Hello and

today we're taking you back to August of 1981

when President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. The strike which was

illegal under US law had lasted just two days. I've been speaking to two people who are involved in what was a watershed moment in

labour relations in America.

Not for 35 years has an American president acted so rough and tough. Then President Truman

crushed a strike by rail workers within 48 hours after threatening to draft

them into the army. This time President Reagan is clearly determined to smash the strike by the air traffic controllers with all the legal muscle at his command.

This was really a turning point because subsequent to the strike everything went down to the strike. Everything went down, you know, to this day there's hardly any strikes in the United States as we knew them at that time.

The bottom line issue was the fact that the government they were out to set up an example.

35 years on, Ken Moffitt and John Dwyer both agree on the importance of that moment

in August of 1981 when Ronald Reagan stood up to one of America's most militant unions.

But as you'll hear later that's about all they agree on. Back in those days Ken

was head of the Federal Mediation and

conciliation Service tasked with resolving labor disputes between unions and

the government. John Dwyer had been an air traffic controller since 1970.

He was also a union organizer and he worked at the Air Traffic Control Center in Virginia.

Basically the airport controllers, controlled 20 miles around the airport controllers control

control 20 miles around the airport and up to 10,000 feet in the air and we

control the rest of the airspace.

And how good was the equipment that you were using at that time?

That's part of what happened in 81 was the fact that people that had enough,

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