Why Not Just Fire Them?

I’m just thinking what the Post is apparently saying by reprinting President Reagan’s 48-hour ultimatum on today’s op-ed page:

On Aug. 3, 1981, nearly 13,000 air-traffic controllers defied President Ronald Reagan’s warnings and federal law by going on strike. Nearly half of the nation’s flights were grounded. Speaking from the Rose Garden, Reagan issued a 48-hour ultimatum.

REAGAN: This morning at 7 a.m., the union representing those who man America’s air-traffic control facilities called a strike. . . .

Let me make one thing plain. I respect the right of workers in the private sector to strike. Indeed, as president of my own union, I led the first strike ever called by that union. I guess I’m maybe the first one to ever hold this office who is a lifetime member of an AFL-CIO union. But we cannot compare labor-management relations in the private sector with government. Government cannot close down the assembly line. It has to provide without interruption the protective services which are government’s reason for being.

. . .

It is for this reason that I must tell those who fail to report for duty this morning 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.

Q: Do you think that they should go to jail, Mr. President, anybody who violates this law?

Reagan: I told you what I think should be done. They’re terminated.

Two days later, the president fired the 11,359 air-traffic controllers who had not returned to work.

But as the Daily News notes, firing them all is more difficult than you would have thought:

It has become an angry refrain as New Yorkers walk, bike and hitch their way through the cold with the striking MTA workers in mind: “Why don’t they just fire them all?”

According to the Taylor Law, which outlaws strikes, a striking worker can in fact lose his job.

But that doesn’t make mass firings practical, according to Jerome Lefkowitz, an architect of the law.

Everyone fired for striking could ask for an individual hearing on his or her dismissal: “It would be a very complicated and expensive process,” Lefkowitz said.

There’s also the obvious problem of quickly finding, training and dispatching people to replace the 33,700 strikers.

Haste in replacing striking workers has contributed to tragedy in the past: A 1918 transit strike, during which a dispatcher was sent to fill in for a motorman, ended in the horrific Malbone St. wreck, which killed nearly 100 people in Brooklyn.