“He’s an air traffic controller on sick leave — traumatic sick leave.”
One of the more memorable decisions of Ronald Reagan’s presidency was his firing of thousands of striking air traffic controllers in August of 1981.
A few months before that happened, as union discussions with the FAA were still ongoing, I covered the stresses faced by air traffic controllers — and one individual in particular — for the CBS Evening News. Back then, as you can probably gather from the report, the job was much more dependent on human interaction.
