WHILE the postal dispute centered on the clear-cut issue of wages, the Government's conflict with air-traffic controllers is far more complex. It involves a challenge to the efficacy of Federal Aviation Administration equipment and safety procedures as well as salary, working conditions, rivalry among unions and the personality of Attorney F. Lee Bailey.
The wavy-haired Boston lawyer is the executive director and general counsel of the two-year-old Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, the biggest and by far the most aggressive of five unions representing factions of the nation's 16,000 civil service controllers. Ostensibly, PATCO members left their radarscopes last week to emphasize claims that their facilities are understaffed and that the controllers themselves are overworked and underpaid (though some of them gross $21,000 a year). One key factor nobody thought to mention was ambition—Bailey's.
Last week's outbreak of "fatigue" among the controllers, the cause of the third air-traffic snarl in 20 months, had been forecast by PATCO a week in advance. Like the massive "slowdown" of the summer of 1968, the "sick-out" was another tactic in Bailey's continuing campaign to win PATCO recognition as sole bargainer for the controllers. The cause célèbre this time was the fate of three activist PATCO members in the FAA's Baton Rouge control tower. The agency has been trying to transfer the three for months, but has been stalled by legal and bureaucratic obstacles thrown up by PATCO. Last week a federal judge in Baton Rouge ruled that the transfer would be entirely proper and legal—a ruling that left the sick-out as PATCO's weapon of last resort.
A successful show of muscle against FAA Administrator John Shaffer would not only impress PATCO's 6,500 dues-paying members ($156 a year) but other air controllers as well. Shaffer refused to be intimidated and, as the FAA sought to pressure individual controllers to return to work, the Government obtained an injunction against PATCO's tactics. "The only way out of this," replied Bailey, "is for all of the controllers to walk out." Privately, he said: "This guy Shaffer has got to go." After their men called in ill, PATCO officials blasted the FAA for continuing operations despite "severe risks." Lawyer Bailey disclaimed any responsibility when a federal judge barred PATCO from encouraging a work stoppage. A strike? The sick-out, Bailey scoffed, was not a "concerted action, but individual acts."