like the opening of the dam. therefore, satellite quarrel before it begins. thank you very much. [applause] >> lets take a few minutes for questions. if you have got a question please raise your hand. joe will recognize it but please wait for the microphone.

>> professor, i was a comptroller. i was a comptroller during all that time. is in the military and a comptroller in new york and one of the things that we were told was there was a 300,000 member poster unit ready to go out and president reagan use the comptrollers as an example so he fired the 15,000 to keep the 300,000 member poster union because he didn't want to lose them. 's be that is a very interesting and important question. in the summer of 1981 a lot of things were going on and one of them was that postal workers were in the middle of negotiating a contract. now, the postal workers had tentatively agreed on a contract with the federal government before the air traffic comptrollers walked out but they were voting on that contract by mail and that code would continue well into august. and the reagan administration

was mindful of the fact that if it did cave in to, as it sought, comptroller divans in the strike, postal workers would immediately reject the contract that had been tentatively agreed to by their leaders. they would vote it down and they would want whatever patco got and would strike if they took it to get that. it was on the minds of the reagan people but i would say this, that even more present on their minds was the idea that even if the postal worker warned out there threatening to have their own job actions, they did not want the image of a president being forced to back down on an offer he had made by a union and they were determined even if the postal workers weren't there that they weren't going to do that but still that was on people's mind. that is a good question.

yes. >> in 1978, president jimmy carter signed the civil service reform act. the result of that was to make federal sector collective bargaining statutory. and so my question is, what if any impact that event had on that direction that patco was to go? >> that's a wonderful question and i alluded earlier to the fact that collective bargaining rights first came to the federal government through an executive order by john kennedy. nixon then issued one that widened it somewhat but it wasn't until 1978 as the questioner said, that this was written into a law passed by congress that federal workers have certain rights. i tell the story of the 1978th civil service reform act of my book and i explained that it

deeply disappointed air traffic comptrollers, and some others in the federal government, the treasury employees union for example. and both patco in the treasury employees union's were two of the unions pushing hardest for one thing to be included in that bill. they wanted the right to negotiate over -- and that bill did not give federal workers that right. there was one reason why they were so disappointed with carter, and because they believe carter should have given them that right and impact it was after 1978 and they realize that no file would come in to give them the right to bargain, that they started to think the only way that they could get it was through militancy, that they would a calm push by walking out what the congress had not given them in the 1978 l.. but your question is super and it gets at one of the real crux is that the story which is, what happened in the carter years

that many people in labor felt were so disappointing for people in labor, not just public sector folks but many in the labor movement and that helped to fuel ted kennedy's challenge to carter in the primaries of 1980. but they were deeply disappointed with that bill. yes? wait until the mic gets to you. >> reagan really disliked government employees and thought they were superfluous for the most part. the first thing he did when he left the dais being sworn in was to freeze federal employees and then he abolished the program i have been working in. then he tried to abolish two departments including mind, and then in 84 he came up with a

retirement system which was far inferior to what existed. so is my perception ron? >> no, i don't think your perception is wrong. i mean, there is one thing we associate with ronald reagan and i think it is accurate. he thought government was too big and he thought there were too many federal workers, and he believed much more in private-sector of course than he did in government and i think that morale among federal workers plummeted in the early 1980s. you know one of the best that i have read is haynes johnson's the journalists book called sleepwalking through history, the history of the reagan years. he talks about the impact of reagan's seeming when the neglect of federal workers on the federal workers themselves. i don't think your perception is all that wrong.

i would add though one thing, that i think in history we have assumed that reagan was more antiunion than in fact he really was and in part i think that is partly what happened with the patco situation that him in history in that particular way. he thought government was too big but he never did oppose the idea of collective bargaining in government. in fact, you know in this is something many conservatives today would publicly be surprised by. as governor of california he signed a bill, the myers melius brown mack that brought collective bargaining to localities, governments localities throughout the state. so that is an important thing to add to our perception of reagan. but i think your perception is right. >> bush was the one, bush to the wanted to contract out everything he could.

>> reagan appointed some people here call the grace commission in the 1980s. and the whole idea behind it was to bring private-sector minds together to figure out how government could be done better and not surprisingly a lot of those folks said, wealthy contract out this work that will actually be better. and it will be more efficient and it will be cheaper. by the way i should say some recent studies have shown contracting is actually more expensive and often less effective. so, i i don't think historically those things have panned out, but that was a push in the reagan years too and it was widened, you are right, in the bush years. >> what do you think the future of the air traffic control profession is, given the timeline from the early 1980s

and retirements taking place recently? >> that is an excellent question and it is one of the ways that we are still in fact trying to end the shadow of what happened 30 years ago, because the loss of more than 10,000 people created a huge hole that have to be filled by a massive training program and rehiring in the years after the strike and that set up a whole cohort of comptrollers he came into the work in the early '80s, who are reaching retirement almost simultaneously in the past five or so years. and, that quick turnover of senior comptrollers has in fact lowered the average age of air traffic comptrollers in recent years and from folks that i talked to who are still around it is made it harder because there are fewer senior

comptrollers around. anybody who knows air traffic control knows the only way you really learned that work was to have senior comptrollers sitting with you and mentoring you and going on there their check rights with u.s. they were called. that is the way folks learned and there are fewer of the senior hands-on today due to that loss of so many suddenly in recent years. so i think that the impact is still there to this day. >> it i won to thank every one. i think this was a fascinating topic tonight, and as joe said it is one that still stays with us today, the implications of it so please join me in thanking mccartin one more time. [applause] and if you will join us in the lobby joe is going to be signing copies of his book. thank you all very much.

>> thank you everyone. >> the's event was hosted by the jimmy carter presidential library and museum in atlanta. to find out more visit jimmy carter library.gov. >> when i got it to public and started to sell my books every person i worked with i had a rejection letter from which was kind of cool. they would say we love your stuff and i was like what about this? [laughter] >> in his nonfiction ben mezrich questions the motivation, ethics and morality of really and people. his account of mark zuckerberg and the creation of facebook was adapted from the screen as the social network ringing down the house followed a group of m.i.t. students who won millions in las vegas and his latest, sex on them and track the possible astronaut candidate as he steals a nasa filled with moon rocks. now is your chance to ask the question.

called e-mail or two it -- tweet ben mezrich sunday on booktv on c-span2. libera

>> all eight of your books about liberals? is that fair to say? >> yes, the first book was onto the grounds for impeachment of bill clinton slander and thebill rest are about liberals. actually big column but how tore talk to a liberal if liberal if

you must covers everything under the sun including dating tips in washington. >> slander, treason, godless, guilty, demonic. are those fighting words?>> >> tzipi titles, are they?onic [laughter] like i said i was thinking of calling this book demonic. i was thinking of calling at legion where my name is legion but t a small slice of christias would understand what i was talkingg about and yeah i want people to read my book. i think they are interesting and i think you will learn things. i think you'll see the world in a different way and understand things in a different way sonk ' yeah we give them tzipi titles. we put me on the cover. even the black cocktail dress annoys liberals, smiling. drives them crazy. black cocktail dress usually because it annoys liberals. >> host: from if democrats had any brains, they'd be republicans? could be the best of ann coulter according

according to you? >> guest: it's more of a quote book, yeah. >> host: here's one quote: >> host: steven in south jordan, utah, you're on "in depth." good afternoon. >> caller: hi, ann. i'd like to thank you for all that you've done. i don't really have a question, but i have some comments about religion between the conservative and the liberals. there are principles, conservative principles that have applied and acted upon that are conduct today the social, spiritual and economic well being of individuals as well as nations. and these principles came from god himself, and they formed a foundation of civilized society, and they're commonly referred to as the ten commandment pes. what the liberals have done in probably the last 50 years is turn these into the ten inconvenient truths. and you can go back to lyndon johnson's great society, his welfare program.

he turned honor thy father and mother into honor thai mother and big government. and we can see what that's done to the black families and a lot of families. i don't know, have you ever read the keynote address given by obama? >> guest: um, no, but i think you need to read my book, "godless," where this point is made more pithily, i think. that is not an inconvenient truth. no, the platform of the democratic party is breaking each one of the ten commandments one by one by one. thou shalt not murder. what is the most important issue to the democratic party? yes, that's right, abortion. sticking a fork in the head of little babies sleeping peacefully in their mothers' wombs. thousand shalt not steal, their entire tax policy is to generate class envy and steal money, redistribute worth. certainly put no gods before me, they put every god before the real god. um, i don't think there's a

living liberal who wouldn't give up his eternal soul to attend the carters' "vanity fair" party to be cited favorably in in the "new york times." the worshiping of idols is sport for, it's more than sport. it is religion of the left. their religion is breaking each one of the ten commandments one by one. >> host: and from "godless" you write: these pro-choicers treat abortion the way muslims treat mohamed. it's so sacred, it must not be mentioned. the only other practice that was both defended and unspeakable in america like this was slavery. >> guest: uh-huh. that's true. and interestingly, even, um, even in places where slavery was accepted, and it wasn't in many parts of the world, people would not let their children play with slave traders the way i imagine people wouldn't today let their

kids -- it's one thing to say, oh, i'm pro-choice and let a woman decide. it's a different thing to let your kids play with a child of a local abortionist of which there are not very many. it's a repellant practice. but it is peculiar that they'd elevate this and pretend it's a constitutional right, and yet we can't use the word. you don't have, you know, gun rights groups refusing to use the word "gun." it shows you what a hideous thing it is and what a hideous thing they know it is. >> host: now, another recent tweet from ann coulter, why doesn't barack obama tape the same speech and have them run it every night? new berlin, wisconsin, you're on. >> caller: okay. good afternoon, ann. it's wonderful to talk to you. i just finished, i have finished reading your book, and be i love it. >> guest: thank you. >> caller: and, basically, i'm here from the home of joe mccarthy, scott walker, paul ryan and also bass teague days -- bastille days.

i just read your book at that time. i asked people why are we celebrating bastille days? so we had a lot of fun with that. but i want to know one of my main questions, because i do watch all this back and forth and all this stuff. so many times that if we would just follow our constitution, we wouldn't be in this mess. and one of these main things is article i, section 11 of the constitution. you know, basically, all the powers are vested in congress. they are not vested in the bureaucrats. they are not vest candidated. and what are we going to do, to me, to bring back that and make people understand? to get our power back for we, the people -- >> guest: i'm so glad you ask. um, no, this is, this is a very important point. democrat policies are so unpopular that democrats have had to stop promoting them themselves. releasing violent and, you know, child molesting, murdering criminals, for example. so instead they just nominate judges and then assure us that

the judges are very moderate and centrist, and they get up to the supreme court and suddenly discover, look, in this 2 200-year-old document, we found one. there's a right to gay marriage and abortion, and we must release 36,000 criminals from the california prisons. a recent united states supreme court ruling, by the way. so now they get the courts to do their dirty work for them and tell us it's a constitutional right. and i think the only way to rein this in, i mean, obviously, we have the method we've been trying for the last 20 years, quarter century, elect a republican president, um, wait for vacancies on the supreme court, get a supreme court nominee who doesn't hallucinate when reading the constitution. um, that really didn't work out so well. we had three, you know, three republican appointees -- sandra day o'connor, david hackett souder, justice kennedy who all

voted to uphold the heart of roe v. wade though not the reice holding. as and ally ya said, i don't know how that's fouling precedent. -- following precedent. in any event, we need to get five at large supreme court justices. this is one of my plans, just for a laugh to start engaging in if conservative activism and to hallucinate the sort of rights equivalent to the rights being hallucinated by the liberal justices so that we'll suddenly have a right to a flat tax, we'll have a right to own a rocket-propelled grenade, we'll have a right to free champagne for blonds. um, all kinds of fantastic rights i can think of. oh, i think we'll declare the withholding tax unconstitutional. and then our justices can all admit it was just a joke because liberals can never understand how heinous their policies are until it's done to them. and the alternative plan to, i can state much more quickly, we need a conservative, a republican executive to say in

response to an insane supreme court ruling, for example, some of the guantanamo rulings under president bush, um, i wish he had just said thank you for your opinion, the constitution makes me the commander in this chief. i am not, i am not giving, you know, special constitutional rights to terrorists grabbed on a battlefield as happened at guantanamo. thanks, supreme court. >> host: first a tweet and then an e-mail. the tweet by scott wagner: i like the way she flings her hair, can she sell a dvd of that while she reads "demonic"? that's the tweet. e-mail, tim johnson. ms. coulter lays it on the line, and all who disagree are, in her words, stupid and demonic. >> guest: um, no. some are misguided. mostly i think it is the worshiping of false idols, however. i think it is this desire to be considered cool and in and be not have to think about anything.

>> host: her public appearances are an avalanche of gnarl words, and if serious conservatives want to be taken seriously, the first thing they have to do is distance themselves from the likes of glenn beck, rush limbaugh, grover norquist and ann coulter. >> guest: well, i don't know about the other guys, but i would say not at all for me. [laughter] snarl words. i mean, this is like what i said about joe mccarthy. what's your point? what are you disagreeing with? what's the snarl world? was i think that was not -- because i think that was not all sweetness and nights in that e-mail. [laughter] but this is how liberals avoid talking about the issues. i mean, that was the theme of "slander" that they anat metize us. racists, sexist, ugly, mean. don't listen to this person, don't read this american. danger, danger. well, if you could argue with us on our ideas, i think you'd do so. and if we were despicable and harm? ing, i don't think we'd have --

snarling i don't think we'd have so many fans. .. then -- >> host: it was guilty maybe. >> guest: no, i think that is dogma. it's the liberal saints and how they, it's sort of the reverse of what i just said. the democrats new technique so that it drives them crazy. conservatives have their own medium, radio and talk radio. they are -- their approach is to send out sobbing hysterical women to make their point and you can't respond. from cindy sheehan to the jersey girls to joe wilson. they had a relative..

>> host: the next call for ann coulter comes from george in lexington kentucky. high george. >> caller: hi ann. i am a former college republican president at merry mary stayed university and a former reagan scholarship recipient also from the phillips foundation. >> guest: that's great, congratulations. nice to meet you. >> caller: thank you so much.t that was back in 2007 but really i have two questions for you and i'm reading demonic right now be the way. ist think it is my favorite of your books. i've read r literally everyone your books. i read literally everyone since "high crimes and misdemeanors" in the 8th grade. >> guust: you are. >> guust: you are a fine american and will go far. >> caller: is it true your mother is from paduca, kentucky? >> guust: yes she is. i was down there a couple

weeks ago almost, we had a family reunion. i have really been wanting an autograph of my book demonic and i can't figure out how to send it to you.auook >> guest: i'm sure you can geti it tcao me through the phillips: foundation. >> host: what's the phillips foundation?fo >> guest: tom phillips who is the owner bodaken regnery books, conservative book club and various other publications. book. very other publications. he gives out, very impressive that you won this award for a young journalist. they get an award, i guess it is called the reagan award. i haven't been judge.

i'm aware of the various winners and tom phillips, so he oversees this whole complex which i'm a small part. you can definitely get the book to me through the phillips foundation. >> host: next call for ann coulter comes from new york city. hi, mike. >> caller: hello. good afternoon to all of you. i would, like to talk about the recent act of white terrorism in norway. initially this is described by people on the right as muslim terrorism, which was incorrect. then it was described by people on the left as christian terrorism. which is also incorrect. the only way this could have been described is that and drers breivik, is a white racist terrorist who committed an act of white terrorism in a worldwide system of white supremacy.

forget christianity. forget right-wing. for get left-wing. that is the only way this should be looked at. and to do so any other way is, incorrect. >> guest: i agree with part of that. and as luck would have it, i read his mannyfesto. not all of it. it gets a little representative so you can skim right through some parts -- repetitive. i'm unaware of any conservatives who blamed it on islamic terrorism. we didn't know what it was. by the time we heard what happened he was being described in "the new york times" headlines as christian fundamentalist. gun-toting, fox news-viewing i believe. and his mannyfesto makes clear as the caller said, he isn't a christian. he uses the word christian to mean, nonislamic. it is not specifically, i don't know, black, hispanics,

brown people. no, it is muslims he does not like. that's it. and yes it was very anti-muslim. he talks how he wants the jews and buddhists and all the people of europe to join with him to fight against the islam maization of europe. that is his big thing. whether or not that is connected to the insanity on some molecular level i don't know but for "the new york times" to describe him as

coming up next booktv presents "after words" an hour-long program where we invite guest host to interview authors. this week via tafford mary gabriel and her latest, "love and capital" karl and jenny marx and the birth of a revolution which has been nominated for a national book award. the former explores the private world of the impoverished writer whose political and economic theories would later influence politics worldwide. she discusses the man and his