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August 5, 1981
U.S. president Ronald Reagan fired the 11,345 striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization en masse.
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, he became an important figure in the American conservative movement. The period encompassing his presidency is known as the Reagan era.
Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (1968)
The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) was a United States trade union of air traffic controllers that operated from 1968 until its decertification in 1981 following an illegal labor strike broken by the Reagan administration; in striking, the union violated 5 U.S.C. (Supp. III 1956) 118p (now 5 U.S.C. § 7311), which prohibits strikes by federal government employees.