The Michigan Daily--Friday, May 25. 1979-Page 5
I
United
workers
vote to end
55-day
strike
BURLINGAME, Calif. (AP) - A 55-
day strike against United Airlines en-
ded yesterday when union mechanics
overwhelmingly approved a new con-
tract. The nation's largest airline said it
will resume partial service Monday.
Richard Thomas, assistant district
chairman of the International
Association of Machinists and
Aerospace Workers, said the first shift
of mechanics would go back to work
around midnight Sunday or earlier.
The contract ratification, approved 3-
1 by a large, but possibly incomplete
turnout of union members, was an-
nounced by Louis Schroeder, president
and general chairman of District 141 of
the Machinists union.
UNITED, confident that the proposed
three-year contract tentatively agreed
to last Saturday would be accepted,
said earlier plans were well advanced provides for a 30 per cent increase over
to resume partial service Monday. All three years. President Carter's volun-
1,600 United flights will be restored by tary wage guidelines call for a limit of
June 7, the airline said, seven per cent in negotiated settlemen-
According to figures issued by a ts.
United official in San Francisco, some
47,000 union and non-union employes af- In advance of union acceptance,
fected by the strike were estimated by a United, hoping to win back passengers
management source to have lost about lost during the strike, applied to the
$200 million in wages. Some 7,000 Civil Aeronautics Board for a $108 on,-
management personnel who worked way fare between the East and West
during the strike got half-pay. Coasts. The CAB approved that fare
The contract accepted by the union request yesterday, as well as a special
calls for a raise in the average $125 night fare between San Francisco
mechanic's hourly wage from $10 to $13 and New Jersey.
an hour in mid-1981, plus fringe benefits
including cost-of-living increases. It United said that if accepted, the fare
also calls for higher premium pay and would be restricted to five daily nonstop
pensions, and a paid half-hour lunch in flights between New York and Los
an eight-hour workday. Angeles and a single night-flight bet-
THE BASIC wage agreement ween Newark, N.J., and San Francisco.
Supreme Court dissolves
order preventing execution
STARKE, Fla. (AP) - One of two
court orders keeping John Spenkelink
alive was dissolved yesterday by the
U.S. Supreme Court, leaving only a
three-judge federal panel in New
Orleans between the convicted mur-
derer and Florida's electric chair.
While the legal battle raged, the
lanky, 30-year-old Spenkelink remained
in a small cell just a few steps from the
electric chair.
Spenkelink was taken to that cell last
Friday, a few minutes after Gov. Bob
Graham signed his death warrant. That
warrant expires at noon today, but the
governor could immediately sign a new
one.
THE THREE-JUDGE emergency
panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals was debating a request by
Florida s attorney general to lift the
only remaining stay of execution - one
issued Tuesday night by an Atlanta
judge.
Should that stay be lifted,
Spenkelink's attorneys could appeal
that decision once more to the U.S.
Supreme Court, but the execution
process could proceed unless a high
court justice issued another stay.
The Atlanta stay was issued by
federal Judge Elbert Parr Tuttle a few
hours before Spenkelink was to have
died Wednesday morning.
GRAHAM'S OFFICE has said it will
not comment on whether Graham
would sign a new death warrant for
Spenkelink, but legal counsel Robin
Gibson said "the governor will continue
to enforce existing laws."
Tuttle intervened less than eight
hours before Spenkelink was to be
executed, at 7 a.m. Wednesday. A
senior judge on the Fifth Circuit, the 82-
year-old Tuttle agreed to listen to
arguments made by defense attorneys
who claimed Spenkelink had ineffective
legal representation during his 1973
trial.
Spenkelink also had been protected
by another stay issued early Wed-
nesday by U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall.
MARSHALL'S colleagues set his stay
aside yesterday, saying only Marshall
and Justice William Brennan Jr. were
in favor of halting Spenkelink's
execution.
The court's order setting aside the
stay noted that Marshall and Brennan
"object because the court announces its
action without first affording an oppor-
tunity to prepare, circulate and file a
statement in support of their views."
But the high court refused Florida At-
torney General Jim Smith's request to
set aside Tuttle's stay, leaving that up
to the New Orleans court.
SPENKELINK'S case was not new to
See SUPREME, Page 16
Attorney general endorses
proposed FBI charter
WASHINGTON (AP) - A proposed
charter governing the FBI will provide
a proper balance between individual
rights and law enforcement needs, At-
torney General Griffin Bell said yester-
day.
"I believe that the charter would
greatly benefit the nation. I hope the
Congress will give it prompt con-
sideration and strong support," Bell
said in an address to FBI employees.
The attorney general, who has had
reservations in the past about the need
for a charter, said the plan "would
codify many current practices now
conducted under diverse pieces of
authority. The charter would outline in
statute for the first time the authority
for all criminal investigations by the
FBI. In many ways it does not
represent a radical shift."
THE CHARTER is in part the result
of a reform movement designed to
eliminate such past abuses as alleged
illegal surveillance by the FBI and
misconduct by informants.
The proposed charter represents the
latest step in the development of ad-
ministrative guidelines established by
Bell's predecessor, Edward Levi, three
years ago.
Bell said, "The charter would help
law enforcement. It would make clear
what FBI agents can do and how they
would perform those duties.
"IN A sense the charter would be a
contract between the FBI and the
people. It would represent a mutual
agreement on what the FBI will do,
what it will not do and how it will go
about its important business."
The charter is awaiting White House
approval before being introduced in
Congress, and the Carter ad-
ministration is hoping it will have broad
support in' both houses. Sen. Edward
Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, was
among those who helped draft the
proposed legislation