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I am friends with the man who was president of PATCO during the strike. He has told me that he met with Reagan while Reagan was running for president. Reagan told him that he knew PATCO's contract was coming up and that he saw no problems with it and would write a letter as such if he could have PATCO's endorsement, which my friend gave. My friend knew there was a problem when he set down with the Sec. of Transportation and the Sec. said he knew nothing of the letter and saw no reason to honor it. My friend said PATCO didn't want to strike but were pushed hard in that direction. He said his organization kept taking national membership votes on it and even though there were enough in favor of it to strike, he held off. Finally, they went on strike. Once on strike, the said the Reagan administration wouldn't let them stop the strike. Finally, PATCO was beaten and all of their funding confiscated. My friend was blackballed through administration intimidation so he never worked in a union again. Years later, the Sec. of Transportation from that time called him and they went out for dinner. The Sec. wanted to come clean about what happened. He said that the Reagan administration came in to office to bust unions, so it picked the most visible and vulnerable and set them up. The Sec. said that they pushed PATCO to strike intentionally and that they then wire taped all of the pre-strike and strike conversations so they knew vote #'s, strategies, decisions, etc. The Sec. said that PATCO could have won if they had struck immediately because the substitute air traffic controllers that were being secretly training on an air force base wouldn't have been ready. The striking a.tr. controllers were banned from ever working for the federal government or as a.tr. controllers for the rest of their lives. Years later, the ban was lifted for working for the gov't., but not for being a. tr. controllers. This was the first bust of a union and the rest retreated in fear. The movement has never recovered.