Eastern Wants to Sever Pact With Pilots

NEW YORK —  Eastern Airlines on Wednesday said it will seek bankruptcy court approval to terminate the carrier’s contract with pilots in an effort to save as much as $50 million in the next 19 months.

Eastern, which filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code on March 9, said its plan to cut pilots’ pay and increase productivity through work rule changes must be endorsed by bankruptcy Judge Burton R. Lifland.

The action was temporary and was being taken “reluctantly,” Harvey Miller, Eastern’s lead bankruptcy lawyer, said at a news conference.

“This is not a union-busting tactic,” Miller said in answer to a question. “It is an economic solution.”

The Air Line Pilots Assn., which represents Eastern pilots, said it “sees no justification” for the move and will oppose it “vigorously.”

The pilots added they weren’t surprised that Frank Lorenzo, chairman of Eastern and its parent, Texas Air, “has finally gotten around to rejecting Eastern’s labor contracts. The pilots have honored the machinists’ picket line in response to exactly this kind of anti-labor attitude.”

ALPA said Lorenzo was following “basically the same pattern of harsh treatment for workers that he established when he took Continental Airlines into bankruptcy and abrogated its labor contracts there in 1983.”

The machinists union struck Eastern on March 4, and most of its pilots and flight attendants honored the pickets, virtually crippling the airline. Eastern, which has asked bankruptcy court approval to sell $1.8 billion in assets so it can emerge from bankruptcy proceedings as a much smaller carrier, said 367 of its pilots had either crossed the picket lines or returned to work and that 527 new pilots were now being trained.

Eastern said that, if the court approves the request, the airline will “impose” the new work rules on the pilots and cut their pay 10% for six months and 5% for the second six months, and delay vacations until next year. The cuts would eventually be rescinded, the airline said.

In addition, pilots would have to work between 16 and 17 days a month, compared to 14 to 15 days currently. Eastern said that captains, who were making $93,000 before the strike, would now still make more than $90,000 annually.

Eastern said its working pilots praised the action. Eastern’s non-striking workers and its management recently also had their pay cut and work rules changed.

Miller said that Eastern had been trying to negotiate with the pilots but that the union canceled three sessions last week. The ALPA contract expired July 2, 1988.

But the pilots said the Eastern statements contained “half-truths and misleading characterizations,” citing as one example that the pilots have not made a counteroffer in negotiations because the company has not furnished the data required by law and needed to formulate such an offer.

Under a bill passed by Congress after Lorenzo’s move against the Continental unions, even an employer in bankruptcy must prove that he has made a good faith effort to negotiate.