The Nation : Controller Rehiring Urged

President Reagan was urged by 78 House members to rehire some of the 11,400 air traffic controllers fired in 1981 during an illegal strike. The lawmakers said that the controller work force “is stretched beyond its human capacity” and that the plan to hire 1,000 new controllers over two years will not solve the problem because it will take years for the trainees to become qualified. The Administration responded that the air traffic system, which now has 14,000 controllers, is working well and added that the fired controllers would require extensive retraining.