Eastern Pilots End Strike; Machinists to Stay Out : Labor: ‘We ran out of options,’ says a union spokesman. But the airline says it has hired replacements for the 1,800 striking pilots and has no jobs to offer them.

Eastern Airlines’ pilots voted late Wednesday to end a bitter nine-month walkout, but the airline’s mechanics said they would continue to strike.

The pilots’ decision to end their strike is largely symbolic because Eastern has replaced the 1,800 striking pilots and says it has no jobs to offer them.

Eastern’s pilots voted to end their dispute one day after President Bush vetoed legislation that would have created a blue-ribbon panel to investigate the strike. In his veto message, Bush said Congress, which would have set up the panel, had no business interfering in contract disputes.

A spokesman for the pilots said the congressional panel had been the union’s last hope to resolve its differences with Eastern and its parent company, Texas Air Corp. “We ran out of options,” the spokesman, pilot Wayne Dolan, said.

Charles Bryan, head of the striking machinists, was angered by the pilots’ move.

“Our ranks are unaffected by this,” Bryan said from his home in Miami. “The strike continues. We were the ones who were carrying the strike anyway for the last two or three months.

“Eastern has been desperate for maintenance and ground support,” he added. “We are unchanged by this decision.”

However, airline analysts said the striking machinists also have been replaced.

Bryan said “it is unclear to me” why the pilots ended their strike. “Eastern claims they had all the pilots they needed when the pilots broke ranks and many crossed the picket lines in August.”

Jim Ashlock, an Eastern spokesman said: “We have all the pilots we need right now. We’re not hiring anybody. However, there will be a rising need for pilots as the airline expands.”

The Eastern pilots walked off the job on March 5 to support the striking International Assn. of Machinists, which represents mechanics and other ground workers. The strike’s immediate impact was significant, forcing Eastern to cancel 90% of its flights and lay off 7,000 non-union workers.

On March 9, a crippled Eastern filed for bankruptcy court protection from its creditors, then slowly began rebuilding as a much smaller airline. To raise money, it sold about one-third of its 255 aircraft as well as its profitable Northeast shuttle operations, which New York real-estate magnate Donald Trump now owns. It is talking with American Airlines about the possible sale of its Latin America routes.

Eastern now has 1,800 pilots flying about 780 flights a day to 85 cities, down from 3,200 pilots and nearly 1,100 daily flights before the strike.

The participation of the pilots had been crucial to the machinists’ strike, because pilots are difficult to replace. But many Eastern pilots became disillusioned as the strike wore on, and 800 eventually returned to work. Another 800 pilots retired or went to work for other airlines.

Also, the strike forced a rift in the leadership of Eastern’s pilots’ union. The members voted to replace its conciliatory chairman with Skip Copeland, a hard-liner when it comes to management relations. On Wednesday, he accused Texas Air Chairman Frank Lorenzo of dismantling Eastern with a “scorched-earth policy.”

John Peterpaul, general vice president of the machinists’ union, said that the loss of pilot support would hurt his union’s efforts, but he added: “The strike is going to continue.” Peterpaul said he hoped that Congress would override the President’s veto of the investigatory panel when it reconvenes in January.

“It is going to be difficult, but we will try,” he said.

Lorenzo viewed the veto as a victory for the airline and wrote to Bush to thank him. “It took courage and a clear vision of a need to keep the airline industry competitive,” Lorenzo said.

The machinists struck the airline over a contract dispute. Eastern sought $150 million in wage concessions, but the machinists sought $50 million in higher pay. Union officers said that most of Eastern’s 8,500 machinists have remained on strike.

The airline’s work force, which numbered more than 30,000 before the walkout, now stands at about 18,400. The airline has said that it expects to emerge from bankruptcy within a few months.

Denise Gellene reported from Los Angeles and Robert Dallos from New York.