Pan Am strike ends in contract concessions

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Editor's note: As we go to press, Pan American World Airways has reached a tentative settlement with the Transport Workers Union, which represents the 5800 workers on strike since Feb. 28.

Some union leaders, however, announced on March 24 that they would recommend a rejection of the proposal at a forthcoming membership meeting. Although approved by a large majority of the union's bargaining committee, a membership ratification vote is necessary before the strikers go back to work.

According to company spokespeople, the tentative agreement contains mostly concessions from the workers with little in return in terms of wages.

Despite the strike, Pan Am has been able to function at 36% of its normal capacity. The decision by the airline pilots and later by members of the Independent Union of Flight Attendants to cross the picket line has greatly hurt the Pan American World Airways is on strike. On the surface the issues are the usual wage and benefit packages. It's hard to find the details in the daily newspapers, which only ask, "How will this strike inconvenience you, the public?" And, "How do the Pan Am workers have the audacity to turn down a 20% wage increase?"

What is at issue in this strike! In 1981 Pan Am employees "granted" their employer $300 million in concessions, including a three-year wage freeze, giving up an expected 14% increase. This 14% was supposed to "snap-back" to the employees on Jan. 1, 1985. But Pan Am refused to pay this until a court of appeals ordered them to do so.

Transport Workers AFL-GIO LOCAL 500 Mechanics and Related En So the "unbelievable" offer of a 20% pay increase includes the 14% already owed. This leaves a 6% pay increase over the next three years.

Pan Am has offered a one-time bonus of $1200 for mechanics and a $900 bonus for other Transport Workers Union members. That is approximately two weeks salary.

There are also the amorphous 'work-rule" changes; hiring part-time workers and establishing a two-tier system will mean less money, less benefits, and no job security for new hires. Pan Am also wants to introduce cross-crafting, or, in the words of management, "more flexibility in assigning work."

The unions have some powerful ammunition on their side. Pan Am is a grossly mismanaged company. A report by Lazard Freres and Co. confirms what the unions have been saying. While the report points out that the unions must share in the blame (of course!), it details the sloppy and haphazard policies of Pan Am. The Lazard report states that "by far the most significant failure has been Pan Am's inability or unwillingness to confront its own problems."

Workers are angry that with $300 million already granted in concessions in 1981, Pan Am still lost $220.2 million pretax on revenues of $3.3 billion last year. Losses of $188 million are proISY INJURY jected over the next two years. But despite these losses, Pan Am still boasts a $440 million "cash balance of reserves" to weather the strike.

The strike has been seriously weakened by the decision of the pilots to cross the picket line, backing away from their initial support for the strike. This underscores the need of the unions not only to solidify support within their own ranks but also to reach out to the public at large with their side of the story.

Management has been flying and fueling the airplanes, loading and unloading the baggage, but who is making the repairs? That is the question the public should be asking. What are the unions fighting for? Are Pan Am flights safe? The unions need to mount a propaganda offensive around these questions to generate the kind of support needed to win the strike.

But Pan Am management banks on the willingness of an ill-informed public to fly on the basis of ticket price alone, as experience with Continental Airlines and People Express has shown.

Consider what Edwin L. Colodny, chief executive officer of US Air, says. "There is an inherent conflict between competition and safety improvements."

The public should understand that safety improvements have "got to come out of the ticket price."

The unions need to inform the public that this is how the airline industry works. The Pan Am workers are not only fighting for a better contract but safer skies.

STION

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TRADE UNIONISTS The following are excerpts from a speech by Al Lannon, president of the International Longshoremen's ana Warehousemen's Union Local 6 and a co-chair of the San Francisco April 20 Spring Peace Mobilization. The speech was given at a Feb. 21 Socialist Action forum in San Francisco on "Labor's Role in the Antiwar Movement."

When the Vietnam War began, there was strong labor support for U.S. policies. Despite strong reservations in some circles, the labor movement was officially on record in support of its government. It assumed that its government told the truth. It assumed that the Gulf of Tonkin incident did happen. And the labor movement, of course, was opposed to communist regimes.

The ILWU, specifically its longshore division, was an early and outspoken opponent of the war. Harry Bridges, the president of the ILWU, even called the money that the longshoremen were earning "blood money"

WAR Hita: Mile Al Lannon:

To Se STOMA N STOP STOP VAR ADEBA!

WAR :n Hom. .HiH millions of members.

However long it took, a substantial section of the labor movement did come to a clear antiwar position. The major thing that helped this happen was the growth of the peace movement. The visibility of people in the streets demonstrating for peace, marching for peace, gave impetus to those sentiments within the labor movement.

It gave them the wherewithal to raise legitimate questions within their unions on the peace issue. In my opinion, without that peace movement outside the labor movement there never would have been a peace movement within the labor A new generation of labor leadership has come out of that peace movement and t of the civil rights movement. They a not strangers to marching in mass ma. ches as well as on picket lines. They are not strangers to working inside coalitions with people whose views they may not share beyond the goals of that

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Transport Workers Union AFL-CIO -ON STRIK-