Major industrial construction organizations banded together to create the “Business Round Table”. The group was composed of March Group, General Electric and the Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable and lead by Roger M. Blough, then Chief Executive of U.S. Steel. It championed the anti-union Open Shop and the Merit Shop. Its effects were devastating to Unions and by the early 1990’s, Union membership had decreased by nearly half from 1970s levels. Union membership fell by five million between 1975 and 1985. In manufacturing, the union labor force dropped below 25 percent, while the mining and construction industries also dropped dramatically. Most notably, in August 1981, President Reagan ordered striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization to return to work. Two days later, he fired 11,345 striking members who refused to return to work.