Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, Local 215 (Boston Tower) Records

Background on the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, Local 215 (Boston Tower)

After a series of airline-related tragedies, Congress passed the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, leading to the founding of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), who began hiring of thousands of air traffic controllers. As air traffic increased dramatically in the 1960s, working conditions for controllers became increasingly stressed. According to the "History of PATCO" in the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) newsletter:

Believing that the existing professional organizations -- the Air Traffic Controllers Association (ATCA) and the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE) -- failed to provide the necessary attention to controller issues, air traffic controllers created a professional organization devoted exclusively to protecting their interests. The noted attorney F. Lee Bailey was engaged as legal counsel, chosen not only for his legal expertise but for the knowledge of piloting and air traffic control issues he had gained as a jet fighter pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps in the mid-1950s. With his assistance, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) was founded on January 11, 1968. Bailey became the first Executive Director and Michael J. Rock was designated Chairman of a Board comprised of controllers from across the United States. Rock and Jack Mahar founded the New York Metropolitan Area Association, the first of many local branches of PATCO, and soon, other branches were born.

Initially, PATCO saw itself solely as a professional organization, and at its first annual convention in Chicago in July 1968, drafted a constitution and undertook other efforts to establish itself as such. However, PATCO also wanted to be an organization that could bargain or negotiate. In 1969, the Civil Service Commission ruled that PATCO was a trade union, not merely a professional organization. In the summer of 1969, controllers from several facilities in the new union organized a "sick day," the first of several they held over the next several years.

Relations between PATCO and the FAA continued to deteriorate into the early 1970s. PATCO sought the advice of the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association (MEBA), a branch of the AFL-CIO and a well-established labor union with similar issues. A second 3-week "sickout" was called in March 1970, in order to avoid repercussions for going on strike, and -- at the request of the FAA -- resulting in intercession by the courts ordering the controllers back to work. At the third national convention in Las Vegas in April 1970, PATCO voted to affiliate itself with the MEBA.

PATCO Local 215, also known as the "Boston Tower PATCO," represented workers at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in March, 1970, Boston Tower PATCO grew slowly over the next several years from approximately 30 members to more than 80 in 1981. In Boston, as elsewhere, job-related stress was a major topic that gradually gained the attention of the medical community. Between 1964 and 1980, a number of medical studies drew attention to both the physical and psychological health implications of the ongoing stress of being an air traffic controller, citing increased rates of cardiac problems, hypertension, impulse control issues, anxiety, depression, and gastrointestinal issues. Other reports addressed topics such as aging in the air traffic control profession, fatigue, and the relationship between chronological age, length of experience, and job performance. In 1972, Local 215 produced a "Staffing and Morale Report" to pressure the FAA to improve conditions at the Boston Tower. Ongoing staffing shortages throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, however, continued to erode morale.

The strength of the organization, and of Boston Tower PATCO in particular, increased in the 1970s. Local 215 members were well represented at union "fly-in's" -- informal exchanges of information and ideas, at seminars for the Eastern Region (including the NY and Washington D.C. areas), and the national conventions. Local union representatives made themselves known to Congressional senators and representatives, and began building support for their cause. Boston Tower PATCO developed strong working relationship with several key groups, including Massport (the facilities organization that oversees Logan Airport), ALPA (the Air Line Pilots Association), and with several airlines.

Boston Tower PATCO also attempted to build public support for their cause through charitable activities as well as through various public relations efforts. In addition to issuing numerous press releases, they initiated a speakers' program, open to "career days" at local high schools, in which they made air traffic control representatives available for any group that requested. In January 1979, WBZ television station in Boston aired a 10-part news series entitled "Logan: How Safe is Safe?" that represented the voices of Boston Tower PATCO (through Michael Fermon), FAA representatives, and pilots.

Among the ongoing issues for controllers in Boston was the reclassification of control towers. Each tower was classified (up to a top rating of GS-15) according to factors such as radar facilities, the complexity of landing at that airport, the type of traffic (e.g., military, air carrier, general aviation), and the configurations of the runways. Air traffic controllers were also rated according to their level of experience with different towers and air traffic situations, and salaries were tied to their level of GS rating. PATCO National felt that the FAA's classification system was unfair, and the issue spent five years in federal courts before being referred to the Civil Service Commission. Following the recommendations of a joint FAA/PATCO committee, Boston Tower was ultimately reclassified upward to GS-14, and to maintain staffing levels, some personnel were promoted to GS-14, despite the objections of the union that argued that the controllers had not received the requisite training. When training was then arranged, PATCO members in Boston complained to management about the quality of the sessions and claimed that the trainers lacked the requisite knowledge. When union members tried to record the training sessions to make their case, the instructors objected, and in the end, several PATCO attendees walked out. The reprimands they received for their actions only serve to stoke the tensions already building in Boston.

Among the most serious issues that Boston Tower PATCO had to contend with was the ever-changing air space landscape as the FAA revised air traffic routes to address noise issues for the communities surrounding Logan Airport. Noise abatement became a particular priority in the years between 1972 and 1980, and the new air traffic patterns that were introduced created a challenging, rapidly changing, and highly complex environment for the controllers. In 1979 and 1980, the noise abatement issue came to a head. Massport asked the FAA to study alternative procedures for aircraft departing on runway 22Right, which generated not only an environmental impact statement that needed to be addressed, but local activism in Hull, Hingham, Scituate, Cohasset, and other noise-affected communities. Michael Fermon, then President of Local 215, appeared as a speaker at several rallies to provide the air traffic controller's perspective of the proposed changes.

As the 1980 presidential election drew near, PATCO as a national organization was faced with the choice of whom to support. Candidate Ronald Reagan wrote to PATCO National President Robert Poli, assuring him that he understood the nature of the unreasonable working conditions, and promised to take "whatever steps are necessary" to provide up-to-date equipment, adjust staffing levels and schedules, and appoint individuals to government organizations who were "highly-qualified" and who could "work harmoniously with the Congress and the employees of the government agencies they oversee." He ended with the statement, "I pledge to you that my administration will work very closely with you to bring about a spirit of cooperation between the President and the air traffic controllers."

As talks between PATCO and the FAA continued to be non-productive, however, talk of an air traffic controllers' strike began to surface. In March 1981, the contract between PATCO and the FAA expired, and by April, Local 215 was in communication with other local Boston Area towers to assess how many potentially striking controllers they had. In early June, talks between PATCO and the FAA had lasted for 8 weeks, involving 37 sessions and 95 unresolved issues, so the national union set a date of midnight of June 21 to agree on a contract or PATCO would wage a strike. The current Local 215 president, Kevin Brophy, reached out to Boston mayor Kevin White asking for his support in lobbying Massachusetts senators and representatives to urge the FAA to come back to the table for good-faith bargaining, and wives of the Boston Tower PATCO controllers wrote to Reagan directly to plead their case. After the FAA provided a settlement offer on June 18 that PATCO rejected, Brophy issued a statement outlining the repercussions of a strike on the public. PATCO and the FAA reached a tentative agreement four days later, but as word of the agreement spread nationally, discontent over the terms swelled within the rank and file, and once again, local branches started taking headcounts of potential strikers. In an effort to tell their story, Boston Tower PATCO put together the "Boston Tower Report," chronicling, over a 10-year period, their exchanges with management and their efforts to improve safety and working conditions at the Boston Tower.

PATCO rejected the tentative agreement, and on August 3, 1981, almost 13,000 air traffic controllers went on strike. Reagan responded by declaring the strike illegal, since government employees were legally prohibited from striking, and ordering all workers back to the job within 48 hours under threat of dismissal. Hundreds of flights out of Logan were canceled. Local 215 organized itself into picketing teams with "call PACs" (political action committees) -- quick telephone communication systems to inform the membership through daily reports from the picket lines. When workers did not return to the job, Reagan carried out his threat and fired them.

As the strike went into effect, PATCO was not without support. Support appeared from various other unions, both local, national and even international; Kevin Brophy received a letter from the British Vice-Chairman of the Society of Civil and Public Servants, offering advice from their own struggles and echoing support for PATCO's efforts. Support even appeared from various airlines; Delta Airlines, Eastern Airlines and United Airlines each provided meals, free of charge, to Boston Tower air traffic controllers who showed up for duty.

As the strike wore on, controllers were replaced by a combination of military controllers and controllers-in-training ("developmentals"). Some controllers, including a number from Boston Tower PATCO, appealed their firing to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), one of three organizations that had replaced the former Civil Service Commission and whose responsibility it was to hear appeals from federal employees regarding potential abuses by management. According to Richard Sharpe,

In October 1981, the union was decertified, and was later dissolved. The PATCO strike is seen as a turning point for the labor movement in the United States. Reagan's refusal to negotiate and his insistence on upholding the firing of the controllers set a precedent for employers in the private sector in handling employees, whether striking or not. The impact on other unions was profound, and contributed greatly to the erosion of workers' rights and the strength of organized labor.

The following list of significant personnel is provided to help distinguish who was internal vs. external to the labor union. The list is not exhaustive, but represents names that appear frequently throughout the collection:

Presidents of Boston Tower PATCO (in order of service)

PATCO Regional Officers

PATCO National Officers

FAA Boston Tower Chiefs

FAA Regional

FAA National