Leader Urges Union to Accept Pan Am Offer

A union leader said Monday that he is recommending acceptance of an unpopular tentative contract with Pan American World Airways because the airline will reduce its wage offer and fire employees if striking ground workers reject the pact.

In a mailing to 5,800 members, Transport Workers Union President William Lindner said he is supporting the agreement because “management will not make further concessions.”

“To prolong this strike is to invite additional casualties and the loss of what has already been obtained,” he said. “It would be totally irresponsible to recommend a course other than acceptance.”

The TWU and the airline reached tentative agreement Saturday. Workers will vote at meetings across the country today and possibly Wednesday.

Pan Am has refused to reinstate more than 700 commissary jobs lost when Pan Am sold its kitchens at the start of the 3 1/2-week-old strike.

The company has threatened to start firing fleet service and maintenance workers this week and reduce its wage package to stem revenue losses from the walkout, which began on Feb. 28 and has grounded half the airline’s flights.

Lindner recommended the contract over the objections of Mel Brackett, president of TWU Local 504, which represents about 3,000 of those eligible to vote.

The pact calls for a 20% wage increase over three years, but 14% of that is a raise the workers postponed to help Pan Am avert bankruptcy in 1982.

TWU members in the New York area have reacted negatively to the settlement because it allows Pan Am to introduce part-time workers, establish a lower salary scale for newly hired workers and slash pensions.

“There’s going to be a riot,” Jack Franzitta, a Pan Am mechanic for 25 years, said when he learned of the settlement. “They’ve given away the farm.”

On Sunday, striking mechanics who objected to the tentative contract tied up airport traffic at Kennedy for nearly three hours, authorities said.

“About 250 cars drove slowly through the airport and held up traffic during the late afternoon,” an airport police spokesman said. No arrests were reported.

Pan Am officials have refused to comment on the pact until after the ratification vote.

The tentative settlement puts increased pressure on Pan Am’s 6,000 flight attendants, who have an April 1 strike deadline against the company. After three weeks of honoring Transport Workers picket lines, they agreed to come back to work last Thursday when Pan Am threatened them with dismissal.