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In August 1981, facing a crippling strike by a union of air traffic controllers that halted all US air traffic, President Ronald Reagan decided to mobilize the military to replace the striking workers. He also fired approximately 90 percent of the air traffic controllers in the United States and banned them from federal service for life.

Many would later blame Reagan for destroying the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (Patco) and undermining workers’ rights.

Georgetown University historian Joseph McCartin, however, says that Patco had made a closed-door deal with Reagan’s advisers before strike, leading to its endorsement of Reagan in the 1980 election. In fact, Reagan had offered major concessions to the union a month before he called in the military. But his overtures were rejected by the union, which had become more radicalized and demanded even more concessions.

Patco’s decision to shut down air traffic was a major miscalculation. It did not have a great deal of public support (in part because its members’ earnings were already well above the national average). Patco was also violating a law prohibiting government unions from striking. Reagan saw the strike as illegal and a threat to national safety, which he used to justify his drastic response.

Reagan’s forcefulness was popular because the strike had alienated the union from the general public. His actions, taken without considering electoral politics, also made an impression on the Soviet Union and helped Reagan in his later negotiations with them.

Here in Indonesia, there are some valuable lessons to be learned from this.

First, Indonesian unions should understand that causing massive public discomfort is not a good way to get public support on their side. While their tactic of blockading major transportation arteries — which happened last week in Bekasi — might be effective in the short term, in a long run, this kind of strategy will tend to backfire.

As seen in the Patco case, people might sympathize with workers’ demands for higher wages, but not if those demands hurt them. Strikes in general work when public support for strikers is high. When people get tired of the disruptions, their attitude toward the strikers turns sour.

Such attitudes were skillfully manipulated during the New Order era to cripple labor unions. Using the specter of communist-backed labor unrest of the kind that plagued Indonesia during the short-lived liberal democracy of the 1950s, President Suharto made his case to the public that only his government could rein in the excesses of labor unions.

While the government’s heavy-handedness played a major role in curbing labor unions, it was only able to do so with the support of people unwilling to risk another period of chaos.

This leads to the second lesson, which is that the Indonesian government should learn to act with determination vis-a-vis workers. While the demands of unions may have their merits, the government must make a clear delineation between a lawful strike and an unlawful one that causes major social and economic disruptions.

This is simply not the time to count votes. While the support and votes of union members might be useful when it comes to winning elections, such a weak attitude will only alienate the rest of the voters, the people inconvenienced by strikes and who probably blame both the government and the unions for creating the mess.

More troubling, the government’s failure to prevent strikers last week from occupying the toll road between Jakarta and Bandung will only embolden future strikers to cause more economic disruption. Already a union in Tangerang has threatened to cut off the Jakarta-Tangerang toll road.

This is not a precedent that the government should allow as it would sour the business climate that attracts investors. Potential investors might think twice about investing in the area, and already some factory owners have contemplated moving to other, more business-friendly areas of the country or even abroad, which would result in job losses for the workers.

With the worsening global economic climate, Indonesia simply cannot afford to have investors fleeing abroad.

Third, the recent union action is indicative of the lack of trust in the judiciary. After the Bandung court handed the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) a victory in its lawsuit against the monthly minimum wage approved by the West Java governor, workers cried foul and immediately launched a work stoppage.

Rieke Diah Pitaloka, a member of the House of Representatives from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), also criticized the court, claiming that Apindo had improperly influenced its decision.

In contrast, were this to happen in the United States, all sides would have submitted to the court, regardless of whether they agreed with the decision. If not, then the dissatisfied party would have submitted an appeal, but in the meantime, no drastic action would have been taken. People might have criticized the court’s decision, but none of them would have questioned its legitimacy.

In Indonesia, trust in the judiciary is steadily declining. When there is a lack of trust in the law enforcement system to deliver justice, people will enforce their will through mob action, with no due respect for the judicial process.

For example, after last week’s drug-driving tragedy that claimed the lives of nine people in Central Jakarta, the family of one of the victims threatened mob action if the suspect was let off with a slap on the wrist.

Such contempt for the courts, while understandable in such an emotional situation, would be unthinkable in countries with a strong judiciary. In Indonesia, however, such threats are seen as normal thanks to groan-inducing cases such as the juvenile sandal thief who ended up in the dock, the very light sentences imposed on corruptors and other examples of judicial misconduct.

In the United States, Reagan managed to restore order and break the union because he realized the strikers were damaging the economy and the wider national interest. He also realized that people in general disapproved of the strike, that he had the law on his side and that he had to act forcefully.

All of that had to take precedence over how his actions might cost him support from the important labor unions in the next presidential election.

It is time for the Indonesian government to start channeling the spirit of Reagan and act decisively without being influenced by electoral politics. At the same time, the recent labor unrest shows that it is high time for the judicial system to be reformed. If not, threats to social stability will continue to grow.

Yohanes Sulaiman lectures at the Indonesian National Defense University (Unhan).