The day the middle class died ...

[MindMover]

Last edited Sun Oct 27, 2013, 12:33 AM - Edit history (1)

THIRTY years ago today, when he threatened to fire nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers unless they called off an illegal strike, Ronald Reagan not only transformed his presidency, but also shaped the world of the modern workplace.

More than any other labor dispute of the past three decades, Reagan’s confrontation with the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or Patco, undermined the bargaining power of American workers and their labor unions. It also polarized our politics in ways that prevent us from addressing the root of our economic troubles: the continuing stagnation of incomes despite rising corporate profits and worker productivity.

By firing those who refused to heed his warning, and breaking their union, Reagan took a considerable risk. Even his closest advisers worried that a major air disaster might result from the wholesale replacement of striking controllers. Air travel was significantly curtailed, and it took several years and billions of dollars (much more than Patco had demanded) to return the system to its pre-strike levels.

But the risk paid off for Reagan in the short run. He showed federal workers and Soviet leaders alike how tough he could be. Although there were 39 illegal work stoppages against the federal government between 1962 and 1981, no significant federal job actions followed Reagan’s firing of the Patco strikers. His forceful handling of the walkout, meanwhile, impressed the Soviets, strengthening his hand in the talks he later pursued with Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/opinion/reagan-vs-patco-the-strike-that-busted-unions.html?_r=0

[BlueToTheBone]

1. That was the beginning of the end. Another of

the evils of Ronnie Raygun.

[awoke_in_2003]

2. I would go a decade back...

with Nixon's visit to China.

[BlueToTheBone]

3. Or took us off the gold standard. n/t

[truebluegreen]

4. Old article--strike was in '81.

IOW, Reagan didn't waste any time after he was elected.

[demosincebirth]

5. Not so, it started when the Trucking and Airline industy were deregulated. The Teasmster Union's

Last edited Sat Oct 26, 2013, 07:53 PM - Edit history (1)

members were the biggest victims of deregulation, losing over 400,000 well paying jobs during the following decade. Reagan, accelerated the decline of the middles class by firing the traffic controllers and gave a big boost to companies who's employees went on strike to replace them.


I hurts me to say this but, the Senator behind the deregulation of the trucking and Airline industry was Ted Kennedy and President Carter signed the bill. I forgave Jimmy Carter...he grew up in the segregated and the non union friendly South. Kennedy should have known better... he came from a heavy unionized state.

[starroute]

6. I understand why Kennedy was behind it -- it wasn't anti-union then

In the late 1970s, the trucking industry itself was fiercely opposed to deregulation, which was seen by people like Kennedy as a way to help consumers by restoring greater competition. It was only after the Reagan administration hijacked the banner of deregulation that it was turned against the unions rather than the owners.

[demosincebirth]

7. I respect your opinion, but I lived through the middle class thriving. The ICC regulation kept the

these cut-throat, low wage trucking companies from getting a foot hold in the lucrative and well regulated trucking industry. Kennedy's thinking was to deregulate the industry and to lower prices, eventually, at the consumer level. Well, if you lived through the eighties and early nineties the retail price index did not lower more that a few percentage points. You must know the rest of the story: Following true human nature, the shippers never passed their tremendous drop in transportation cost to, us, the consumer, but to their stock holder's fat portfolios.

[starroute]

8. I don't argue with you about that part

But as I understand it, the trucking companies had guaranteed monopolies, were able to divide up the territories and set the rates as they chose ... so it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Whether it was doomed from the start to go awry or whether Reagan did things that sabotaged the original intentions, I don't know. I do know that in 1984, Thomas Donohue -- who now heads the US Chamber of Commerce -- became head of the American Trucking Associations and pushed the deregulation agenda enthusiastically. So that may have had something to do with it.

[demosincebirth]

9. One last point of information. Trucking companies did not set shipping rates. That was in the sole

jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission and still is. Only tremendous discounts are given by non union, low wage trucking companies. The original shipping rates are still in tact and the percentage of a discount is taken from that original ICC rate...sometimes trucking companies, now, give up to 70% discount to a big shipping customer, also might be known as "WalMart."

[A HERETIC I AM]

13. Sorry, but you are wrong. The ICC doesn't even exist as an agency anymore, shipping rates

was not their sole jurisdiction and those rates aren't presently "set" per se. That was the entire point of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980

If you build widgets in Atlanta and want to ship 5 truckloads a week out to California, you will get varying quotes from any number of carriers. As with anything, the more you have, the better the rate will be.

If you make one widgit a month and ship it UPS, it is going to cost you significantly more per mile per pound than if you are filling 53' trailers with them once a day.

The original shipping rates are still in tact and the percentage of a discount is taken from that original ICC rate.

Where do you get this from? Please cite a reference or I call bullshit.

sometimes trucking companies, now, give up to 70% discount to a big shipping customer, also might be known as "WalMart."

First of all, in the case of other carriers, Wal-Mart is the consignee, NOT the shipper. The overwhelming majority of Wal-Mart goods moves from their distribution centers to their stores pulled by their own power units in their own trailers, and where it isn't, it is done on a contract basis, such as Schneider for instance supplying the tractor and the driver to move Wal-Mart's trailer for them.

Second, NO ONE, not one single trucking company is giving ANYBODY a "70% discount". 70 percent of what?

Every truck out there has an operational cost per mile which fluctuates on an almost daily basis with the change in Diesel costs. If it is averaging $1.00 per mile including driver wages (I believe the fleet average is right around that, but I digress) then anything over that figure is profit. If I can get $2.00 a mile from you to move your widgits, so be it, if all the other quotes you got were higher.

But there is nothing stopping the "Otis and Barney Trucking Co." from calling you up and offering to haul your product for $1.10.

Nothing.

It just isn't the huge margin business you seem to think it is.

[MindMover]

20. Trucking is still one of the few service industries that is still close to

100% American owned and operated ... Thankfully ...

[Wilms]

10. ^

[SoCalDem]

11. It started with A/C in the hot & muggy south.

When A/C came there in a big way, it was also about the time when people in the industrial Great Lakes states started to get upset about pollution. When Nixon started the EPA and the environmental movements really got going, it did not take long for the industrialists, facing huge costs to modernize/clean up, to realize that it was cheaper to pay fines sometime in the future, and to just abandon what they had and move to "greener pastures". Those pastures also had mild winters (cheaper costs for heating), A/C for summers, and eager states with shitloads of cheap employees who would not dare to unionize their longed-for new jobs.

They just shut it down and moved to places who were ready to cut deals on taxes, who did not mind them dumping their toxins all over the place, and who would provide them with a steady stream of downtrodden people ready to work for half what they used to pay.

Interesting article from 2005

[MindMover]

12. I know there is some good stuff in SCal ...

Do you deliver ? Whatever it is, I want some ....

[raccoon]

16. Great article, and post. Having grown up in the South without AC, trust me, you don't want to be

without it.

[SoCalDem]

17. Don't I know it..

I spent a decade in Panama (came back to non-A/C Kansas in 1962)

In Panama, our cars had no A/C.. and neither did anyplace else (Rumor had it that the Officers' Club was air conditioned). Base housing had no glass in any window.. just heavy screens with mesh big enough for lizards to come & go & metal storm louvers.. Aaaah the good old days

[cantbeserious]

14. Kick And Recommend

eom

[Enthusiast]

19. +1

[Enthusiast]

18. Yes, Saint Ronnie.

The prosperity we enjoyed in the late 20th Century was a historical aberration. At no other time in history were there living standards approaching that level for "ordinary" people.

We achieved this living standard mostly through efforts of the labor movement. There was also the need for the government to prove capitalism superior to the "red menace". And there was the massive investment in infrastructure and education during the decades after WWII.

Expect American living standards to decline rapidly without a strong labor movement. In fact it is happening right before our eyes.