"The smashing of PATCO marked a turning point in class relations both in the US and internationally. It signaled the definitive end of the policies of liberal reformism and relative class compromise that had predominated in the post-World War II period and the onset of a ruthless capitalist offensive against the working class that continues to this day.

It also foreshadowed the collapse of the American trade unions and all of the old, bureaucratized labor organizations and parties internationally, which were based on nationalism and class compromise. Reagan’s assault on the PATCO strikers—an attack without precedent in modern US history—provoked massive opposition among working people both in the US and around the world. One month after Reagan fired the PATCO strikers, more than 500,000 workers converged on Washington, DC, in a “Solidarity Day” demonstration—the largest protest ever in the US—to express their outrage and opposition to the Reagan administration."