''We're always optimistic; we always wanted to negotiate a settlement,'' said Paul Omodt, a spokesperson for the pilots union, as he arrived at a downtown hotel where the union's 17-member Master Executive Council was to decide whether to accept the agreement, reject it or put it to a full vote of the 6,200-member union.
The day got off to a slow start as the council waited several hours for a final version of the agreement, which was still undergoing last-minute language revisions.
By mid-afternoon, the full council had started going through the proposed settlement. Discussions were expected to last into the evening.
''They've got to go through the whole proposed settlement in there,'' Omodt said. ''They have 17 people that can vote in there, so there are 17 different opinions possibly.''
Members of the Air Line Pilots Association went on strike Aug. 29 after two years of failed attempts to negotiate a new contract.
If the proposal is accepted by the ALPA executive council, it would be at least midweek before any service is restored. A vote by all the union members would take four or five days and delay service even longer, Omodt said.
Today, thanks in no small measure to Sanders' dogged, painful crusade to prevent such tragedies from happening to others, the Transportation Department plans to announce a rule designed to assure that air bags are safe for children as well as full-sized adults.
Current federal rules require only that air bags protect belted and unbelted male dummies in head-on, 30-mph crashes into an immovable barrier.
But air bags powerful enough to do that can inflict deadly force on small bodies. As of Aug. 1, 65 children had been killed by air bags, almost all in accidents that would not otherwise have been fatal.
The proposed rule to be unveiled today would require air bags to pass safety tests using crash dummies of all sizes - large adult male, small adult female, child and infant.
It will be open to public comment for 90 days and may be modified before it takes effect.
An editor discovered the page had been altered at 7:50 a.m. The page was taken down, repaired and back up at 7:40 p.m., said Nancy Nielsen, a Times spokesperson. ''The material was so offensive,'' she said, adding that the Times has contacted the FBI.
In a mishmash of pornographic pictures, creative spelling and vague threats posted on a black background, a group calling itself HFG, or ''Hacking for Girlies,'' ridiculed several members of the Times staff.
09-14-98
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