After seven months of negotiations with the federal goverment, members of the Professional Air Traffic Controlers (PATCO) union went on strike on August 3, 1981. President Reagan, a former union president himself, argued that government workers differed from labor-magementent relations in the private sector because they had a duty to provide uninterrupted "protective services which are goverment's reason for being." He fired PATCO strikers when they did not return to work within forty-eight hours, and a federal judge ordered PATCO to pay restitution.
