Portside

The US’s air traffic control workforce is overstretched, which has led to a big rise in airplane “near misses.” The crisis has roots in Ronald Reagan’s crushing of the 1981 PATCO strike and in the neoliberal attack on public services he helped spear

The undermining of workers’ strike power since PATCO's defeat disabled what was a vital instrument for building and maintaining social solidarity and for directing inevitable class tensions and social conflict toward democratic and egalitarian ends.