Airlines drop campaign to make strikes illegal By Trebor Banstetter Star-Telegram Staff Writer With airlines enlisting labor unions in their struggle to stem massive losses, the industry has quietly dropped an effort to revamp labor law to prohibit airline unions from going on strike. Union leaders had vehemently opposed the campaign to change the Railway Labor Act, which governs negotiations in the airline business. Airlines had been pushing for contract disputes to be resolved through a "winner-take-all" style of binding arbitration, which would prohibit workers from going on strike. Under the current law, airline workers can strike after certain deadlines pass without an issue being resolved. A lobbying group created by the industry last year to oversee its campaign has been put on hiatus as airlines focus on cost-cutting efforts, including substantial labor cuts approved with union support. "It's not surprising to us that the industry has backed off, because this obviously was a major distraction at a time when labor and management needed to be working together," said Gregg Overman, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents American Airlines pilots. Last month, Gerard Arpey, American's chief executive, said that the Fort Worth-based carrier was no longer involved with the industry group, which is called Communities for Economic Strength Through Aviation. American helped found the group, which is headed by Susan Molinari, a former congresswoman from New York who was briefly an anchorwoman for CBS News. Leo Mullin, chief executive of Delta Air Lines, told reporters Thursday that cost-cutting efforts have overtaken the drive to change the law, according to Bloomberg News. "All of us are now so deeply involved in cost-reduction efforts," he said. American's unions had criticized the lobbying drive as recently as last month. On May 28, Jim Little, executive vice president of the Transport Workers Union, sent Arpey a letter asking the carrier to drop any efforts to change the law. "Free collective bargaining works, even under the most difficult circumstances," he wrote. "We recently proved that" by negotiating the $1.6 billion concessions plan that averted a bankruptcy filing. American's unions approved the new six-year contracts at the end of April. *************************************************** 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/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.carib-link.net/naparima/naps.html TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************