Eastern Pilots Talk About Ending Strike

The leaders of Eastern Airlines’ pilots union began a crucial round of meetings with union members Sunday to find out whether they want to continue their 5-month-old walkout or return to work, union officials said.

Despite vowing never to fly again for Eastern owner Frank Lorenzo, some union leaders have recently broken ranks and pushed privately for a quick return to work in an effort to save pilots’ jobs, union sources said.

The leadership wants to gauge support among the rank-and-file for that and for other options and is expected to make a final decision as early as the end of the week, the sources said.

The meetings, the first of which involved 350 pilots in Miami Sunday, could be a critical development in the crippling strike against the Miami-based carrier, which has pressed ahead with its rebuilding plan using replacement pilots.

Many pilots have grown frustrated with the union’s failure to gain ground in bankruptcy court against Eastern owner Frank Lorenzo.

Others, however, are determined to remain on the picket lines. “I don’t hear anybody in there hollering ‘I want to go back to work for Frank Lorenzo,’ ” Hank Weber, a spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Assn. (ALPA), told reporters as the Miami meeting continued behind closed doors.

Lorenzo, the chairman of Eastern and its holding company, Texas Air Corp., has contacted ALPA leaders in recent weeks in an effort to convince pilots to return to work, union sources said.

Several Options

The 20-member Master Executive Council of ALPA, which represents 3,400 Eastern pilots, voted unanimously Saturday night to continue honoring the picket lines of striking machinists. But the leaders decided to take the question before the rank-and-file for discussion and a possible vote, officials said.

Eastern’s machinists went on strike March 4 over company demands for wage concessions, and unionized pilots and flight attendants immediately staged sympathy walkouts.

Eastern was virtually grounded in the early days of the strike but is now offering about 350 daily flights, one-third of its pre-strike schedule.

Union sources said one option under close consideration is for pilots to return to work unconditionally. They said the strategy would preserve the jobs of up to 2,000 striking pilots by forcing Eastern to abide by the current contract.

But Eastern has said that many of its striking pilots no longer have jobs to come back to. The airline, which has said it needs a total of 1,700 pilots by the end of the year, already has 390 who have crossed the picket lines along with more than 1,000 newly hired pilots.

Other alternatives to be considered include continued support for the strike and a buyout offer from Chicago options trader Joseph Ritchie. A third option would be to begin negotiating with Eastern under the guidance of federal mediators.

The pilots hope that the National Mediation Board will soon rule that Eastern and its sister carrier, Continental Airlines, are a single entity and thereby allow the union to organize Continental’s pilots.