What do you think could have been done better by the PATCO ? By the government?

Question

What do you think could have been done better by the PATCO ? By the government? Consider communication, distributive VS integrative bargaining, tactics, ethics, conflict resolution. Kindly elucidate The 1981 Air Traffic Controllers Strike Background: Union negotiators may find that the authority limits they are au negotiation b thorized to use in a labor y their union members (constituency) can be both to their advantage as well as vantage. One tactical advantage in using their constituency authority can include the ability to manipulate public visibility to what is transpiring behind closed doors to gain sympathy. By bringing out the issues into the public forum, they may be able to manipulate public support for their plight. Another advantage might be gained in the limiting of concessions by conducting the negotiation in front of their members or constituency. By doing so, the negotiators show that their authority has limitations, and that they have only so much latitude. A union negotiator might iilustrate their solidarity with the union constituency by displaying a certain degree of militancy in union demands and expectations. The disadvantage can occur when the labor representative exceeds their authority. They might find they are caught in a squeeze by agreeing to a tentative proposal behind closed doors. Afterwards, when the union member constituency votes against to ratify the proposed agreement, the union negotiator suddenly finds their credibility with their constituency to be under-minded by result. The rejection of a proposed agreement is not that dissimilar to a non-confidence vote. Union negotiators must sometimes walk a fine line and be careful not to exceed their authority. Sometimes, the militancy employed by the union negotiators takes on an extreme that causes harm not only to themselves but also to their constituency The Case: In 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization union (PATCO) went on strike against the Federal Aviation Authority FAA) in the United States. Effectively, every aircraft controller governed by the federal agency had walked off the job. Previously, the union leader representative, Robert Poli had spent several months attempting to negotiate a new labor management contract with the FAA. A tentative agreement was reached that was then presented to the union members to vote on ratifying the proposal. The tentative contract was rejected by an overwhelming 90% percent of its mernbers. Poli returned to the negotiating table to get a better package from the FAA. Relations had deteriorated significantly between the two negotiating parties. The FAA now dug in its own heels and refused to offer any more concessions or improve the existing offer any further. After an additional two fruitless weeks of further talks between the two parties, Poli instructed PATCO to take strike action of its members against the FAA. Going on strike is normally fine in most circumstances, but here is where Poli exceeded his authority. The contract that had been signed previously with the FAA strictly prohibited a strike action, and deemed that any such strike action as illegal. So, what happened? The FAA and the administration under President Ronald Regan implemented the following steps against Poli, and PATCO's members

Explanation / Answer

In this case the relations between the two negotiating parties deteriorated significantly, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strikes to obtain a set of concessions from the government. When the government refuses to meet the demands, PATCO has two options: to back off and return to work under the old conditions or to continue the strike, despite the threat of dismissal. Shortly after the strike started, it became clear to objective observers that, faced with an unyielding administration, PATCO had a weak negotiating position. Rational analysis would have led its leaders to end the strike or at least reduce their demands before its members were fired. Instead, PATCO acted just as individuals, organizations and countries so often do in this situation. It increased its commitment to the strike to justify the earlier decision to proceed with it. In negotiations, both sides often start with extreme demands, expecting to compromise somewhere in the middle. But they get caught up in the struggle, feel they have too much time, money and ego invested to back off and take a hard line instead of adopting a conciliatory or problem-solving approach.

After studying the case, I would like to suggest some other procedures and tactics to deal with this situation. Lack of communication and negotiation skills have been noticed in this case due to which the situation reached to the drastic level. There was lack of effective communication, as the oath taken by the air traffic controllers failed to build employee morale and reduce grievances. Effective communication assists employees to understand expectations of the employment and creates commitment and loyalty whereas ineffective communication leads to the damaged work relationships. At the same time, ineffective communication decreases trust between the employer and the employees. After going through the situation, it can be stated that there were lack of efficient communication between the members of PATCO and FAA and this gave birth to one of the major labor movements in the U.S. history. Perhaps many social researchers have over simplified the legacy of the 1981 strike by 13,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization.

Perhaps the American Labor Movement was already in declining state and the ramifications of the President Ronald Reagan’s move to replace those striking employees only aggravated that decline. However, when I look back into the details of this event that have several opinions, led to the crippling of the American Labor movement, as well as the loss of the American Manufacturing base, I all the time consider the PATCO strike as the defining moment. When the air traffic controllers went on strike in 1981, they were striving to get shorter work weeks and higher pay. There was a law in place that forbids the union of the public employees from striking. It was belief of that time that the economy of that country would not be able to withstand the loss of the commercial flights and that their strikers would be brief as well as successful. I have understood that aftermath of this strike had forever changed the situation of the organized labor situation in America. This at the same time changed and titled the playing fields to favour management in union negotiations.

If focus is shed on the distributive and integrative bargaining, then it can be seen that the 1981 Air Traffic Controllers Strike was a distributive negotiation. The reason behind this situation is that distributive bargaining ends up in a win-lose situation, where some parties at some point of advantages win and the other party lose out. Here, the air traffic controllers under the Union lost their turn and the US President Ronald Reagan won. Another reason to consider this incident as distributive bargaining procedure is that distributive bargaining is highly competitive in nature and considers each party as the competitor. In this case, Representative of PATCO went to FAA several times for negotiation and bargaining, however, FAA was not at all ready to consider the interests of the workers. The conflict resolution procedure could have been in some other ways, where the interests of both the parties were kept. However, there some faults in conflict resolution that gave birth to this drastic situation in the labor union history throughout the globe.

As per my viewpoint, the government could have been less hard towards the employees, as the employees have the right to speak up against the government, if they feel that their interests are not taken care of properly. On the other hand to the government, it can be stated that the Labor’s Union, i.e. PATCO could have asked for some other requirements. They could have asked for 36 hours workweek instead of 40. However, it is required to mention here that there were communication gap between both the parties and thus the situation was very bad.

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