Pilots' Union

When the American Federation of Labor tried to persuade airplane pilots to unionize a few years ago it was given a chilly reception. Flyers were public idols. Like sea captains, they recoiled from the thought of brotherhood with locomotive engineers. Also, they were paid as much as $10,000 or $15,000 a year because of the risk. Organizations like the National Air Pilots' Association and Professional Pilots' Association (with codes of ethics, death benefits, etc.) thrived; but unionization was disdained.

With the gravitation of transport flying from adventure to business, pilots' pay came down to average about $550 a month. Many continued to feel that unionization was beneath the prestige of a pilot. But when Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc. cut salaries last autumn. Pilot David L. Behncke of Boeing Air Transport, most vigorous agitator for unionization, was able to draw a group away from the N. A. P. A. to form the first pilots' union. In Chicago last week the Airline Pilots' Association, affiliated with the A. F. of L., had its first real task.

Century Air Lines, operated by Motor-maker Errett Lobban Cord, employed 23 pilots at a minimum wage of $350 a month and flying pay at $3 per daylight hour, $5 per hour at night. The company (which enjoys no mail contracts) announced a cut in base pay to $150, flying pay to remain the same. According to the com-pany the pilots would average $360 per month under the new scale. According to the pilots--all members of the new union--it amounted to a reduction of nearly 50%. They refused, made counter demands for union recognition, reported for work one morning last week to find armed guards and company officials barring their way to the Century hangar. The officials handed them letters "accepting" their resignations and blank applications for work under the new wage scale, which the pilots rejected. Meanwhile Century's schedules from Chicago to Detroit and Cleveland were discontinued. The service to St. Louis was maintained by two '"strikebreaking" pilots. Alongside one of those planes flew another with a sign: "Century is unfair to pilots." Century announced it had scores of applicants for the vacant jobs, would resume service as soon as they could be broken in on the routes.

Most observers predicted that in the face of hard times, with hundreds of experienced transport pilots out of work, any attempted strike must fail. President Behncke claimed a union membership of about 475, out of 700 or 800 employed airline pilots. Transport operators thought that possibly 100 might support a strike program. But the operators were grateful that airplane mechanics were.not unionized, could not start a sympathetic strike.

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