north Jersey cluster. It encompasses PĂTCO controllers from Newark airport, Teterboro airport, Morristown and Caldwell-Essex County ports.
We can ourselves fortythree brothers hanging tough.
We're engaged here in what we feel is the greatest heavyweight fight ever staged. We've taken and remendous still standing and holding tough The first thing I'd like to cover is to explode some myths. Hopefully, you can take back some ammunition when people you encounter say, "Yeah. they should put 'em all in jail, throw awav the kev: thev had no right to do any of the things they're doing' We do not want overtime, we want more time off. want time away from the facilily. we wanl a chalice to sec vul children grow. We want to not go weeks without seeing our working wife or working husband.
Well myth number one, l hope, is exploded. can leave here realising that we enterea me conceive vargalli ing arena asking for what we Tee we suv descive The monetary the contract was indeed negotiable. . This was our asking price. We knew we would get less The problem was they did noT acates outwo lla l Issucs or the other ninety-nine issues that I spoke of.
They pertain to safety and equipment Narnicialle job proficiency, and on-the-job training of controllers. other issues were tabled, never to be addressed.
The government asked for a forty-two month That would mean we would not be able to ask again during the admistration that's currenty in office.
The Myth number two: "The skies are safe.
are safe? They J.te told the American public they would cut traffic by 50 per cent. And that would insure safety because the reduced could handle 50 per cent of the volume.
That is a lie. Those who own airplanes are still flyin!
hem. What they have done i stopratie fifty percent he the traffic. traffic in American air space 1s now uncontrolled.
Myth number twenty-bne months. We didn't rebuild this need those controllers to begin with. We're four or sand overstaffed. We'll gear up our system and retrain.
Since 1978, the Aviation Academy in homa City has trained 5,000 controllers. What they're saying is that in the next twentyone months they'li train twice that many.
Fourth myth -touchy one: 'But they all signed an oath. They knew what they that they would never strike in against the government. Iner should all be locked up because they broke an oath.
Anybody that's ever had contact with the government or gone into the service or applied When tired ford ment job, they stick in front of you a fat stack of papers about sees luck You sign everything_ because your job depends on it. 1 hope vou portion of and All the contract. I guess the biggest tool the government has is the press.
And the press has been used to no small length against us.
now is meeting in this wherever possible.
But I'm not backing off ot my commitment that. What I'm saying to you is on the forms i signed 1 find that oath was number two.
The number one oath was I will faithfully support the Constitution of the United States'.
staffing I'd like to recite a little something. It's contained in the First Amendment: shall make no laws abridging peaceably to assemble, and te petition the redress of grievances.' three: "We Free I feel it is a constitutional five thou- point. If pressed, we will hold out the United States is upheld in the Supreme Court Federal a free country, a free man does not have the right to withhold his services for what he feels is just remuneration? If that is the case, then 12,000 of us are better off now than we were three weeks ago. this is the us, partly because of what you see on the podium in front of Now or Times adorat They swore August boughl Attendents, from Reagan to PATCO Presi dent Robert Poli.)
president knows Ronald Reagan to look intc tor a goveri what he characterised at that time as the deplorable state of the American air traffic control reneged upon. Gregory Pardlo - 'telling our side of the story' So mostly what we're doing groups like of beCause 'Congress government for until the Constitution of But can you tell me that, in detober 20.
That oath rankles a lot of Had of the Flight the letter siden a De then-candidate then-candidate milling suiciae The fact is, that pledge was time had come.
RONALD REAGAN sincerely. RONALD REAGAN . 1980 letter from candidate Ronald Reagan to PATCO President Robert Poli I'd like to apprise you of some of the problems as I see The first and most important is that without the right to strike any labour union relegated to a position of col- LUC Anyone ever approaching a strike realises that unless you the have the numbers you are comand we knew that without 80 We knew thi and per cent we would have to ac- government ept whatever the governmen offered. When 81 per cent of u showed up ready to walk, the time, The biggest problem 1 guess
Regar
we all faced was the strength ot the government The strength of the government is insidious when vou realise television and radio stations have to apply to Federal collullicallull Commission for renewal of their licences. When you realise Justice Department, FBI, the federal marshals, even the postal service, can be rallied mustered this Making ourselves available to sell our side of the story, in the hope that somewhere, some the part of humanity in you deplores the fact that one organised labour we lose everyone loses Organised labour as a whole will have suf ple effect from what's being done to us is starting to be fel hroughout aviatiol What's happened is thi Ronald Reagan came into office and sweepingly deregulated everything: eliminated whole departments based on what he said was a mandate from the people.
The government is coming down on us. When we applied for our unemployment and food stamps, we were denied They knew name before we arrived. They won 1 beliet in human rights Y. It' ther must support PATCO is the slightest bit of unionism you, you must support PAT The solution, as I see it, is unionism. Every union member everyone who believes unionism, must come to the forefront now.
tere possibly more dangerous side now to this: that being what we now know about the man elected as president of the United States When confronted militancy in any form, he will drop the big bomb about that. Crushing a labour union, shooting down two jets over Libya - mavoe these art just separate acts, unrelated Maybe they don't point to a psychological meaning, mayb they don't point to a proclivil! toward violence. But ther again, maybe they do.
What this means to you i • Time fo • you must lane aslall silence 1S ended. You mu stand up as Americans. I stan before you an accused felon This country was founded b accused felons.
One of those, a man quit wise, Benjamin Franklin, sai something that I think especially applicable now 'We must all hang togeth or, most assuredly we will a hang separately' I am here embodying th hopes, the dreams, the aspira tions of forty-three of m brothers locally and ove 12,000 of my brothers natior ally.
No, we are not all rich. No we are not all simply •greed money-grubbers who seize th opportunity to hold a countr hostage are people who are b ing held hostage by our govert ment. Who are told take wha are offered . or get out believe that the American pa ple cannot stand silently while this happens. And Tho you believe that too.
Reprinted the Militan Socialist Workers Party wetniy vuuci of the Ameris Socialist Challenge 17 September 1981 Page?
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44s Capitol Street washington, D.C. Dear Mr. Poli: