Court Reaffirms
Public Employes’
Right to Strike
Dismissal of a damage suit against
striking public employes in West
Virginia is getting renewed atten
tion, because it is in sharp contrast
to punitive actions taken against
striking air traffic controllers and
their union by the Reagan ad
ministration.
Labor Support of PATCO Hurts Airlines
“Air Oregon has taken it very
hard,” Riddle said. “Our flights have
been reduced by the FAA and
traffic on (our) remaining routes are
down because of the public
perception that air travel is less
safe.”
“Where public employes, who
have no employment contracts with
their employer, engaged in a work
stoppage which is peaceful and
directed only against the employer”
with no attempt to bar entrance to
the struck facility, “there is no
common law right to damages on
the part of the public employer,”
Justice Thomas Miller declared on
behalf of all but one of the five
Supreme Court justices.
Air Oregon is not the only airline
to be hurt by the PATCO strike.
The Wall Street Journal reports
that three airlines—American, Delta
and Trans World—say their profits
are being significantly depressed
due to the air controllers’ strike.
He strongly rejected the view that
public employers do not have to
bargain with workers and that
public employes have “somehow
limited” First Amendment protec
tions. McGraw wrote that public
employes have the same First
Amendment rights as private sector
workers and their right to collective
bargaining was not created by
federal labor legislation, but stems
from the Constitution.
In a related matter, thirty-seven
members of the House of Rep
resentatives have urged the Reagan
administration to reopen contract
Labor’s clout in Congress has
increased sharply since the massive
Solidarity Day protest against Rea
gan administration policies, ac
In a letter initiated by Rep. James
Oberstar (Minn.), the congressmen
said an agreement between the
Federal Aviation Administration and
PATCO “would be in the national
interest and would reflect great
credit upon all parties."
The letter to the President came
at the same time as a congressional
staff analysis warned that the
nation’s air traffic control system
could be in “serious trouble" by the
winter of 1983, because of overly
cording to AFL-CIO legislative
director Ray Denison.
As evidence, Denison cited three
successive victories for labor on key
legislation:
Overwhelming passage by the
House to extend the Voting Rights
Act;
Approval of funds by the House
for the Departments of Labor,
Education and Health and Human
Services without further cuts sought
by the administration; and
Rejection by the House of a new
move to reduce coverage of the
Occupational Safety and Health
Act.
In addition, Denison said the
President has shown an awareness
of this new mood in retreating from
administration plans for sharp cuts
in social security benefits and
reductions in the quality and
quantity of food served in the
school lunch program.
_______________________________
The committee’s staff said that
FAA administrator Lynn Helm’s
position that strikers are forever
barred from federal employment “is
legally untenable.”
Rep. William Ford (Mich.), who
heads the committee, told the
Associated Press that the airline
industry is suffering undue hard
ships and the administration must
consider rehiring experienced con
trollers.
“The real world is that the people
in labor and management relations
resolve their differences without it
turning into a permanent problem,”
Ford said.
Workshop Topic:
Civic Openings
for Women
Opportunities for women to serve
on State, county and city boards
and commissions, on advisory
bodies to community organizations
and in elective office will be
presented at a one-day workshop
on Nov. 21.
The workshop, which is free, will
be held in room 327 of Smith
Memorial Center at Portland State
University in Portland. The schedule
of events will run from 9 am to 4
pm.
For more information contact the
Governor’s Commission for Women
at 378-6520 in Salem or 1-800-452-
7813 toll free.
--
Filings of Age Bias Law Suits Triples
The number of fired employes
who are filing age discrimination
suits has nearly tripled in the last
year and many labor law experts
expect this trend to continue.
Last year, the federal government
received 8,779 age-discrimination
complaints, up sharply from the
3,097 complaints filed in 1979.
Federal law protects workers ages
40 to 70 from age discrimination.
Labor law attorneys and the
government attribute this rise to
three factors—a weak economy that
insures high numbers of layoffs, an
aging work force and the increasing
propensity of employes to fight back
when companies fire them.
talks with the striking air traffic
controllers, saying a negotiated
settlement “offers the most promis
ing and responsible course for
resolving" the 14-week dispute.
Solidarity Day Increases Labor’s Clout
‘in West Virginia the right to
protest against the policies of
government and the right to seek
redress from the government with
out fear of reprisal are as
fundamental to our law and good
sense as cornbread and beans are
to our diet.”
-------------------------------------------- -----
In its analysis of the FAA’s plans
to replace the striking controllers,
the House Post Office and Civil
Service Committee reported “the
only way to lessen the strain on the
(air control) system is to rehire a
substantial number of the striking
controllers.”
“If labor’s intent was to hurt the
airlines, they certainly have been
successful,” said Bob Riddle, Direc
tor of Marketing Services for Air
Oregon.
What has attracted interest to the
case was the refusal of West
Virginia’s highest court to reflect the
view that peaceful public sector
strikes are a form of outlawed
conduct that must be put down
with all the powers of government.
A concurring opinion by Justice
Darrel McGraw, joined by Justice
Sam Harshbarger, took a still
broader stand for the rights of
public workers.
optimistic projections on replacing
the 11,000 controllers fired by the
President after they went on strike
Aug. 3.
U.S. air carriers* profits have
been reduced by the air traffic
controllers’ strike and “airlines have
been substantially hurt by the AFL
CIO action calling for a boycott of
air travel in the U.S.,” says an
official of a regional airline.
While the complaints involve the
full range of ages covered by the
law, government officials say more
employes at the bottom end of the
protected age group file suits as a
means of fighting back against what
they feel has been unfair treatment.
“This is the third wave of
employment-opportunity cases that
will hit corporations,” following the
sex and race discrimination cases of
the past decade, Philip Smith,
associate general counsel of Xerox
Corp., told the Wall Street Journal.
“Older workers haven’t yet adopted
the public-pressure tactics the other
groups have used, but I think that
will change.”
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