Introduction to Symposium on the Meaning of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization Strike Twenty-Five Years Later

Excerpt

I am most pleased to present this symposium in the Perspectives section on the meaning of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike 25 years later. In August 1981, more than 11,000 air traffic controllers launched a strike which has been viewed as a defining point in U.S. labor history. Three prominent experts on the PATCO strike have written essays for this symposium: Arthur B. Shostak, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Drexel University; Joseph A. McCartin, Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University and Richard W. Hurd, Professor of Labor Studies at Cornell University. These articles provide important insights on what is undoubtedly the most important public sector strike in the United States in the last two decades of the twentieth century. …