It has been three decades since Ronald Reagan broke the 11,500-member Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), and the relationship between capital and labor in America, always a nervous circling of adversaries at best, has never been the same.

In firing the controllers, jailing its leaders, and blacklisting every member from ever working for the federal government again, Reagan opened the floodgates for a renewed assault on unionized workers and their unions that had not been seen since corporations hired gun thugs and “detective” agencies that were little more than private armies that paid little attention to the laws of the land.

PATCO and its leadership could be faulted for many things, but they could not be faulted for taking the action that American workers had taken for generations: when working conditions became intolerable and negotiations seemed to be at a dead end, they went on strike. It’s just that they were little prepared for a strike, either internally, or in terms of their relationships with the rest of organized labor. They just didn’t know how the other union would respond to their strike. There was little or no preparation, because they believed that the other unions would honor their picket lines and the shutdown of airports across the nation would bring the administration back to the bargaining table.

They could not have been more wrong. There already were decades of legal and tactical efforts by Corporate America that kept unions from exercising solidarity with one another, therefore, there were few other unions that respected the PATCO picket lines, at least at the outset. Later in the strike, other unions traveled from the West Coast across the continent through Canada on that country’s airlines, for example, to go by train from Montreal to Washington, D.C., to attend the organized labor’s Solidarity Day in September, 1981. Hundreds of thousands of trade unionists and their supporters from across the country attended the speeches and rally on the National Mall and PATCO was assured a place on the program.

The Right Wing and Corporate America tried to make the controllers’ issue one of wages and benefits, but one of the most important issues was the safety of the flying public and the controllers, themselves. The stress in the airport towers was taking its toll, since there were more airplanes than there should have been at any given time and the controllers had to sort out all of that and make sure the planes and their passengers landed safely.

PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Ronald Reagan for president. The other was the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, at the time, the nation’s largest union. The controllers endorsed Reagan and supported him and had the assurance that he would take seriously the safety problems that plagued both the workers and airline safety, in general.

Candidate Reagan in October, 1980, wrote to Robert Poli, PATCO president, during the presidential campaign of his concern about the safety of the flying public: “You can rest assured that, if I am elected president, I will take whatever steps are necessary to provide our air traffic controllers with the most modern equipment available and to adjust staff levels and work days so that they are commensurate with achieving a maximum degree of public safety.” With an assurance like that, the union’s leadership thought he would be receptive to their requests after he won the election and was in the White House.

Again, they were wrong. They could not get a hearing. The stress in the towers mounted, the danger mounted, and the controllers took the step that resulted in the demise of their union and the end of their work in the towers. In the early stages of the strike, the image that was imprinted on the minds of workers was that of Poli in chains, being taken to jail. It was an image out of some authoritarian regime, not the U.S.A. But, it was Reagan’s America, where a union leader was not only jailed, but the members were blacklisted from ever working for the federal government again. That meant some long-time controllers who were close to retirement never would be able to finish their remaining year or two, to get their full pension.

Reagan was showing his Right Wing base how tough he was. He fulfilled the decades-long dream of the rulers of the economic universe: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable, and others. They fought for years to curb the potential strength of American workers through the forming of unions and bargaining for their share of the nation’s benefits.

The new president had discovered a way to break the power of the workers by rendering their strikes a weakness, rather than strength through unity. For decades, since the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the strike that could bring the wheels of commerce to a halt was something that the captains of industry feared, even though they were the most powerful force in the political and economic realm. But the law said that workers could strike without the fear of being fired, especially if they struck over an unfair labor practice or a health or safety issue.

But, Reagan fired them and permanently replaced them with a workforce that eventually formed a union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). The new union did not have to be told that they were not allowed to strike, since their own constitution contained a no-strike clause. The controllers were tamed.

It took no time at all for corporations all over the U.S. to emulate Reagan. When there wasn’t a strike, they would provoke one, and then “permanently replace” the strikers. Since they weren’t “fired,” it was deemed to be legal, though it was a distinction without a difference. The permanently replaced workers were still without jobs and a means of support, as good as being fired. An entire “industry” was built on corporations creating a “union-free environment,” nearly as soon as it became clear that PATCO would not be able to get the jobs back for its members.

Law firms that specialized in “union prevention” in non-union shops, or in breaking unions where they existed, sprang up in virtually every city. Companies were willing to spend millions to buy union-busting consultants, rather than spend a few hundred thousand dollars to negotiate a contract with workers, who would spend that money in short order, right in their own communities. It was a waste and engendered animosities between labor and capital that continue to this day, and it was all to show the workers who was the boss and who had the power.

A majority of the American people, most of whom were, and are workers, backed Reagan’s tough strut against the unions. According to a Gallup poll of the time (1981), 59 percent of Americans polled agreed with Reagan’s handling of the strike, while 30 percent disapproved and 11 percent had no opinion. It was a rollback of the raising of the living standard that American workers had achieved during the 35 years since World War II. And, it was the beginning of a downward slide, not only for workers in general, but also for all of the American people and the nation’s economy.

The Reagan-led attack against workers should have been a warning to the workers of the next few generations, but we have reached 2012 and the attacks against wageworkers and their families continue relentlessly. It is no accident of fate that Republican governors and a few Democrats in several states have attacked the contracts, the pay, and the benefits of public workers, thus the living standards, of millions of families, under the guise of “closing state budget gaps.”

One indicator of the strength of unions, especially in the private sector, is the number of strikes, and strikes have dwindled to just a few each year. In just the past decade, and especially in the past few years, the attack on public workers has played out in states like Wisconsin, where Governor Scott Walker has tried to kill off government workers’ unions by trying to take away their collective bargaining rights. He and those who have presided over the demise of the U.S. economy want American workers back to collective begging. Wisconsinites are fighting back and the Walker recall petition is expected to result in a recall election sometime this year.

The great American electorate seems to be waking up, but it’s a slow process. That’s why the Occupy Wall Street movement has had such wide support. It is because the fight is being taken to the right place. It isn’t Washington and Congress, the judiciary, and the White House that hold the key to evening out the economy. It’s Wall Street, the people who call the shots in both the economy and in the political system.

The lessons of PATCO and Reagan went unheeded, and that’s what brought us to the condition we are in today. What was needed 31 years ago was solidarity among all American unions. There is validity in the assertion that “we are the 99 percent.” The “1 percent” has grown fat at the expense of working people, the young, the old, and the sick. Perhaps, the unions and their leaders have learned the lesson of PATCO, but their support of the Occupy movement has been tepid, at best.

They have said that the youth have to step up to ensure that all of the people make progress. Every leader in every sector, in every kind of organization has said that the participation of the young is vital to going forward. At a time when black unemployment is twice that of the whole country; and unemployment among other groups, such as among Native Americans, is three or four times that; at a time when people are not getting the medical care they need; when the children are not being educated well (except the progeny of the 1 percent); when people are not being housed decently; and when control of our food is concentrated among very few giant corporations, we need the unity of the 99 percent, and we need the young men and women in politics, the economy, and in all cultural work.

In short, the American people need the solidarity that we learned we needed all those years ago, when Ronald Reagan broke a union, sent its members to the street with no means of supporting their families, and opened the floodgates of an assault on all workers.

Three decades ago, we were tested and we came up short. That should not be allowed to happen again.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a labor organizer and former union organizer. His union work started when he became a local president of The Newspaper Guild in the early 1970s. He was a reporter for 14 years for newspapers in New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.