The attack on union employees like you are seeing in Wisconsin began over 30 years ago

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/opinion/reagan-vs-patco-the-strike-that-busted-unions.html

Op-Ed Contributor
The Strike That Busted Unions
By JOSEPH A. McCARTIN
Published: August 2, 2011

<snip>More than any other labor dispute of the past three decades, Reagan’s confrontation with the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or Patco, undermined the bargaining power of American workers and their labor unions. It also polarized our politics in ways that prevent us from addressing the root of our economic troubles: the continuing stagnation of incomes despite rising corporate profits and worker productivity. snip

Yet three decades later, with the economy shrinking or stagnant for nearly four years now and Reagan’s party moving even further to the right than where he stood, the long-term costs of his destruction of the union loom ever larger. It is clear now that the fallout from the strike has hurt workers and distorted our politics in ways Reagan himself did not advocate. snip

Workers in the private sector had used the strike as a tool of leverage in labor-management conflicts between World War II and 1981, repeatedly withholding their work to win fairer treatment from recalcitrant employers. But after Patco, that weapon was largely lost. Reagan’s unprecedented dismissal of skilled strikers encouraged private employers to do likewise. Phelps Dodge and International Paper were among the companies that imitated Reagan by replacing strikers rather than negotiating with them. Many other employers followed suit. snip

But the impact of the Patco strike on Reagan’s fellow Republicans has long since overshadowed his own professed beliefs regarding public sector unions. Over time the rightward-shifting Republican Party has come to view Reagan’s mass firings not as a focused effort to stop one union from breaking the law — as Reagan portrayed it — but rather as a blow against public sector unionism itself. snip

In the spring, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin invoked Reagan’s handling of Patco as he prepared to “change history” by stripping public employees of collective bargaining rights in a party-line vote. “I’m not negotiating,” Mr. Walker said. By then the world had seemingly forgotten that unlike Mr. Walker, Reagan had not challenged public employees’ right to bargain — only their right to strike.

[marybourg]

1. Yep.

[annabanana]

2. Too bad the NY Times hasn't been saying this for the last

30 years. They bought into the St Ronnie as firmly as any plutocrat.

[EFerrari]

3. Right on, Don.

The CWA union job I had at that time doesn't exist any more.

[NNN0LHI]

7. Our first "concession" contract with give backs in it was in 1982

That guaranteed that myself and many others where I worked at would be laid off a whole bunch during the coming years.



Don

[pampango]

4. Although a conservative, Reagan often argued that private sector workers’ rights to organize were

fundamental in a democracy. He not only made this point when supporting Lech Walesa’s anti-Communist Solidarity movement in Poland; he also boasted of being the first president of the Screen Actors Guild to lead that union in a strike. Over time, however, his crushing of the controllers’ walkout — which he believed was justified because federal workers were not allowed under the law to strike — has helped undermine the private-sector rights he once defended."

"Reagan’s unprecedented dismissal of skilled strikers encouraged private employers to do likewise. Phelps Dodge and International Paper were among the companies that imitated Reagan by replacing strikers rather than negotiating with them. Many other employers followed suit.

By 2010, the number of workers participating in walkouts was less than 2 percent of what it had been when Reagan led the actors’ strike in 1952. Lacking the leverage that strikes once provided, unions have been unable to pressure employers to increase wages as productivity rises. Inequality has ballooned to a level not seen since Reagan’s boyhood in the 1920s."

"Although he opposed government strikes, Reagan supported government workers’ efforts to unionize and bargain collectively. As governor, he extended such rights in California. As president he was prepared to do the same. Not only did he court and win Patco’s endorsement during his 1980 campaign, he directed his negotiators to go beyond his legal authority to offer controllers a pay raise before their strike — the first time a president had ever offered so much to a federal employees’ union.

But the impact of the Patco strike on Reagan’s fellow Republicans has long since overshadowed his own professed beliefs regarding public sector unions."

I bet many modern republicans would be surprised by much of the information about St. Ronnie in this article.

[bhikkhu]

5. It began about the same time the idea of unions began

"Union-busting" is a pretty old sport.

[LiberalAndProud]

10. Sea change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Strike_of_1902
President Theodore Roosevelt became involved and set up a fact-finding commission that suspended the strike. The strike never resumed, as the miners received more pay for fewer hours; the owners got a higher price for coal, and did not recognize the trade union as a bargaining agent. It was the first labor episode in which the federal government intervened as a neutral arbitrator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_%281968%29
The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization or PATCO was a United States trade union that operated from 1968 until its decertification in 1981 following a strike that was broken by the Reagan Administration.

What you say is true, union-busting is an old sport. Reagan shifted the weight of government, and that has been all the difference. I don't think it's better.

[Poiuyt]

6. There's no doubt that Wanker is trying to be just like his hero

He's even got the same hairstyle

[LiberalAndProud]

9. I think on purpose.

The thing that scares me, I mean *really* scares me, is that I laughed at Ronald Reagan's candidacy. Yes I did. Now, even though I think that Romney doesn't stand a chance, as they say, he who laughs last ...

That is the stuff of which nightmares are made.

[font size="1"]edit: dangling participle or something[/font]

[LiberalAndProud]

8. I remember hearing the news that Reagan fired the air controllers.

It isn't that I knew exactly which dominoes would fall, but I knew many dominoes would fall, and the chain was long. It was a sad day. It will always be a sad day in my mind. One of those indelible moments in my memory.