The Standard & Poor's credit rating agency on Thursday downplayed a strike threat from the American Airlines pilots union, saying it is still "several steps removed" from any labor action.
The New York-based service said a strike would not be legal until the National Mediation Board declares that the Allied Pilots Association and the company are at an impasse in negotiations."The NMB has not yet made such a determination, and that federal agency usually seeks to avoid a strike if at all possible," S&P said.On Wednesday, the union board said it will direct national officers to conduct a strike vote if a bankruptcy judge approves the company's request to invalidate its contract and let the company impose "negative" new terms.S&P said Thursday that "it now appears to us that the judge will approve the revised motion after a scheduled Sept. 4 hearing." Under Section 1113 of the Bankruptcy Code, a company has latitude to cut labor costs.All this doesn't look good for the union, it surmised."We believe that the pilots' leadership statement is intended to influence American and the bankruptcy creditors' committee at a point when the union's bargaining leverage is dwindling because of the bankruptcy process and other American unions' acceptance of concessionary contracts," S&P added.The pilots union is the only union at the airline that rejected its contract offers. American is trying to trim annual labor costs by $1.25 billion.Meanwhile, Bloomberg News reported that pilots union leaders and their union counterparts at US Airways were studying a transitional labor agreement in the event of a merger of the carriers. It cited three unnamed sources familiar with the matter, but Allied Pilots Association spokesman Gregg Overman declined to go beyond a Thursday statement that the union had met with US Airways CEO Doug Parker. All three of American's major unions have thrown their support behind a US Airways bid.Filed with the Bankruptcy Court on Thursday were billing notifications from the airline's Fort Worth law firm, Kelly Hart & Hallman, which said it billed more than $1.58 million in legal fees from Nov. 29 through July.Barry Shlachter, 817-390-7718Twitter: @bshlachter
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