"Strike because they're trying to squeeze the life out of you."

--Slogan, 1970 Harvard student strike. "This is indeed the worst year for labor in over five decades."

--Douglas A.F user, United Auto Workers, Sept. 6. 1981

The afternoon before the baseball strike, Kansas City third baseman George Brett rose from a card game in the Royal locker room in Toronto. He was asked to comment on the impending work stoppage.

"Sorry, but I got to do my taxes now," he said.

There, it seems, you have it in a nutshell--baseball's best player more concerned with write-offs than runs-batted-in, more worried about tax deductions than run production.

But management provoked the baseball strike, a clear (though ineffective) attempt to bust the players union. "Who believes in unions?" Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner reportedly asked at one management meeting. When no-one raised a hand, Turner allegedly bellowed. "Then let's bust this one!"

While Brett and his multimillionaire brethren will undoubtedly benefit from President Reagan's 25-per-cent tax cut, several of his fellow and less-well-paid baseball unionists suffered financially this summer. And most of them didn't even understand the tricky sticking issue of free-agent compensation. "Don't ask me. You'll have to call Marvin Miller," said Toronto Blue Jay player representative Alvis Woods in response to questions during the strike.

On the other side of the table, the owners' claims were ludicrous. They tried to damp down an inflationary spiral they themselves had created; and a mere glance at the pennant races when the strike began exposes the "competitive balance problem" as specious.

In the end the owners lost--they failed to bust the union. "I'm just glad to be playing baseball again," Blue Jay catcher and assistant player rep Ernie Witt said, "but I'm not happy with the settlement." Why, Ernie? "The whole thing could have been avoided. I just don't like it."

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This summer's baseball strike, like all strikes, had its foibles, not the least of which was an average worker's salary of more than $140,000. But the perception of the players--that, somenow, profit-mongering magnates meant to deprice them of their rights--mirrors a sentiment spreading among American worker most of whom live closer to the economic margin.

The is one of employees clinging to, but increasingly sliding down the slippery slope of the Laffer curve. As the relentless logic of supply-side economics becomes clearer--that the rich will get richer while the poor grow pooer--strikes will increasingly come to be seen as a necessary tactic. And the "New Beginning" so carefully constructed by the forces of conservatism will crumble, buckling under the weight of the expectations it raised.

President Reagan's dismissal of striking air traffic controllers sent an unequivocal message to workers in both the public and private sectors. Together with Social Security benefit reductions and other domestic cutbacks, the mass firing is meant to underscore the administration's commitment to law and (the established) order, to the country's renewed toughness.

Far from a bold move, however, the PATCO dismissal signifies a cowardly attempt to intimidate unions and coerce them into unwitting collusion with Reagan's questionable economic policies. By heading off labor unrest at the pass, the Republicans hope to divert attention from measures which will harm most Americans.

With its disregard for minorities, the administration's assault on labor will boomerang, showing the folly of pouring dollars into defense while wounding the country to be defended. By next summer, cities may be torn asunder with riots reminiscent of this summer's events in Britain and all areas of the economy will be riven with strikes. The positive public reaction to Reagan's handling of the controller strike is instructive. Flexing of pectorals is appealing until one becomes muscle-bound. But more than anything, the air traffic situation throws into sharp relief the importance of the right to strike.