Eastern’s Pilots OK 25% Wage Cuts, Reduced Benefits : Airlines: When the interim contract expires July 1, the carrier says, it will need many more concessions to emerge from bankruptcy.

Eastern Airlines and its pilots union have agreed to an interim contract that calls for a 25% wage cut, but does not call for rehiring pilots who went on strike, the company said Thursday.

And the carrier insisted that it needs twice that amount in concessions by the time the contract expires on July 1 to emerge successfully from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

The wage cut applies to Eastern pilots still being paid at the pre-strike wage rate. Eastern had 3,600 union pilots who honored picket lines when a sympathy strike with machinists began in March, 1989. Since then, many pilots have returned, replacements have been hired at lower wages and the airline has sold many routes.

Time to resolve the dispute “regrettably has just about run out, in light of the reorganization timetable,” said Thomas J. Matthews, senior vice president of human resources for the carrier, which is owned by Texas Air Corp.

Eastern Air Line Pilots Assn. spokesman Edward Breen charged that the company intends to use the temporary agreement, which was negotiated with the help of the National Mediation Board, as a device to crush the union.

He said by demanding more concessions in advance, Eastern hoped to push the talks into a final impasse.

“Their first preference would be to have the NMB put us in a cooling-off period,” Breen said Thursday. “After that, they can impose their own conditions.”

Breen said ALPA executives had agreed in principle to the contract, but it will not be signed until after a formal vote of the Master Executive Committee on Saturday in Washington. He said the union leaders reluctantly went along with the interim contract to show they were bargaining in good faith and to persuade the mediation board to pressure Eastern to do the same.

The wage cuts applies to about 850 Eastern pilots still working at the pre-strike average of $72,000 a year. A 25% cut would bring that average down to $54,000. But it excludes about 950 replacement pilots hired at an average $27,500 when the strike began.

The new wage levels are among the lowest in the country for major carriers, Breen said.

“An Eastern pilot after this will make about 50% of what a United Airlines pilot makes--and they still can’t make a profit,” he said.

There was no agreement on the key sticking point of hiring back more of the pilots who went on strike.

“The agreement does not cover that--it covers only wages and benefits,” Eastern spokesman Robin Matell said. “And the simple fact is that no jobs are available now.”

The interim agreement calls for a reduction in the airline’s contribution to the pilots’ pension plan, increased pilot contributions to their medical and dental insurance, and the preservation of tougher work rules in effect since the strike.

Eastern insisted federal mediators would have to continue efforts to reach a permanent agreement to cut costs further.

“If expedited mediation is not successful in leading to such an arrangement, Eastern . . . will have to promptly seek bankruptcy court permission to achieve full cost reductions on a long-term basis,” Eastern said in its statement.

Eastern’s ALPA contract expired in June, 1988, but its provisions had remained in effect under the Railway Labor Act.

Eastern lost $282.6 million in the last quarter of 1989, bringing total losses for the year to $852.3 million, or almost all of Houston-based Texas Air’s $885.6-million loss.