US Airways seeks order to prohibit walkouts

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- US Airways Group Inc. will seek a court injunction to prohibit a strike by disaffected unions that have threatened a walkout if a bankruptcy judge grants the airline's request to cancel their labor contracts.

Meanwhile, the airline reached a tentative agreement late yesterday afternoon on a new contract with one of the two unions that have been threatening a strike.

The Communications Workers of America, which represents about 6,000 reservations and gate agents at the airline, said the new deal was able to offset some of the most severe demands the airline had made on issues of pay and outsourcing.

CWA spokeswoman Candice Johnson said that while the contract contains pay cuts by the airline, which is operating under US Bankruptcy Court protection, "we were able at least to soften some of the worst of" the company's demands.

Johnson would not discuss details of the contract, but previous proposals from the airline had called for pay cuts of as much as 34 percent.

In a court filing, the union had indicated that the airline's proposal would create a pay scale lower than what was in place in 1989, when the top wage was $17.32 an hour.

A bankruptcy court hearing began yesterday on the airline's request to cancel its collective bargaining agreements with its machinists, flight attendants, reservation agents, and gate workers.

The airline is seeking to impose pay cuts of 25 percent or more on some worker groups, and also wants to cut benefits for current employees and retirees to save an estimated $1 billion a year.

It also wants to terminate its remaining pension plans, which provide benefits to the flight attendants and machinists.

If the airline does not get the relief it is seeking, it will be forced to begin liquidation proceedings in mid-January, said Brian Leitch, the airline's lawyer.

The CWA and the Association of Flight Attendants have threatened to strike if their contracts are canceled.

Airline management has insisted the unions do not have the right to strike under federal labor law, and airline vice president Chris Chiames said yesterday the airline would seek a declaratory injunction to clarify the issue and prevent the unions from striking if their labor contracts are canceled.

Chiames said the airline would file the motion as soon as this weekend and seek a hearing on the issue Dec. 16.

The airline has been concerned that talk of a strike will dissuade travelers from booking with US Air even though management is convinced a strike would not be permissible.

But some union leaders have said a strike threat provides the unions their only real negotiating power in a process in which management is seeking severe cuts and the bankruptcy judge can impose the cuts unilaterally.

Teddy Xidas, president-elect of the US Airways unit of the flight attendants' union, said the threat of a strike is "real and . . . in my own opinion it has helped negotiations."

While management says the federal Railway Labor Act requires intervention by a federal mediator and a cooling-off period, the unions say those provisions do not apply if a collective bargaining agreement is dissolved.

The issue is essentially untested because a judge has never before dissolved collective bargaining agreements in an airline bankruptcy.

Globe staffer Kimberly Blanton contributed to this report