How U.S. Unions Took Flight (Throwback)

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2024

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Airline workers — pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, baggage handlers, and more — represent a huge cross-section of the country. And for decades, they've used their unions to fight not just for better working conditions, but for civil rights, charting a course that leads right up to today. In this episode, we turn an eye to the sky to see how American unions took flight.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad Foundation.
0:04.0	If you're a U.S. Citizen living abroad, the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad Turnout Project's online form
0:10.2	will walk you through requesting your ballot in just five minutes.
0:13.5	Visit International Voter.com
0:18.0	August 3rd 1981
0:20.0	President Ronald Reagan is holding a press conference in the Rose Garden.
0:24.3	This morning at 7 a.m. the union representing those who man America's air traffic control
0:30.0	facilities called a strike.
0:32.0	About 13,000 air traffic controllers, federal
0:35.4	employees who make sure planes take off fly and land safely, had walked off the
0:40.3	job calling for better wages and work hours. The president wasn't happy about it.
0:46.0	And if they do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated.
0:54.0	President Reagan kept his word.
0:56.4	Two days later, he broke the strike by firing 11,000 striking employees
1:01.8	and replaced them with non-union workers.
1:04.0	It was a huge moment.
1:06.0	It clear signal to America and American businesses.
1:10.0	Unions and strikers are not working-class heroes whose footsteps should be followed.
1:15.3	They're troublemakers, and you don't have to stand for it.
1:19.0	Reagan's power moves started a cascade.
1:22.0	Over the next few years strikes were broken left and right,
1:26.0	union workers lost their jobs and unions lost power. Bit by bit, year by year, they became artifacts of American history.
	...

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