Monday June 14, 8:10 am Eastern Time

TWA, Union Reach Tentative Deal

By JIM SALTER
AP Business Writer

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Trans World Airlines and its biggest union have reached a tentative
contract agreement, avoiding a potentially devastating walkout and ending two years of
negotiations.

The deal, if approved by the rank-and-file, would avert a strike or wildcat work stoppage that could have crippled -- even
destroyed -- the airline.

``TWA couldn't afford a strike, and neither could the members of the union,'' said Ted Evans, a TWA skycap at Lambert
Airport for 24 years. ``Too many people would have been out of work.''

The deal, announced Sunday in New York, must still be approved by TWA's 16,000 members of the International Association
of Machinists.

Details of the proposal were expected to be released Tuesday and voting could begin by Wednesday. Union leaders said there
would be no work stoppages during the monthlong ratification process.

The union covers a wide range of workers -- baggage handlers, flight attendants, ramp workers, ticket agents and mechanics. It
makes up three-fourths of the airline's total 21,000 workforce.

William O'Driscoll, president of Machinists District 142 in Kansas City, Mo., said the new deal offered ``a significant
improvement over previous contract offers from TWA.''

The agreement came as something of a surprise considering TWA officials had said their offer on May 28 was the ``last, best''
proposal workers would get.

O'Driscoll, TWA chief executive William Compton and other negotiators, including former St. Louis Mayor Vince Schoemehl,
began meeting secretly in New York on Tuesday.

``We always had an interest in coming up with a package that would be endorsed by the Machinists,'' Compton said. ``It is
always better to get a deal that is endorsed by both sides.''

Union workers had only last week begun to vote on the previous contract offered by TWA, though indications were that they
were soundly rejecting it.

Had that contract been rejected, the union was threatening walkouts at selected cities over the busy Fourth of July weekend.

Compton had warned that a strike could doom the airline, which has been to bankruptcy court twice in the 1990s and has
failed to turn an annual profit in 10 years, losing more than $2 billion during that time.

Many employees haven't had a raise in 15 years, and part of the reason the company's still around is because workers have
given up part of their salaries and benefits to help make ends meet.

TWA may have been pressed into action by the mere threat of a strike. While domestic bookings were relatively steady, TWA
spokesman Jim Brown said, business travelers were beginning to turn to other airlines.

``The business traveler component was weakening rapidly,'' Brown said. ``That's really the bread and butter of any major hub.
We expect that will come back very rapidly.''

``This is a happy day for Trans World Airlines and its employees,'' said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-St. Louis.
``We all need to understand that TWA as a corporation is important to the financial and economic success of the future of St.
Louis.''