U.S.: Fired air-traffic controller became ‘political refugee’
Herman van der Meer Special to Gainesville Sun USA TODAY NETWORK
This August, it will be 40 years since Ronald Reagan put an
end to a strike of American air-traffic controllers. When I met
U.S.-born-and-raised Larry Giddy in his current home country of Australia,
where he lives with his British-Australian wife Linda, I did not have any idea
I had run into a successful U.S. political refugee. It was under Reagan that
the confrontation with the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization,
or PATCO, reached its dramatic conclusion. And as an American citizen and
air-traffic controller, Larry found himself right in the middle of it.
Apart from making demands for higher pay, the air-traffic controllers desired better
working conditions. Pay was not Larry’s major concern. But once you have
declared yourself ready to go on strike, you remain loyal to the cause and to
your colleagues, he said. Not that he did not understand the small proportion
of his colleagues — about 10% — who finally pulled out. Being government
employees, they were forbidden from going on strike. Though he had supported
them on the campaign trail, Reagan now gave them 48 hours to end the strike. If
not, he would fire all the employees who had gone on strike. How could
air-traffic safety be maintained after such a massive layoff? But on that fateful
day of Aug. 5, 1981, the president fired more than 11,000 strikers out of a
total of some 13,000 controllers. Trade unionism and workers’ rights in the
U.S. never recovered from the blow. But what about the personnel fired? They
each were left to their own devices. Some never recovered. Others were rehired
15 years later when president Bill Clinton ended the ban on any government job
for them that Reagan had implemented. But Larry asked himself, how could you
have waited for such a long time and still be good enough to resume your old,
highly demanding position? So here begins the story of Larry ending up a
political refugee. Unlike other colleagues, he was lucky enough not to have to
maintain a family. Larry felt ready to grab any opportunity, even if it meant
tiding things over delivering newspapers. Meanwhile, he started looking for
jobs as an air-traffic controller abroad. He tried Canada, Hong Kong and the
United Arab Emirates. Nothing came of that. So, he took a job as a sales clerk
in the hardware department of Sears & Roebuck. He also started a trainee
management program at Wendy’s restaurant chain. He found it even more stressful
than his job as an air-traffic controller. Managing youngsters did not prove
easy. After one-and-a-half years, he finally got the chance to get back into
his former capacity as an air-traffic controller. It meant emigrating to
Australia. Each of the 40 Americans hired had to be retrained for a period of
six months. As trainees they received only half of their normal salaries.
Fortunately, Linda soon found a better-paid job. They started out renting a
house. Later they bought a house not far from Melbourne where Larry was
stationed. Living in Australia, Larry allowed his American passport to expire.
But as the 2016 campaign for a new president came, Larry started to worry about
the state of his home country, notably its blatant racism, its gun laws and the
deep political divisiveness. If he wished to exercise voting rights, he needed
to regain his American passport. Unfortunately, U.S. authorities turned him
down on three occasions. In the end Larry successfully claimed that it had not
been his free choice to emigrate to Australia. When Reagan fired him, he had
effectively become a political refugee. He resumed voting in the U.S. 2018
midterm elections. And, when he was given a second chance in 2020, he helped
put a president into office, who, once more, is taking civil rights seriously.
With Joe Biden, Americans have a president who recognizes the importance of
trade unions to support those rights. It’s called the PRO Act, which stands for
Protecting the Rights to Organize Act. It helps to defend employees’ rights to
organize and supports collective bargaining in the workplace. Larry will not
skip the crucial midterm elections. He holds out transnational hopes for more
fairness for a greater number of people. As an air-traffic controller, he became
a trade-union member in Australia too.
Herman van der Meer is former University of Florida
international student who now lives in Utrecht, The Netherlands