NEW YORK (Reuters) - US Airways Group Inc. (UAWGQ.PK) has asked the court handling its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case for permission to cancel current labor agreements covering more than 18,500 workers if it fails to negotiate less costly pacts with them.þþUS Airways has struggled for months to extract wage cuts and other sacrifices from its employees. Cost reductions are a crucial component of the company's campaign to restructure and get final approval for a government-backed loan.þþUS Airways' unionized pilots, flight attendants and other employees have agreed to annual concessions totaling more than $560 million.þþBut the Arlington, Virginia-based airline has not sealed deals with the mechanics and fleet-service employees, represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, or with reservation agents and ticket-counter workers, who are represented by the Communications Workers of America.þþUS Airways expects those two employee groups to bear almost one-fourth of the total $1.2 billion in annual savings targeted, and more than one-third of the $950 million in cost-cutting it expects from labor groups.þþThe airline has asked a bankruptcy court judge to let it reject the collective bargaining agreements already in place with those workers if the two sides cannot reach ``mutually-agreeable cost-reduction agreements'' before a date to be set by the judge.þþA hearing on US Airways' request is scheduled for Sept. 10 in Alexandria, Virginia, before U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Stephen S. Mitchell.þþThe machinists' union, which represents 12,000 US Airways workers, will bring the airline's latest cost-cutting proposals to its members for a vote on Wednesday. The proposals call for $219 million in annual savings through cost reductions until 2008, US Airways said in a court filing.þþThe airline said that since May it has met at least 16 times with representatives for its 6,700 unionized communications workers, but the union has refused to bring any proposal to its members for a vote.þþUS Airways said it is looking to save another $70 million each year by cutting expenditures for its passenger service workers, but the Communications Workers of America has claimed its members, who are some of the company's lowest-paid, aren't able to shoulder such reductions. þþ
Source: NY Times
