The air traffic control system has never entirely recovered from what Reagan did to it in 1981. He fired a lot of them to bust their union, at the cost of public safety. In the short term, there weren't enough controllers to cover the losses. That lasted for around a decade. Since then, the problem has been that the pay is no longer good enough to attract the number of people needed. Air traffic control is one of the most stressful jobs in existence and, without a union, the pay has lagged. We can thank Reagan, and all of the tight-budget conservatives who followed him, for our current problems with air safety.
They do have a union actually, however obviously they aren't able to strike so it's largely weakened.
It's not really a union, then.
The extent of federal employee "unions" is some minor benefits and making it harder to be fired. Collective action functionally doesn't exist.
The air traffic control system has never entirely recovered from what Reagan did to it in 1981. He fired a lot of them to bust their union, at the cost of public safety. In the short term, there weren't enough controllers to cover the losses. That lasted for around a decade. Since then, the problem has been that the pay is no longer good enough to attract the number of people needed. Air traffic control is one of the most stressful jobs in existence and, without a union, the pay has lagged. We can thank Reagan, and all of the tight-budget conservatives who followed him, for our current problems with air safety.
They do have a union actually, however obviously they aren't able to strike so it's largely weakened.
It's not really a union, then.
The extent of federal employee "unions" is some minor benefits and making it harder to be fired. Collective action functionally doesn't exist.