SPRINGFIELD – Since eighty percent of the voting AFSCME state employees authorized their bargaining committee to go on strike if Governor Rauner doesn't agree to their demands, can Illinois taxpayers expect the governor to "PATCO" the strikers?
… As in what President Ronald Reagan did when 11,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization refused to return to work in 1981?
That's a question Public Affairs' Jeff Berkowitz posed to Mr. Rauner last week:
Jeff Berkowitz: If AFSCME goes out on strike, would you PATCO the State employees- remember Reagan did that [hired new air traffic controllers when their union went out on Strike], would you do the same thing?
Gov. Rauner: What I will say is—the strike is not the right thing, we should implement our new contract. We are prepared, if a strike were to occur, we are prepared to keep essential government services running, but the right thing to do is to implement our new contract.
"We are prepared to keep essential government services running …" and that will take non-union workers to pull off.
But Berkowitz' question wasn't that far afield. It was Bruce Rauner as the 2014 IL GOP candidate for governor that first brought up the idea of firing striking workers as President Reagan did, and warned about "rough times" ahead.
"I apologize. We may have to go through rough times," Rauner said at the Republican dinner. "We may have to do what Ronald Reagan did with the air traffic controllers. Sort of have to do a do-over and shut things down for a little while. That's what we're gonna do."
Is that what Rauner is planning for public employees?
He’s a spineless, gutless RINO. No.
A clarification is required on why the PATCO air traffic controllers went on strike:
The PATCO strike was over the issue of airline safety.
It was not about wages.
I know several past PATCO members. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) was using electronic equipment so outdated that it’s manufacturer, IBM, would no longer provide repair parts for it. The FAA was the only customer still utilizing this outdated junk. It was SO bad that my neighbor, an FAA electrician, had to hand-wire parts of the computers when printed circuit panels failed. Flight controllers were having nervous breakdowns to match the equipment breakdowns. People were resigning, even before the strike.
One of Ron Reagan’s promises was, if elected, to order this equipment replaced with updated technology. When he weaseled on the promise, PATCO went on strike.
The FAA had to hire and train all new people. All the experience controllers were gone. It was a nightmare. However, the same old, false promises were made to the new people.
Ten years later, they were also resigning.
Knowing what I know about these operations, and of the reluctance of the airlines to replace failing electrical components within the plains themselves, I doubt if I will ever board another airliner again.
AFSCME members believe that Illinois residents exist to provide them with lifetime employment and post-employment, inflation proof pensions, dully funded for for their benefit.
Let them walk away.