This Week in NATCA/Labor History
Wednesday, December 07, 2011

THIS WEEK IN NATCA HISTORY:

December 9, 1987 — NATCA organization: Union representatives from all 53 Southwest Region facilities meet in Dallas to share experiences and initiate a regional “self-training mode.” FAA representatives from Air Traffic, Labor Management Relations and Human Resources also attend.

December 9, 1981: President Reagan rescinds an order banning fired controllers from seeking federal work for three years. However, they are still barred from returning to the FAA. Many controllers who subsequently apply for work in other government agencies and at overseas ATC facilities claim they have been blacklisted when they find it nearly impossible to get hired.


THIS WEEK IN LABOR HISTORY:

1911: Unionists John T. and James B. McNamara were sentenced to 15 years and life, respectively, after confessing to dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building during a drive to unionize the metal trades in the city. Twenty people died in the bombing. The newspaper was strongly conservative and anti-union.

Dec. 6, 1869: African American delegates meet in Washington, D.C., to form the Colored National Labor Union (CNLU) as a branch of the all-white National Labor Union created three years earlier. Unlike the NLU, the CNLU welcomed members of all races. Isaac Myers was the CNLU's founding president and in 1872 Frederick Douglass became president.