PATCO, Permanent Replacement,
and the Loss of Labor’s
Strike Weapon
JOSEPH A. McCARTIN
A
ugust 3, 2006, marks the
union members; by the end of the cenin the early nineteenth century. The histwenty-fifth anniversary of an
tury, that number had plummeted below
tory of U.S. labor is replete with strikes
event that many in organized
14 percent.
that served as turning points in union
labor would prefer to forget.
building, such as the 1936–37 Flint sitLasting Impact
On that date in 1981, more than 12,000
down strike that brought unionism to the
members of the Professional Air TrafThe PATCO strike cannot alone be
auto industry.
fic Controllers Organization (PATCO)
During the first three decades after
blamed for the decline of organized labor.
walked off their jobs with the Federal
Indeed, no single event or development is
World War II, there was no reason to
Aviation Administration. When 11,325
responsible for that decline.
believe that workers were
of them refused to heed a back-to-work
Rather, a range of factors
in danger of losing their
There
was
no
order issued by President Ronald Rea(many of which are not
ability to strike effectively.
gan and end their illegal walkout within
unique to the United States)
reason to think
According to the Bureau of
forty-eight hours, they were discharged
has combined to accelerate
Labor Statistics, the 1950s
the strike weapon
and permanently replaced.
the erosion of union memwere the most strike-prone
would
virtually
In the immediate aftermath of the
bership over the past three
years of the century, with
PATCO strike, many commentators predecades.
an annual average of 351
disappear.
But a strong case can
dicted it would mark a turning point
major work stoppages (inin the history of U.S. labor relations. A
be made for the lasting impact of the
volving at least 1,000 workers for at least
quarter century later, the strike’s imporPATCO strike on one crucial (yet tooone day). Labor militancy abated sometance is even easier to grasp. Just as the
often unremarked) measure of American
what in the next two decades; the annual
infamous Homestead strike set the tone
labor’s declining power: its ability to
average of major work stoppages fell
for labor-capital conflict at
stage effective strikes. Since
to 283 in the 1960s, 289 in the 1970s.
the end of the nineteenth
the PATCO strike, the strike
Yet during the middle ten years of this
The strike’s
century, the PATCO strike
has nearly disappeared as a
period, 1965–1974, U.S. workers were
importance is now union tactic, and its virtual
helped establish the pattern
nearly as militant as they had been in the
for labor relations in the
disappearance
has
no
doubt
1950s, averaging some 344 stoppages
easier to grasp.
late twentieth century. Since
accelerated labor’s decline.
annually. Thus, in the late 1970s there
that ill-fated walkout, organized labor
was no reason to think that by the end of
Unanticipated Development
has been in a state of continuous decline.
the century the strike weapon would vir At the time air traffic controllers
The decline of the strike was a stunningly
tually disappear from American labor’s
staged their fateful walkout, they made
unanticipated development. The orgaarsenal.1
up one small piece of the still formidable
nized walkout had served as the ultimate
But that is exactly what happened. By
American labor movement. In 1981,
weapon of American trade unionists
the 1990s, the annual average plunged to
nearly 22 percent of U.S. workers were
since craftsmen began using it regularly
34 major work stoppages, one-tenth the
PERSPECTIVES ON WORK
17
Photo courtesy of Jim West Photography
The 1981 PATCO strike helped establish the pattern for labor relations in the late twentieth century.
rate of the early 1970s. By 2003, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported just 14
major work stoppages, and in February
of that year it reported the first month
without a single major work stoppage
since the bureau began keeping statistics.
At present, it seems the strike is no more
than a relic of a distant, increasingly forgotten past in American labor relations.
18
SUMMER 2006
The PATCO Watershed
The PATCO debacle bears significant
responsibility for the decline of the strike
overall, for that walkout played a more
important role than any other event in legitimizing and encouraging employers to
use the most effective weapon they have
subsequently deployed against strikers:
the threat of permanent replacement. In
the years before passage of the Wagner
Act, employers consistently broke unions
by replacing workers on strike. The
1935 law curbed this practice, forbidding employers from permanently replacing workers in strikes staged for union
recognition. But in the 1938 case of National Labor Relations Board v. Mackay
Radio and Telegraph Company, the Supreme Court decided that employers still
retained the right to replace workers in
“economic” strikes that did not involve
the question of union recognition. For
decades after it was handed down, few
labor leaders seemed concerned about
the ruling, and unions waged no major
drives to overturn the Mackay doctrine
with legislation. That was largely because
employers made relatively scant use of
their legal power to replace economic
strikers before the PATCO strike. After
the strike, however, things changed.
Researcher Michael LeRoy’s work on
employers’ use of striker replacements
helps illustrate the degree of this shift
over time.2 LeRoy found forty-four cases
involving permanent replacements decided under the National Labor Relations Act or the Railway Labor Act in
the 1950s. This amounted to only one
documented use of permanent replacements per 80 major work stoppages during that decade. In the 1960s, the rate
was one per 83 major work stoppages. In
the 1970s, a slight increase in employers’
tendency to use permanent replacements
was detectable, as the rate rose to one per
66 major work stoppages. LeRoy argues
that this shift began around 1975. But
it was in the aftermath of the PATCO
strike that employers aggressively seized
upon the striker replacement tactic. In
the first ten years after 1981, employers
used permanent replacements in roughly
one out of seven major work stoppages.
A sea change had clearly occurred in
employers’ willingness to replace strikers. That new attitude was made visible
by a series of major battles in the 1980s
in which Hormel, Phelps-Dodge, International Paper, and other major employers, who had refrained from replacing
strikers in the past, shifted course and
replacement as enthusiastically as they
successfully hired replacement workers
did in the 1980s.
to break strikes.
Destructive Tactic
Why did employers suddenly embrace a tactic they had at one time all
By the 1990s, labor leaders were acutely
but disowned? Many were
aware of how destructive
driven to seek union conthe permanent replacement
After the PATCO
cessions by the competitive
tactic had become to unions’
strike, things
ability to fight for their
pressures of an increasingly
global economy. Others
members’ interests. During
changed.
President Bill Clinton’s first
more insulated from those
term in office, the unions strove mightily
pressures simply sought to take advantage of labor’s apparent weakness. But
to pass legislation outlawing permanent
shifting economic trends and the allure
replacements in most strikes. But this
of the bottom line alone cannot account
legislation never surmounted opposition
for the rising rate of striker replacement.
in the Senate. In the years since then, the
A change in the perceived acceptability
hope that strikers could be rescued from
of the tactic by the public made it easier
the permanent replacement threat by legfor corporate leaders to use it. Here
islation has only dimmed further.
President Reagan’s help was
In many ways, labor has
crucial.
yet to recover from its late
Reagan’s action
As federal employtwentieth-century loss of
ees, PATCO strikers did
the strike weapon. While
rippled through
not have the legal right to
current commentators deevery state and
strike. When Reagan rebate the decline in union
placed them, most Amerimembership and movement
territory.
cans seemed to support his
leaders discuss new orgaaction as a justified defense of the public
nizing strategies to arrest that decline,
interest in the face of an illegal walkout.
the virtual disappearance of the strike
This is not surprising, for in several
may be an even more ominous and difficult problem for unions to confront.
ways Reagan merely followed the example of many prominent mayors (many
The erosion of their ability to strike
of whom were Democrats) who had
effectively means that even when workthreatened to dismiss municipal workers
ers are organized, they wield less power
during illegal strikes in the 1970s.3 Yet
than they once did. This fact is not likely
Reagan’s strikebreaking had a profound
to encourage today’s workers to risk
influence on public perceptheir jobs to organize new
tions. Because the PATCO
unions. Thus, the task of
strike extended across the
rebuilding organized labor
Labor has yet to
United States, Reagan’s acin the United States may
recover from the
tion rippled through every
depend to an important deloss
of
the
strike
state and territory. By regree on delegitimizing the
inforcing the legitimacy of
permanent replacement tacweapon.
striker replacement in the
tic and recovering workers’
public sector, Reagan eased the way for
ability to strike effectively. Unless and
its use in the private sector. Had they not
until this happens, the PATCO strike is
been able to look to the PATCO strike
likely to continue to loom as the most
significant turning point in the recent hisas a model, it is doubtful that private
employers would have embraced striker
tory of American labor.
Notes
1. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on work
stoppages can be found at http://www.
bls.gov/news.release/wkstp.t01.htm.
2. M. H. LeRoy, “Regulating Employer
Use of Permanent Striker Replacements: Empirical Analysis of NLRA
and RLA Strikes 1935–1991,” Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor
Law 16 (1995): 169–207. Calculations
on the frequency of striker replacement
usage are based on the data in LeRoy’s
appendix and Bureau of Labor Statistics data on work stoppages. LeRoy’s
research did not correlate the use of
replacement workers with aggregate
strike statistics.
3. See J. A. McCartin, “‘Fire the Hell
Out of Them’: Sanitation Workers’
Struggles and the Normalization of
the Striker Replacement Strategy in the
1970s,” Labor: Studies in the WorkingClass History of the Americas 2, no. 3
(Fall 2003): 67–92.
Joseph A. McCartin
Joseph A. McCartin is associate professor of history at
Georgetown University.
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