American Air mechanics say they have tentative deal DALLAS (Reuters) =97 The union that represents mechanics at troubled= American=20 Airlines said on its Web site Monday it had reached a tentative agreement=20 with the airline which will meet the wage concessions the company has said= =20 it needs from that group. The mechanics, about 16,000 strong, are among=20 eight work groups represented by the Transport Workers Union. The TWU had=20 already reached tentative deals for its other seven work groups. The=20 tentative TWU agreement with Fort Worth, Texas-based American, a division=20 of AMR Corp., provides for $620 million in annual wage and benefit cuts.=20 Concessions from mechanics will make up $315 million, according to the Web= =20 site, and include a 17.5% wage reduction. Unions at American were=20 scrambling over the past several days to reach concession deals with the=20 carrier, figuring they were better off reaching agreements on pay and=20 benefit cuts through talks than letting a bankruptcy judge possibly slash=20 or revoke current contracts. Banking sources close to the matter told Reuters last week American had=20 ramped up discussions for $1.5 billion in debtor-in-possession financing=20 and could file for bankruptcy protection as early as Monday. Shares of AMR= =20 rose on the news and were up 38 cents to $1.96 on the New York Stock= Exchange. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week:http://www.ttsailing.org/ TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************