“PATCO on Steroids”: Will Labor’s Response be Different Today?

Patco Strike protests. Photo: Socialist Worker archives.

I had recently turned twenty-one in 1981, when President Ronald Reagan fired thirteen thousand striking air traffic controllers. It was a hot muggy August day in Boston. I remember that myself and one of my oldest friends Bill Almy were driving past the Boston Common, the country’s oldest public park and refuge for the city’s residents in the downtown area, when it was announced on the radio. Bill’s car has no air conditioning which...