Portsmouth Herald
October 14, 2004

Judge rules in favor of pilots’ union in Pan Am case

By Shir Haberman

PORTSMOUTH - A U.S. District Court judge has found that Pan Am Airlines
illegally attempted to transfer its passenger service to a subsidiary
airline with the intention of busting the Airline Pilots Association union
and has put a stop to that process.

"Accordingly, the court adopts the magistrate’s determination that the
transfer of 727 operations from Pan Am to Boston-Maine (Airlines)
constituted a direct attempt to destroy a union," wrote Judge Joseph A.
DiClerico Jr. in his decision issued Wednesday.

In that ruling, DiClerico made permanent a temporary injunction he had
issued against Pan Am last month. In doing so, the judge was following the
recommendations in a report issued earlier in the month by Magistrate James
R. Muirhead.

As one reason for concluding that the shift in air operations was an attempt
by corporate officers to get out from under a collective bargaining
agreement Pan Am had with the pilot’s union, Muirhead’s report cited the
fact that Boston-Maine Airways was intending, after Pan Am’s planned
discontinuance of operations on Oct. 1, to fly the same routes Pan Am had
been flying. Boston-Maine was not a party to the agreement, and its pilots
are not unionized.

However, DiClerico found statements made by Linda Toth, a former Pan Am
manager, who was designated to train Boston-Maine employees, even more
damning.

According to Muirhead’s report, Toth testified that David Fink, the
president of Pan Am, Boston-Maine and the two airlines’ parent company,
Guilford Transportation, "talked about (the pilots’ union) all the time and
that he greatly disliked the organization."

"Toth testified that in March or April 2004, Fink told her, among other
things, that ‘it was going to be smooth sailing with Boston-Maine’ after
they got rid of ‘the union jackasses’ and that within six months all the
planes would be on the Boston-Maine certificate," the Muirhead report
states.

"In any event, regardless of whether the magistrate erred in relying on the
absence of a legitimate business purpose for the transfer (of operations to
Boston-Maine), Fink’s statements alone provide sufficient support for the
proposition that it represented an attempt to destroy a union," DiClerico
wrote in his opinion. "The defendants urge the court to reject Toth’s
testimony about those statements, calling her a ‘serial liar.’ The
magistrate, however, specifically found Toth to be a credible witness,
notwithstanding the defendants’ attempts to impeach her."

The injunction issued Wednesday orders that Pan Am:

-restore rates, rules and working conditions of its crew members to where
they were on July 15, 2004;

-refrain from using Boston-Maine or any other affiliated organization to
operate 727s or any other large jet aircraft in services that have
traditionally been performed by Pan Am or that Pan Am is capable of
performing; and

-refrain from transferring to Boston-Maine any aircraft currently operated
on the Pan Am certificate.

Pan Am, Boston-Maine and Guilford Transportation have until Oct. 18 to
convince the court why this matter should be pursued further, DiClerico
ordered. The pilots union must submit a $50,000 letter of credit to offset
any damages the defendants could suffer should the injunction be overturned
in the future.

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