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When rail unions struck that same year, Roosevelt put the War Department in charge of the railroads. Harry Truman similarly ordered strike-bound coal mines seized in 1946, railroads in 1950 and steel mills in 1952. Richard Nixon in 1970 sent military troops into post offices where federal employees had illegally left their jobs. Still, taking on the controllers was not quite as difficult as facing down coal, steel, railroad and postal workers—who have far more members and political clout than doesPATCO.*
Actually, Reagan had wanted to move even faster against the air controllers, but was restrained by his aides. The President's impulse on the day before the strike was to warn that all the strikers would be fired. His advisers suggested that since the walkout had not begun, such a statement would be both provocative and premature. Secretary Lewis, who found the controllers dangerously "whipped up," cautioned: "It could have given them a point to rally behind—that we were using a pretty big gun to force them to sign."
Reagan checked his anger and held his fire until after the strike was under way on Monday morning. Summoning reporters and photographers to the White House Rose Garden, he read a gently phrased statement. "I respect the right of workers in the private sector to strike,"he said. "Indeed, as president of my own union, I led the first strike ever called by that union [the Screen Actors Guild, 1959]." But Government, he said, "has to provide without interruption the protective services which are Government's reason for being." He noted that Congress (in 1947) passed a law forbidding strikes by Government employees. He read aloud the nonstrike oath that each air controller, and indeed any federal employee, must sign upon hiring, and said of the strikers: "They are in violation of the law, and if they do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated."
While forceful, the President was not vindictive. "Dammit," he said privately to his aides, including Chief of Staff James Baker and Counsellor Ed Meese, "the law is the law, and the law says they can't strike. By striking they've quit their jobs." Later, Reagan noted publicly that the air controllers were "fine people," and added: "I do feel badly. I take no joy in this. There is just no other choice."
Though Reagan seemed to be taking a safe and popular course in facing down the controllers, failure to do so could have been costly. For one thing, other federal unions—most of them quite small, but a few, including the postal workers, strong and increasingly restive—were warily watching the Administration's attitude toward Government strikers. Said one Reagan aide, drawing a rather far-fetched analogy: "If you cave in to a group like this, that has a stranglehold on public safety, what do you do, for example, when the Army wants to strike? It's the same thing." The President also could not permit a strike to shut down the air industry at a time when his entire economic recovery program is newly enacted and is about to take effect.