Sias grew up poor in Michigan, he said. His father had been an air traffic controller after serving in the military and was part of the PATCO strike of 1981, when 12,000 workers walked off the job in an effort to secure higher pay and a shorter work week; it was “one of the pivotal moments of labor history in the last 50 years,” as Sias described it. That strike, broken by President Reagan, left families like Sias’ out of jobs and blacklisted from federal government employment. “My father was never the same,” he said. His dad got depressed and his parents eventually divorced, and then the family lost their home in Detroit. Sias aimed for a future that would give him stability, and started on a path that eventually led to his becoming an Ivy-league-educated lawyer.