P.A.T.C.O. AND REAGAN explores the motivations behind the strikers controversial actions and the corresponding rationales of their opponents, which included just about everybody else. It highlights the heightened emotions that fueled the unions expectations before the strike and drove its fervent quest for redemption after the strike. The unions inability to comprehend how the strike would be perceived ultimately doomed its efforts and condemned it to a collision course with the Reagan Administration, the general public, and even its own membership . As a consequence, organized labor in the United States would never be the same.
Evelyn S. Taylor is the Archivist for the Honorable Robert J. and Norma M. Lagomarsino Department of Archives and Special Collections at California State University, Channel Islands in Camarillo, California. She has a Master's degree in History (concentration on the 1980s), with an emphasis in Archives from California State University, Northridge and a Master's degree in Library Science from California State University, San Jose. A lecturer in oral history, Ms. Taylor has also written CONDUCTING ORAL HISTORIES: A STUDENT'S GUIDE TO A SUCCESSFUL INTERVIEWING EXPERIENCE.