Reagan threat to air controllers

Press, 4 August 1981, Page 8

Reagan threat to air controllers

NZPA-Reuter Washington The United States Government continued to negotiate yesterday with Federal airtraffic controllers in a lastditch attempt to avert a potentially crippling stike set to begin this morning. Federal employees are forbidden by law from striking and President Reagan said he would come down with the full force of the Justice Department if the air-traffic controllers walked out.

Possible penalties ranged from dismissals and fines to jail terms and the President said: “There will be no amnesty."

A strike by members of the 15,000-strong Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organisation could ground more than half the nation's

commercial flights despite contingency plans to keep as many planes safely in the air as possible. The Attorney-General (Mr William French Smith) said that a strike would be a crime. Strikers would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, he said.

The Defence Secretary (Mr Casper Weinberger) said the Administration would not tolerate the chaos of a strike. Almost 700 military personnel were ready to take over air-traffic control duties if controllers walked out, he said. But, with the strike deadline only hours away, the two sides appeared to have made little progress in bridging a wide gap between them on a new 42-month pay agreement.