Monday, Dec. 08, 1958
Strike-Bound Airlines
For the first time in history, two of the nation's four biggest airlines were downed by strikes--and a third was losing altitude fast. At Eastern Air Lines, 5,383 members of the International Association of Machinists walked out, along with 550 Eastern flight engineers. The Eastern strike and the walkout of machinists at Trans World Airlines (TIME, Dec. 1) shut down close to one-third of the nation's air transport system; 388 planes were grounded, and the 32,000 passengers they normally carry each day had to scramble to find other transportation. To make matters worse, 1,500 members of the Air Line Pilots Association at American Airlines, who were all set to strike, were stopped only by a last-minute court order that expires this week. If American goes, one-half of the U.S. airline industry will be out of action.
"We're Holding Out." The issues--and causes--were as complex as the fuel-flow system of a new 707 jet. Eastern's mechanics, like those at T.W.A., originally wanted a whacking 49-c- an hour across-the-board boost (present wage: $2.51). Both lines offered 41-c- an hour over three years, or what the union won after a 37-day strike against Capital Airlines last month. Since then. National Airlines (see below) has signed for 44-c- an hour, to match Capital's hourly wage.
The other phase of Eastern's strike is jurisdictional, an argument between the pilots' and engineers' unions over whether the "third man" in the cockpit shall be a pilot or an engineer (TIME, May 5). Eastern has agreed with the pilots' union that the engineer on pure jets should be a trained pilot also. It is willing to give its engineers pilot training at company expense, but the engineers say this is no help; as pilots, they will be at the bottom of seniority lists, will be laid off if the line starts reducing its crews because of the greater carrying capacity of the jets. Says Princeton-educated engineer President George Petty Jr., 28, whose relatively small (3,500 members) union has an offer of a $1,000,000 strike loan from the powerful Teamsters union: "The pilots are fighting for something that doesn't belong to them. We're fighting for our lives, and we're going to hold out."
The Air Line Pilots Association, led by President Clarence Sayen, 39, also talked tough. Sayen, once a professional pilot for Braniff, blasted American Airlines as having the "worst goddamned labor relations of practically any industry." For 17 months at American, company and union have been feuding not only over the third man but over hefty demands for higher pay, shorter hours for pilots (65 in the air instead of the present 85 a month), fatter retirement benefits, increased meal and overnight room allowances. The big item is pay. The average DC-7 captain gets $19,221 a year: American is offering $22,743 to fly turboprop Electras and a 44% hike to $27,650 annually for 707 jets. The Air Line Pilots Association has yet to make a firm counteroffer, except that the talk starts at $36,000. Both sides are so far apart that a meeting scheduled to be held last week never came off because President Sayen insisted on meeting in Chicago (his headquarters), while American insisted on Manhattan (its headquarters). Said Manhattan Federal Judge Frederick van Pelt Bryan, who ordered the strike postponed for at least a week: "It all gets pretty silly. The attitude of neither party commends itself to the court. Both have failed morally in the matter."
The $45,000 Demand. The failure is not confined to American and its pilots. It is industrywide. Last week even the stewardesses at little Lake Central Airlines (2,281 route miles in the Midwest) were striking for higher pay. (But this time the pilots, who had helped organize the stewardesses, walked through their picket line and kept flying; the pilots also own stock in the line.) Pan American World Airways also faces union trouble. Its A.L.P.A. pilots want up to $45,000 a year jet pay, have already forced a slowdown in jet schedules to Europe because they refuse to fly without a jet-age contract. To fill in. Pan Am has drafted 19 pilot-executives, who are not active members of A.L.P.A. But the executives are fast approaching their flying-time limits of 255 hours a quarter, and further schedule cuts may soon be necessary. The pilots' pay is already well above that of many executives. Assistant Vice President for Communications Waldo Lynch, who is filling in as a pilot, gets $22,658 a year, or about $2,000 less than a Pan Am pilot.
How did the industry get in such a mess? One cause is the individualistic approach that the airline industry has always taken toward its labor problems. The airlines are so furiously competitive that they have not presented a united front--and thus are easy marks for a united union, which can whipsaw the industry by picking off one company at a time.
A second big problem is the Government's obsolete machinery in labor disputes. Airmen complain that the Railway Labor Act, which was amended to include airlines in 1936, is almost totally inadequate. The Government can try to avert a strike by mediation, or arbitration, or finally by creating a special presidential fact-finding board to report and recommend a solution. None of the three methods is binding. In the series of mechanics' union demands, a presidential fact-finding board recommended that six airlines grant 20,000 workers a 9% boost to raise the highest pay grade from $2.51 to $2.74 per hour. All six lines agreed; the machinists' union did not. It wanted $3.00 an hour for top grades, merely used the recommendation as the basis for negotiation. Result: National and Northwest gave the union about what it wanted; Capital, T.W.A. and Eastern were struck. Northeast is still talking.
Many airline executives argue for a totally new approach to airline pay scales. Today's concept comes from a 1934 policy decision by the old National Labor Board, which based pay factors and flight-time limitations on extremely primitive flying conditions and the supposedly short, hazardous working life of pilots. But the job is no longer short-lived or dangerous. Eastern Air Lines recently found that 80% of the pilots it hired in 1937 are still on the payroll as pilots; six are over 60 years of age. Insurance companies now charge the same premiums for pilots as for almost any other occupation.
Productivity v. Payrolls. Equally outdated, say the lines, is the idea that a pilot's real productivity--and thus his pay--should match each technological advance, stride for stride. Relating productivity pay to a single piece of equipment does not take into account increased maintenance costs, bigger capital outlay, etc. Says Stuart Tipton, head of the industry's Air Transport Association: "By relating pay to the specific productivity of one piece of equipment, the pay of a select few may, without any effort on their part, suddenly skyrocket to disproportionate heights."
The problem is particularly serious for an industry that reckons its annual payroll at $800 million, 46.1% of its yearly operating costs. Pilots account for but 10% of the work force, yet already get 20% of the total payroll. Last week, Eastern Air Lines reported a nine-month profit of $6,247,000 v. $4,995,000 last year; American and United have both had profitable years so far, and even Capital, which lost $1,248,861 last year has cut its deficit to $163,767. The lines need all their earnings--and more--to pay for the new jets and turboprops on order. As matters stand, the strikes are costing Eastern and T.W.A. almost $2,000,000 in lost revenue each day. But they feel that to give in might cost even more in the long run.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.