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Show Traffic controllers' arguments just don't seem to stack up The arguments that the air traffic controllers have been using to justify their two-week-old strike just don't seem to stack up. The truth, in fact, seems to point in the opposite direction. First, the controllers are not the down-trodden, underprivileged workers that they like the television viewers to think they are. They now average $32,000 a year in pay and were offered increases in salaries and benefits totalling about $10,000 more per year. To us at the Iron County Record, that kind of salary does not qualify anyone as poverty stricken or down-trodden. Second, the fact that they work under large amounts of stress just isn't enough. Certainly there is a large amount of stress involved in being responsible for giant planeloads of passengers. But, is it any more stressful than the policemen, who must patrol dark back roads at night alone, who know that they may at any time be attacked by a madman, a thief or a simple husband infuriated by a family squabble? Is the job any more stressful than that of a fireman who places his life on the line regularly to help save other lives and property? Is it any more stressful than the jobs of miners, or teachers, or paramedics, or the pilots who fly the same airplanes the traffic controllers guide? Then, of course there is the side of the law and of moral obligation. Congress and the Supreme Court have said that the controllers have no right to strike. The President and lower Courts have stood behind this and are taking appropriate action-action action-action that is taken against all law-breakers, ' especially those who endanger the lives of others. , We have always been taught that the law is the law, right or wrong; and that you either live by it or attempt to change it through proper channels. An illegal strike is not a proper channel. Also, the controllers have all sworn that thoy ' would not strike. Even more binding than tho law should be a man's solemn vow, his word. But, apparently, ap-parently, the controllers are a reflection of at least a part o of society which no longer holds such moral obligations as valid. ; They have been convinced somehow that they can force an entire nation to its knees with their excessive ex-cessive demands. It's nice to know that this time i they've been proven wrong. |