It wasn't that long ago that we had somewhat more harsh measures for dealing with bad management ...

http://www.iir.berkeley.edu/events/spring08/feller/montgomery_ward_president_seized.png


We have a fairly vocal anti-labor crowd here, I found this particular lecture, with its given correlations between real wages, savings, their inverse relation to a host of modern economic ills fairly interesting; Of particular note was the massive shift in public and media opinion on the subject between 1930-1960 and 1970-now -- perhaps lessons forgotten, perhaps something more insidious, but obvious nonetheless.

Warning, contains language not comprehensible to fourth graders:

http://www.iir.berkeley.edu/events/spring08/feller/


But the real roots of the crisis do not lie on Wall Street. The cause of the crisis can be found in the long-term weakening of the real American economy in an era of globalization—in closed factories, outsourced high tech jobs and low wage jobs with no benefits, and in the unsustainable effort to maintain middle class living standards through borrowing.

Some of the opening remarks may be a bit bleeding-heart but ten or so paragraphs in it gets into more pure analysis.

Link-thief! I was going to post that myself, last time I share my hard-earned digging with you :/

The picture, for those who don't click or read down far enough to it, is of the CEO of Montgomery Ward being seized by the Army for the War Labor Board in 1944 - for obstructing the efforts of his employees to organize, considered a watershed event (along with the Taft-Hartley Act in 1948) for labor protections in this country. The article goes on to mention the watershed event for the decline in labor protections/decoupling of productivity to wages to Ronald Reagan's firing of the Air Traffic Controllers in 1980 and bringing in 'permanent replacements' to bust their strike (which I remember and remarked upon at the time, for which I was branded a pinko ;) )

Regards,
Nydia

In regards to Nydia's comment about the firing of Air Traffic Controllers in 1980.

I vaguely recall this strike but I do seem to recall the effect it was having on the country at a time when the country was already struggling with double digit inflation (amongst other economical ills).

Fill me in on the plight of the Controllers?

Dear Fandros:

I've got a really hectic day today, but Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers (in 1981 actually, I had just graduated high school ;) ) and bringing in of permanent replacements was a watershed event because it sent a powerful signal to business that companies could union-bust, or fail to engage in good-faith collective bargaining, at will, and that the government would not be enforcing labor laws.

There's a decent primer on the strike (a bit long, but lots of good data in it)here:

http://etext.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH37/Pels.html

What's important to note about the strike is that it was over a decade in coming, and that the overwhelming majority of complaints by PATCO (the air traffic controllers' union at the time) cited in their final list of demands before the strike had nothing to do with salary or benefits, but working conditions (due to understaffing and outdated equipment, they frequently worked 6 days a week, 10 hours a day, and were routinely expected to take on unscheduled overtime without so much as a guaranteed 30 minute lunch break, one of their demands), concerns about these problems setting up dangerous situations (the FAA was underreporting near misses, among other things), etc. That is not to say that PATCO was a wholly innocent party; the union had had a confrontational attitude towards the FAA for years, but the FAA was also singularly unresponsive to analyses of problems within the industry commissioned by its own agency (at a cost of 5 years/2.8 million dollars) or by the Department of Transportation and failed to implement any of the recommended changes, continuing to overwork its employees, engage in retaliatory and punitive behavior against employees who complained, and only adopting new technology after extensive determination that it would allow them to decrease the number of controllers. The FAA also arbitrarily decided not to honor provisions in the 1978 contract designed to improve safety:

In 1979, FAA Administrator Langhorne Bond arbitrarily terminated an Immunity Provision which had been included in the 1978 three-year FAA/PATCO contract. This program was designed by controllers to encourage ATCs, pilots, and administrators to exchange information and thereby learn from each others' mistakes without fear of retribution or ridicule. It set up an outside, disinterested committee under the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) to process accounts of mistakes and act as a buffer between the FAA and system users. Controllers and pilots could report errors and in most situations remain immune from disciplinary action. Regularly published reports compiled from this data then circulated throughout the aviation industry, making system users aware of common pitfalls.9 Bond's refusal to honor the contract provision not only further eroded FAA- ATC relations, it led to a drop in reported incidents, thereby undermining aviation safety.

At the same time, the FAA was demanding that controllers handle increasing traffic loads with staffing that was already below the agency's own standards. When the union pointed out the problem, the FAA revised its facility staffing standards to legitimize the situation.10

The air traffic controllers weren't unhappy with their jobs themselves, or their salary/benefits, although that is what the media focused on; they were seeking relief from a workplace that, due to its excessively and unnecessarily stressful working conditions (due to understaffing, equipment issues, and a retaliatory/punitive management) that was producing high rates of burnout, alcoholism, and divorce among controllers. In the summer of 1981, when PATCO presented its list of demands, the FAA made its counteroffer, which offered a small salary increase, but addressed none of the major concerns, and the union voted by a 95% margin to reject it; on Aug 3rd, 1981, 85% of PATCO went on strike.

Reagan's actions were swift and unflinching. He gave the strikers 48 hours to return to their jobs or be terminated, and only 1,650 did so; the remaining 11,350 workers were simply fired. Of course, this meant that an understaffed agency was in even worse shape and that was when 'flow control' had to be implemented, allowing about 80% of the pre-strike traffic to continue, under even more stressful conditions, with less-experienced controllers, than before, and the FAA continued its relentless practice of placing labor control above public safety, again, against the advice of other agencies:

A closer look at the FAA's plans concerning the use of computers in air traffic control supports such an analysis. An April 1982 issue of Technology Review described an important aspect of the FAA's new program:

Between 1989 and 1995, an automated en-route air traffic control (AERA) facility will be implemented to carry out normal routing and conflict-avoidance without controllers' intervention. . . . Such a system implies that the entire task of routing air traffic will be done with minimal human intervention, changing the controller's role from that of an active participant to that of a monitor. Only if the computer system shuts down or judgments beyond the programmed instructions were required would direct human intervention be expected.13

This effort to minimize the role of controllers, though, actually conflicted with the development of optimal technical alternatives which would improve the safety of air travel, as a 1982 Rand Corporation report pointed out. Rand blasted the direction of FAA research and development, writing that:

The AERA scenario presents serious problems for each of the three major goals of ATC--safety, efficiency, and increased productivity. By depending on an autonomous, complex, fail-safe system to compensate for keeping the human controller out of the route decision-making loop, the AERA scenario jeopardizes the goal of safety. Ironically, the better AERA works, the more complacent its human managers may become, the less often they may question its actions, and the more likely their system is to fail without their knowledge. We have argued that not only is AERA's complex, costly, fail-safe system questionable from a technical perspective, it is also unnecessary in other, more moderate ATC system designs.14

Rand proposed an alternative called Shared Control in which the role of the controller would be expanded so that "he is routinely involved in the minute-to-minute operation of the system" using an increasing suite of automated tools. But Shared Control had little appeal for an FAA more interested in limiting worker autonomy than promoting public safety.15


In 1987, the Air traffic controllers (almost all nonstrikers or new employees) moved to form the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). Their grievances mirrored those of the strikers and exposed again the FAA's stance of relying on technology and monopoly to avoid conceding control over the workplace even when solutions which would have improved conditions, increased worker autonomy and public safety would have cost nothing or actually saved the agency money.

While Reagan's breaking of the strike represented a turning of the tide in labor policy in this country, the case is also interesting from a psychology perspective. An organization which had public safety as its mission chose repeatedly and persistently over decades to place labor control over that safety, even at enormous cost and against reams of empirical data which suggested that their policies were harmful to both controllers and the public welfare, and one wonders about the genesis of that adversarial and imperious dynamic.

Regards,
Nydia

Very good information and certainly an excellent refresher.

Thanks for taking the time Nydia, I really appreicate it.

One important point regarding the Air Traffic Controllers, which also applies to my job with the Postal Service, is that they all swore an oath not to strike. By engaging in a strike they were breaking their oath, regardless of whether right or wrong, and that is what Reagan was able to use as his leverage to fire them.

The same oath exists in the Postal Service, at least since the reorganization following the strike in the early 70's. It may actually be standard in government hiring now, but I don't know. What I do know is that I have gone a few rounds with Union officers (and I am a former steward) over the fact that I am steadfast in my position that if the Union calls for a strike I will not take part, but will hold to my oath not to and continue working.

'Thanks for taking the time Nydia, I really appreicate it.'

- We all appreciate Nydia!!