Abstract
This issue's Bookmark section focuses on Joseph A. McCartin's Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike that Changed America. While drawing raves for the power of its narrative and depth of research, McCartin's work also attracts questions and criticism from a range of well-informed commentators. Liesl Orenic wonders about the connections, real or fatefully missed, between the controllers and other workers and unions in the airline industry. Former controller David Sapadin emphasizes the impact of new automation systems on the controllers' work process as an underacknowledged factor in the 1981 strike defeat. Jack Metzgar gratefully leans on McCartin's careful storytelling to tease out a counterfactual narrative — i.e., a victory that would truly have “changed America” — but as the PATCO strike unfolded, Metzgar doubts it had much impact on the strikebreaking paradigms of the 1980s. Rosemary Feurer, in turn, seeks to rescue the creative and even heroic strains of resistance in the controllers' initiative, challenging the message that McCartin's readers may derive that impetuous union leaders led their members over a cliff. McCartin, of course, has the last word.
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