United pilots OK big pay cuts
By Dave Carpenter
Associated Press
CHICAGO — United Airlines' pilots have approved the 29 percent interim pay cuts proposed by the carrier as part of its push to slash costs heavily in bankruptcy, the pilots' union said today.
Totals from the weeklong voting were not announced.
The 8,800 pilots are the first of United's employee groups to approve wage cuts and, as the highest-paid, will see the most taken out of their paychecks even if other unions follow suit. While longer-term reductions are negotiated, they will give up scheduled raises and take immediate pay cuts.
United's flight attendants also have been voting since last week on whether to accept a 9 percent wage reduction, as agreed to by union leaders. Two smaller unions, representing flight dispatchers and meteorologists, also are conducting ratification votes.
Results from those votes are expected to be announced tomorrow.
The Machinists' union, however, has objected to United's proposal that its members take 13 percent pay cuts, saying the company has not provided sufficient evidence that double-digit reductions are needed.
United says it must reduce wages by $2.4 billion a year through 2008. It plans to file a response to the machinists in federal bankruptcy court tomorrow.
Bankruptcy Judge Eugene Wedoff then is expected to rule later this week on whether to impose the pay reductions on the machinists — 37,000 mechanics, baggage handlers and other ground workers.
United has said that if Wedoff doesn't impose the pay reductions on the machinists or any other union fails to ratify them, it will begin the legal process of nullifying the labor contracts and imposing new ones.
Top leaders of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers began negotiating with the company Tuesday in Chicago, although a spokesman said there was no change in the union's opposition to United's proposed temporary cuts.
"Regardless how the judge rules, United's request for long-term reductions still needs to be addressed," union spokesman Joseph Tiberi said.
United, the world's second-largest carrier, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Dec. 9 after losing $4 billion since the middle of 2000. It hopes to emerge from bankruptcy sometime next year.
United Airlines yesterday revamped business fares at its two largest hubs in a move designed to leapfrog airfare restructuring efforts being tested by competitors.
The airline cut last-minute business fares by 40 percent and eliminated the requirement for a Saturday night stay on tickets to and from Chicago and Denver, as well of thousands of markets reachable via connecting service from those two hubs.
The business fare cuts apply to the continental United States only, but that a leisure fare sale extended last week applies to Hawai'i flights. The leisure fare sale, which requires a Saturday night stay, will last through May 18.
