7 ms·

Reagan taking away collective bargaining rights for ATCs seems to be what have led to the shortage and the helicopter accident last week.

lenerdenator 2y ago
Indeed. Wouldn't want people doing a safety-critical job being fairly compensated, after all.
legitster 2y ago
Kinda. Collective bargaining rights are great for employees but they do not automatically lead to better outcomes for customers/citizens/etc. A good counter-example of ATC would be police. Police have strong collective bargaining rights, but mostly came at the expense of accountability and citizen oversight. (And also police departments are still chronically understaffed).
- dttze 2y ago
  Police are the state's manifestation of the monopoly on violence. Comparing that to civilian safety orgs makes no sense.
  - legitster 2y ago
    Okay, if not police, then teacher's unions: there's not a lot of available studies, but most point to a non-existent or negative relationship between CBAs and student performance. Or in the private sectors, non-unionized manufacturers like Toyota and Honda always outperform legacy manufacturers in the US on quality. I'm not saying there's not a strong argument for unionization, but an improvement in quality is not one backed by any sort of evidence and it's a really weak argument. To put it another way, it would be hard for a unionized employee to outperform a Foxconn employee with no human rights on output quality - but it's not at all the kind of argument we should be making.
    - lenerdenator 2y ago
      > Okay, if not police, then teacher's unions: there's not a lot of available studies, but most point to a non-existent or negative relationship between CBAs and student performance. I'm going to guess that there are far stronger correlations with household wealth when it comes to student performance than there are whether the students are taught by teachers who are employed under a CBA. > Or in the private sectors, non-unionized manufacturers like Toyota and Honda always outperform legacy manufacturers in the US on quality. That could very well be because of how the cars are engineered and made versus the union representation for the people who make them. GM, for example, tends to build cars in a way as to make them as cheap as possible to build. That lets them compete on price versus quality. You need the car now, after all; what happens in 40k miles isn't as important to you now. Of course, that comes with the risk, like when some essential component on my college girlfriend's Pontiac's shat the bed, and they'd had to take the entire front of the car apart to replace it because it was cheaper to build that way. They've just taken the price of having a functioning vehicle and charged you for it at the mechanic, not the dealership. Toyota and Honda used to do the opposite, of course. You were going to pay more (depending on exchange rate) upon purchase of the vehicle but the result was that the car wouldn't need as many trips to the mechanic. They've since started doing more value engineering. There's also a cultural difference between Japanese and American businesses, but that's far more nebulous.
      - slt2021 2y ago
        not true, it is better for the brand long-term to build good cars. but unionized workforce makes it economically unfeasible. GM makes crappy because, if they tried to make high quality cars, they would be priced like Cadillacs
        mullingitover 2y ago
        We have an apples to apples comparison with Mexican-made vehicles, though, since both GM and Toyota build there. What's the excuse for the shoddy non-union Mexican GM vehicles?
tayo42 2y ago
Did reagan do anything good in hindsight? Everytime I hear about him he seems like the worst president until trump came along
- whycome 2y ago
  The challenger/teacher in space thing was under his watch. It was a great idea. It just got screwed by NASA failures. Also, his handling of the disaster was pretty good.
- latentcall 2y ago
  Depends, were you rich in the 80’s? If so he was amazing at making you even richer.
- garciasn 2y ago
  Nominated the first female to the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor, and using his bully pulpit to pressure the Soviet Union about East Germany and the eventual dissolution of the USSR.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Octoth0rpe 2y ago
  He pushed for and signed this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control_Act_of_1986 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control... which was a substantial improvement for millions of people. It's worth pointing out that the one (and probably only) good thing I can think of that Reagan did would get him tossed out of today's republican party.
  - brandonmenc 2y ago
    The idea back then was a one-time amnesty in exchange for a secure border, which didn't happen. That's why Republicans are unwilling to budge a second time.
    - 2y ago
ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
The official investigation report is of course going to take a bit, but the ATC audio is public, and the helicopter was warned twice about the plane, and said they had a visual of the plane. Besides never missing an opportunity to 'slam' the opposition, I have no idea why this is being construed as an ATC failure.
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  Well, I mean, if we can blame DEI? That's part of the problem here, everyone is just taking political potshots. Which is to be expected. But the danger is you lose sight of the real issue. As you mentioned, the helo pilot's loss of situational awareness. (Did they ever even have situational awareness?) We can't be getting into these situations where every crisis is met by this typical American emotional reactionism. We can't be blaming the "left", or the "right", or the most ridiculous one which was "it was the black guys somehow". We gotta stop letting that crap distract us.
  - mullingitover 2y ago
    I think the underlying problem was the irresponsible amount of air traffic that has been allowed in that space. It sounds like the pilot made a mistake any pilot might've made and truly it was just a matter of time until something like this happened given the overcrowded nature of the air traffic in the area. Operator error is only the first 'why' in the 5 whys for this incident.
- xdennis 2y ago
  > Besides never missing an opportunity to 'slam' the opposition, I have no idea why this is being construed as an ATC failure. Just saying what I've heard. One issue is that the controller allowed visual separation, to begin with. They say he should have known that it was difficult, especially at night, and shouldn't have allowed it.
- whycome 2y ago
  That's a system failure if there's no way to verify just what plane the helicopter had in its sights. If continuing with visual separation in the same place, ATC may very well adjust their language. It would help to identify where in the sky the plane is. Or, if there's a potential for cutting it close, just getting the helicopter to hold back until the plane lands? We wouldn't let a plant fly 200ft above another plane in any other situation
stevenwoo 2y ago
Congress keeps approving more flights into DCA over the in hindsight, clear objections by those in charge of safety at DCA, the FAA and several congress people in the minority. Congress people use it as their personal transit hub. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/reagan-airport-flights-congress.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/reagan-airport-flights...
WillPostForFood 2y ago
It was 44 years ago. We have had 6 presidents since then. Every single ATC controller from 1981 is retired, most for over a decade. You probably should be looking at a more proximate cause.

lenerdenator 2y ago

Indeed. Wouldn't want people doing a safety-critical job being fairly compensated, after all.

legitster 2y ago

Kinda. Collective bargaining rights are great for employees but they do not automatically lead to better outcomes for customers/citizens/etc. A good counter-example of ATC would be police. Police have strong collective bargaining rights, but mostly came at the expense of accountability and citizen oversight. (And also police departments are still chronically understaffed).

dttze 2y ago
Police are the state's manifestation of the monopoly on violence. Comparing that to civilian safety orgs makes no sense.
- legitster 2y ago
  Okay, if not police, then teacher's unions: there's not a lot of available studies, but most point to a non-existent or negative relationship between CBAs and student performance. Or in the private sectors, non-unionized manufacturers like Toyota and Honda always outperform legacy manufacturers in the US on quality. I'm not saying there's not a strong argument for unionization, but an improvement in quality is not one backed by any sort of evidence and it's a really weak argument. To put it another way, it would be hard for a unionized employee to outperform a Foxconn employee with no human rights on output quality - but it's not at all the kind of argument we should be making.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    > Okay, if not police, then teacher's unions: there's not a lot of available studies, but most point to a non-existent or negative relationship between CBAs and student performance. I'm going to guess that there are far stronger correlations with household wealth when it comes to student performance than there are whether the students are taught by teachers who are employed under a CBA. > Or in the private sectors, non-unionized manufacturers like Toyota and Honda always outperform legacy manufacturers in the US on quality. That could very well be because of how the cars are engineered and made versus the union representation for the people who make them. GM, for example, tends to build cars in a way as to make them as cheap as possible to build. That lets them compete on price versus quality. You need the car now, after all; what happens in 40k miles isn't as important to you now. Of course, that comes with the risk, like when some essential component on my college girlfriend's Pontiac's shat the bed, and they'd had to take the entire front of the car apart to replace it because it was cheaper to build that way. They've just taken the price of having a functioning vehicle and charged you for it at the mechanic, not the dealership. Toyota and Honda used to do the opposite, of course. You were going to pay more (depending on exchange rate) upon purchase of the vehicle but the result was that the car wouldn't need as many trips to the mechanic. They've since started doing more value engineering. There's also a cultural difference between Japanese and American businesses, but that's far more nebulous.
    - slt2021 2y ago
      not true, it is better for the brand long-term to build good cars. but unionized workforce makes it economically unfeasible. GM makes crappy because, if they tried to make high quality cars, they would be priced like Cadillacs
      - mullingitover 2y ago
        We have an apples to apples comparison with Mexican-made vehicles, though, since both GM and Toyota build there. What's the excuse for the shoddy non-union Mexican GM vehicles?

tayo42 2y ago

Did reagan do anything good in hindsight? Everytime I hear about him he seems like the worst president until trump came along

whycome 2y ago
The challenger/teacher in space thing was under his watch. It was a great idea. It just got screwed by NASA failures. Also, his handling of the disaster was pretty good.
latentcall 2y ago
Depends, were you rich in the 80’s? If so he was amazing at making you even richer.
garciasn 2y ago
Nominated the first female to the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor, and using his bully pulpit to pressure the Soviet Union about East Germany and the eventual dissolution of the USSR.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Octoth0rpe 2y ago
He pushed for and signed this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control_Act_of_1986 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control... which was a substantial improvement for millions of people. It's worth pointing out that the one (and probably only) good thing I can think of that Reagan did would get him tossed out of today's republican party.
- brandonmenc 2y ago
  The idea back then was a one-time amnesty in exchange for a secure border, which didn't happen. That's why Republicans are unwilling to budge a second time.
  - 2y ago

ApolloFortyNine 2y ago

The official investigation report is of course going to take a bit, but the ATC audio is public, and the helicopter was warned twice about the plane, and said they had a visual of the plane. Besides never missing an opportunity to 'slam' the opposition, I have no idea why this is being construed as an ATC failure.

bilbo0s 2y ago
Well, I mean, if we can blame DEI? That's part of the problem here, everyone is just taking political potshots. Which is to be expected. But the danger is you lose sight of the real issue. As you mentioned, the helo pilot's loss of situational awareness. (Did they ever even have situational awareness?) We can't be getting into these situations where every crisis is met by this typical American emotional reactionism. We can't be blaming the "left", or the "right", or the most ridiculous one which was "it was the black guys somehow". We gotta stop letting that crap distract us.
- mullingitover 2y ago
  I think the underlying problem was the irresponsible amount of air traffic that has been allowed in that space. It sounds like the pilot made a mistake any pilot might've made and truly it was just a matter of time until something like this happened given the overcrowded nature of the air traffic in the area. Operator error is only the first 'why' in the 5 whys for this incident.
xdennis 2y ago
> Besides never missing an opportunity to 'slam' the opposition, I have no idea why this is being construed as an ATC failure. Just saying what I've heard. One issue is that the controller allowed visual separation, to begin with. They say he should have known that it was difficult, especially at night, and shouldn't have allowed it.
whycome 2y ago
That's a system failure if there's no way to verify just what plane the helicopter had in its sights. If continuing with visual separation in the same place, ATC may very well adjust their language. It would help to identify where in the sky the plane is. Or, if there's a potential for cutting it close, just getting the helicopter to hold back until the plane lands? We wouldn't let a plant fly 200ft above another plane in any other situation

stevenwoo 2y ago

Congress keeps approving more flights into DCA over the in hindsight, clear objections by those in charge of safety at DCA, the FAA and several congress people in the minority. Congress people use it as their personal transit hub. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/reagan-airport-flights-congress.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/reagan-airport-flights...

WillPostForFood 2y ago

It was 44 years ago. We have had 6 presidents since then. Every single ATC controller from 1981 is retired, most for over a decade. You probably should be looking at a more proximate cause.