Dear Mr. Poli:
I have been briefed by members of my staff as to the deplorable state of our nation's air traffic control system. They have told me that too few people working unreasonable hours with obsolete equipment has placed the nation's air travellers in unwarranted danger. In an area so clearly related to public safety the Carter administration has failed to act responsibly.
You can rest assured that if I am elected President, I will take whatever steps are necessary to provide our air traffic controllers with the most modern equipment available and to adjust staff levels and work days so that they are commensurate with achieving a maximum degree of public safety....
I pledge to you that my administration will work very closely with you to bring about a spirit of cooperation between the President and the air traffic controllers.
Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc8brHWFZMY
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5604656
http://www.workers.org/2006/us/patco-0817/
"Twenty five years ago—on Aug. 3, 1981—workers in the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) walked off the job. Seeking a shorter work week, pay increases, improved working conditions and better safety for air travelers, the union defied an ultimatum by newly elected President Ronald Reagan to return to work.
Forty-eight hours later, Reagan fired 11,359 striking air traffic controllers.
Union leaders and members were arrested, jailed and fined. PATCO’s $3.5 million strike fund was frozen, the strike was broken and eventually the government decertified the union.
Reagan finished what President Jimmy Carter had begun in February 1981, before leaving office.
A month before contract negotiations had begun, the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA)—PATCO’s employer—and the Justice Department compiled a list of union leaders and members to be arrested if the workers went out on strike. Both capitalist parties, Republicans and Democrats, were responsible for the PATCO debacle—although Reagan was the more treacherous, venomous and fork-tongued.
Just weeks before the presidential election, on Oct. 20, 1980, candidate Reagan wrote a reassuring letter to PATCO President Robert Poli, vowing to cooperate with the union."
"I would have signed a bill with some doubtful features if, taken as a whole, it had been a good bill.
But the Taft-Hartley bill is a shocking piece of legislation.
It is unfair to the working people of this country. It clearly abuses the right, which millions of our citizens now enjoy, to join together and bargain with their employers for fair wages and fair working conditions.
Under no circumstances could I have signed this bill.
The restrictions that this bill places on our workers go far beyond what our people have been led to believe.
This is no innocent bill.
The bill is deliberately designed to weaken labor unions. When the sponsors of the bill claim that by weakening unions, they are giving rights back to individual workingmen, they ignore the basic reason why unions are important in our democracy. Unions exist so that laboring men can bargain with their employers on a basis of equality. Because of unions, the living standards of our working people have increased steadily until they are today the highest in the world.
A bill which would weaken unions would undermine our national policy of collective bargaining. The Taft-Hartley bill would do just that. It would take us back in the direction of the old evils of individual bargaining. It would take the bargaining power away from the workers and give more power to management.
This bill would even take away from our workingmen some bargaining fights which they enjoyed before the Wagner Act was passed 12 years ago.
If we weaken our system of collective bargaining, we weaken the position of every workingman in the country.
This bill would again expose workers to the abuses of labor injunctions.
It would make unions liable for damage suits for actions which have long been considered lawful.
This bill would treat all unions alike. Unions which have fine records, with long years of peaceful relations with management, would be hurt by this bill just as much as the few troublemakers.
The country needs legislation which will get rid of abuses.
We do not need—and we do not want—legislation which will take fundamental rights away from our working people.
We must always remember that under our free economic system management and labor are associates. They work together for their own benefit and for the benefit of the public.
We seek in this country today a formula which will treat all men fairly and justly, and which will give our people security in the necessities of life.
As our generous American spirit prompts us to aid the world to rebuild, we must, at the same time, construct a better America in which all can share equitably in the blessings of democracy.
The Taft-Hartley bill threatens the attainment of this goal.
For the sake of the future of this Nation, I hope that this bill will not become law."
"
http://web2.millercenter.org/speeches/audio/spe_1947_0620_truman.mp3
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