[Thumper1960]

I do have to give the air traffic controllers their due for how they were able to get all of those thousands of planes out of the sky and onto the ground as fast as they did, and without any accidents in the process. I wonder how different things might have been if Reagan had not fired all of those air traffic controllers when they went on strike in the 80's.

Reagan was right in canning them. Some government jobs just shouldn't be strike-sensitive. Imagine if PATCO has triumphed and Sept. 11th was in the middle of an ATC system strike, with management personnel operating the ATC system. Disaster would have been an understatement.

[sphinx]

Reagan was right in canning them.

Calvin Coolidge was correct that there is no right to strike against the public. In theory, governments undertake to provide services that are deemed too important to be left to the vagaries of the market. Yes, government has bloated far beyond a strict application of that principle, but that's the underlying idea.

The corollary is that any government function in which we are prepared to take a strike ought to be privatized immediately. This is exactly the deal I would put to public sector unions. Ask them: Do you want the right to strike? If their answer is yes, privatize.