PATCO controllers were federal employees and legally couldn't strike, that's why they were fired.

What some posters on here have mentioned is a Suspension of Service, which is basically a nationwide strike by airline pilots. ALPA organized and executed an SOS back in the 1970's due to a lack of action dealing with the new threat of hijacking. The only problem was that not every airline's pilots followed the SOS so all that really happened was a weak show of solidarity on ALPA's part on the issue.

There's a court precedent that makes an SOS legal when it's an issue of national policy that's the primary reason, not when it's over collective bargaining.

I think ALPA authorized an SOS in response to the possibility of the CVR being used in a punitive manner back in the 1980s.

A nationwide SOS isn't unprecedented, it just takes a major national issue to bring about its authorization. Whether it gets enacted is another matter.