PSA’s Unions Say They’re Comfortable With USAir

USAir’s reputation as a well-run company with good labor relations makes it unlikely that Pacific Southwest Airlines’ union employees will challenge USAir’s $400-million acquisition bid and try to turn the San Diego-based airline into an employee-owned company, union spokesmen said Tuesday.

But if the proposed purchaser were Texas Air Corp. Chairman Francisco Lorenzo, “you can be sure we’d have 10 of our lawyers looking at the fine print to see what we could do,” a Teamsters union official said in a telephone interview from his office in Washington. The Teamsters represent about 3,500 PSA machinists, flight attendants and station agents.

‘Certain Other Parties’

“If certain other parties were buying PSA, we’d be out looking for backers right now,” Air Line Pilots Assn. spokesman Pete Pettigrew said after USAir on Monday announced the agreement to acquire PSA.

PSA’s union employees received “right of first refusal” in 1984, partly in return for their having agreed to wage and benefit concessions. The union members also received 10% of the airline’s outstanding common shares.

When PSA’s stock began to trade publicly last spring, it sold at $7 a share, but if USAir’s deal goes through, the stock would increase in value to the $17 a share that USAir is offering.

That stock windfall for employees, coupled with USAir’s reputation as a well-run and profitable company, “makes you stop and wonder if . . . (a buyout attempt by employees) wouldn’t be cutting off your nose to spite your face,” Pettigrew said.

Meanwhile, PSA has initiated discussions aimed at getting the Teamsters to modify contract language dealing with union representation of PSA’s flight attendants, mechanics and station agents if a merger or acquisition takes place. A similar contract provision involving PSA flight crews would not be an issue because pilots at USAir and PSA are both represented by the Air Line Pilots Assn.

Conditions for Deal

Unions other than the Teamsters represent USAir’s flight attendants, mechanics and reservations and ticket agents. USAir noted Monday when it announced the deal that it is subject to “PSA amending certain merger and acquisition provisions in several collective bargaining agreements.”

And the Teamsters official in Washington, who would not speak for attribution, said the union has “the power to stop this deal. The question is whether or not we want to.”