Word: radar
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...Reagan Administration had, in effect, decided to ignore PATCO, whose increasingly discouraged members continued to picket the Federal Aviation Administration's regional and airport radar centers. The struggle thus was reduced to a test of the FAA'S ability to carry on with some 3,000 supervisors, 5,000 non-strikers and 900 military controllers until new replacements can be trained. | The system was operating , at roughly half of its former I level of staffing. Over the long run, the key question apparently would be one of economics: Could U.S. airlines, some of them already in financial trouble...
...flying in some ways even safer. The working controllers were going about their jobs with an esprit de corps that had been sadly lacking when the more militant unionists, spoiling for a strike, were among them. Declared Frank Arcidiacono, a former controller now a supervisor at the Los Angeles radar center, as he noted the pickets outside his building: "It's a manager's dream. The snivelers, the criers and the whiners are out there in the sun. Everybody who has come to work has come to work...
...There is a swaggering style, a macho flair to O'Hare's ace controllers. In near darkness, they hunch over their radarscopes like teen-age boys playing electronic games. Their faces glow in the greenish-yellow light, as each sweep of the radar reveals a constantly changing configuration of planes. They have developed their own special mystique. They chain smoke and drink countless cups of coffee while placating their upset stomachs with chalky Maalox tablets from the big glass candy jars that are standard in every control room...
...recalls Carl Vaughn, 45, a Pittsburgh controller. "Little or no automation had been introduced, and near misses were a common occurrence." The FAA reacted by firing some 100 local PATCO leaders and temporarily suspending most of the sickout participants. Still, the FAA seemed to get the controllers' point; automated radar gear was gradually installed at major centers. To regain certification as a bargaining unit, PATCO in 1971 formally pledged never again to encourage a work stoppage or engage in a strike. At the time, only about 3,000 controllers remained in the union...
Almost unanimously, certainly wishfully, the striking controllers predict that the Administration's plans to replace them will not work. Contended Controller Dick Holzhauer at an Oakland, Calif., radar center: "If we hang together, I know they can't run the system without us. They're going to want their pound of flesh, but they'll settle." Asked Controller Roger Hicks at Houston Intercontinental Airport: "Where are they going to get 13,000 controllers and train them before the economy sinks? The reality is, we are it. They have to deal with...