THE AGONY OF TERMINATION, NEPO BABIES AND PAYING IT FORWARD

During my career as a union rep, I defended more than a handful of feds who were terminated by their agency. While I could talk about them, I want to focus on one person who I did not represent, but who came to me for help. If you remember the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), you probably remember how an illegal 1981 strike against the FAA their leaders took them on resulted in the biggest catastrophe in American labor history.  They never got the fat raises FAA was offering them, 13,000 controllers (mainly veterans) lost their jobs, the strikers were barred from working anywhere else in government, and President Reagan’s successful crushing of that union encouraged  private sector employers to crush their own unions. It made the labor’s 1914 Ludlow Massacre seem like a mere paper cut.  I want to talk about one of the PATCO union leaders who lost his job.

This guy, a friend from my days teaching at the University of Missouri in the mid-70s, was in the thick of PATCO’s leadership at the time.  He knew months in advance of the FAA-PATCO negotiations that the union was going to go on strike no matter what kind of contract offer management made—and he knew it would be illegal. He also was right there when the sitting President of PATCO, who was very opposed to any strike suggestions, was deposed in a staff coup by the pro-strike group. Finally, he was deeply involved when the union turned down every offer management made.

When PATCO was crushed easily by Reagan, my friend lost his union—which was decertified and abolished, his  job with the FAA, and just about any chance of any other AFL-CIO union hiring him. But I knew that like almost every other terminated employee the worst parts of being terminated were to come, e.g.,

• Telling his spouse that thanks to his poor judgment the family’s income was now gone,
• Facing his kids, telling them that he had screwed up, and understanding that this was going to impact their lives,
• Knowing that neighbors and friends knew all about how grossly he had blundered,
• Figuring out how he was going to pay the family’s bills,
• Sitting home with nothing to do and inevitably dwelling on the mess he helped create for himself and so many others,
• Wondering whether he would ever be able to again do the union work he so loved,
• Dealing with depression slowly setting in due to a loss of identify, social stigma, a sense of guilt, isolation, and bitterness.

I knew all that because my dad and the fathers of my three best friends all lost their jobs as America changed in the 60’s.  I also knew it from graduate school studies where I focused on the social and psychological impact on workers and their families from terminations. And I knew it from the days I was fired for trying to organize a union in a supermarket. Most Americans should know how hard a termination hits someone from the tragic news stories about so many fired workers seeking fatal revenge on former co-workers. (Check out what the American Psychological Association finds happens to workers and their families when they are fired.)

So, when my friend finally called me for a job or even a job lead, he did not have to tell me about how brutal his life had become or how even with the mess he created he still could help unions. I feel for just about everybody who is terminated, but especially those terminated without progressive discipline.  Reagan could have imposed far less of a penalty on those strikers than instant termination, but like most ego-first bosses he had zero compassion for how badly he was hurting his former employees.  (Ironically, PATCO was also a big political supporter of Reagan’s during the prior Presidential race.)

I went to my boss and gave him the strongest hiring recommendation I have ever given anyone. It worked because he was due to soon pass through the city where my friend lived and agreed to meet him between flights.  I also got on the phone to a couple of other people who I knew were looking for good union talent. To make a long story short, my union hired him, he flourished with us, the union got better because of him, we hired his son who needed a job—the union’s first nepo baby, and when my friend left us, it was to take on ever bigger responsibilities in another union. What the AFL-CIO discarded as untouchable garbage deserving of termination turned out to be a lottery win for my union and others.

This friend turned out to be one of six I have helped in my career get back on their feet after a termination by a union official. I did this eagerly because I knew that termination is almost always a gross overreaction to a minor infraction that the employer will easily recover from – if it ever felt any harm at all. In a more perfect world, those I helped are paying it forward.

Moreover, as I told my staff often, “God made reprimands, demotions, reassignments, promotion delays, and suspensions for a reason. S/he intended termination be an absolute last resort rather than the option of choice as the ego-obsessed managers of the world considered it.”  Unions are here to help make that happen and should be the last place on earth where a “staff problem” should be dealt with by immediate termination. When it does happen inside a union it is a sign of a leader with a personal problem and an organization that has vested too much power in its president. Believe me, I KNOW.