The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; 7032; Interview with Drew Lewis

[Tease]

ROBERT MacNEIL [voice-over]: As the effects of the air controller`s strike spread around the world, new questions are raised about the safety of air travel. Tonight, Secretary of Transportation Drew Lewis addresses those concerns and how he intends to get air travel back to normal.

[Titles]

MacNEIL: Good evening. Repercussions from the strike of U.S. air traffic controllers caused extensive delays and cancellations in transatlantic air travel today. Canadian controllers who stopped work in sympathy shut down the control center at Gander, Newfoundland, through which most flights from Europe normally pass. Thousands of passengers were delayed at principal European airports as airlines reduced flights and switched some to the alternate southern route. But Spanish controllers refused to handle U.S.- bound flights and Portuguese said they would follow suit this weekend. Australian and New Zealand controllers also threatened to back up their American colleagues. The American strikers and their foreign sympathizers claim that flying is no longer safe in the United States with the short- handed emergency system being used to keep planes in the air. Ralph Nader`s Aviation Consumer Action Project said today there were serious questions about safety, and demanded an immediate investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. Tonight, how does the administration answer the growing concern about safety, and how does it plan to get the situation back to normal? With Jim Lehrer in Washington is Secretary of Transportation Drew Lewis. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, welcome.

DREW LEWIS: Good evening, Jim.

LEHRER: Good evening. First, a situation report on transatlantic flights. What is the situation right now? How bad is it?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, right now there are serious delays. Gander was supposed to open up at 7 o`clock this evening; I understand it will not. Therefore, we`re going the southern route -- the two routes that were shown on your map. So we`re dealing with delays and there`s no question about it. There are people in those countries that sympathize with the situation, but they know nothing of whether it`s safe or not. It`s just strictly sympathy.

LEHRER: What is the outlook for tomorrow?

Sec. LEWIS: Tomorrow we anticipate the same types of problems. I think I should point out, though, that the vast part of the world is open: South America, obviously Africa, and the Middle East, some of the countries that had shut down -- for example, Norway was shut down; France was shut down; and Switzerland -- all these countries have opened up, so right now we are greatly hindered by the problems at Gander and also the very slow flights going through Portugal and Spain, through the Azores.

LEHRER: What has the Canadian government told you about the situation up there, in terms of what they`re going to do about it?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, the Canadian government has taken very strong action against their controllers. They don`t feel that they`re in a position to determine whether or not our airways are safe, and the accusations made by their controllers we have found to be inaccurate, as has their government.

LEHRER: Is the Canadian government playing it tough enough to suit you?

Sec. LEWIS: I think so. Actually, the position we have to take-- other governments have to deal with this problem as they see fit. We can`t sit here as the United States and dictate to France and dictate to Canada what they should do. I have talked to the minister of transport in Canada twice, and I think he`s come down very strong. They are very concerned about this, particularly when they know the airways are safe and it`s just a sympathy with one group of people who are dissatisfied with this country trying to whip up and slir up people in other countries.

LEHRER: What does he tell you in terms of when that situation could be rectified, and when Gander will be operating again, and when the main transatlantic route will be operable?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, actually, what happened today-- they have three shifts on at Gander. Two shifts voted to cure the present hindrance they have to traffic. The last shift wanted to check on the legal implications of what they were doing. So until they verify that, and until we have three shifts, we can`t run planes through Gander. So we`re tied up `til we find out what the third shift will do. I should point out, that Montreal and Toronto and other airports in Canada are open. So the main problem we have now is Gander.

LEHRER: A figure I read -- I think it was from the Associated Press -- a few moments ago, was that though, there are normally 220-some flights that fly transatlantic from the Northeast to Europe, and that today about 100 of them made it. Does that figure sound right to you?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, actually there has been some delay but unless they cancel a flight out completely, all we`re doing is delaying flights, and as I say they can take that southern route. So we`re not shut down. The problem we`re having is, we schedule through Gander; we think it`s going to be open; then they shut it down; then we sit on the ground. The one thing we`ve done throughout this strike is that when we see there`s any kind of a problem in the air, we keep the planes on the ground. Therefore, a great many travelers are being inconvenienced, but they`re being inconvenienced because we want to be certain that all planes will be under control at all times.

MacNEIL: Mr. Secretary, when the administration took it`s stand, did it ever anticipate there would be anything like this international repercussion -- the sympathy from controllers in other countries?

Sec. LEWIS: We obviously realized there were a lot of implications in this kind of a move. On the other hand, the principle here was so deep-seated -- the fact that people were striking against their government; they had taken an oath and they had not negotiated, in our judgment, in good faith. We had no choice but to make the decision we made, and we realized there could be implications. We`ll work through the implications.

MacNEIL: Let`s come back to this country. What`s the status of air travel domestically in the United States tonight?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, actually, air travel domestically is going quite well. We hit about, I think, about 76 percent of the total flights, total scheduled flights today. The serious delays were at LaGuardia, and we had some at O`Hare, and I believe one other airport, but by and large, traffic in the United States, under the circumstances, we feel, moved quite well.

MacNEIL: Robert Poli, the head of the striking controllers union, disputes your claim that three-quarters of domestic flights are flying. He said you mean three-quarters of a 50-percent reduction. What`s your comment on that?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, that is inaccurate. If you take your Airline Guide, which is the book that most people check when they want to get flights, we are flying 75 percent of the flights in that book. Today, we met with all the executives of the airline industry, and a number of people who are airport managers, and they verified our figures. So if there`s any question about our figures, we`ve calculated them, so have the airlines; obviously, they know what they`re flying.

MacNEIL: Now, you had some kind of predictions for those airline officials today. How long do you predict these restricted flights are going to continue?

Sec. LEWIS: We told them that we would like to stay on the schedule we`re presently on until the 8th of September. We plan within two weeks, hopefully, to give them a more detailed schedule, and that schedule will go at least until the first of January, and hopefully even as far as Easter. What we don`t want to do is curtail their schedules too much because, as you know, we`re starting our training programs now and we will have new people coming on the system.

MacNEIL: They said today -- is it correct? I saw a report they told you they were losing $30 million a day, the airlines?

Sec. LEWIS: The indication was that the first week of the strike they lost between $25 and $30 million. But a large part of that was the confusion. They feel that if we can level out the schedules so that people know they can fly-- see, the problem people have now-- they`re not sure a plane is flying or not. As long as they have firm schedules and can fill up the planes that they have scheduled, their losses will be considerably reduced. At the present time, we don`t see any great -- any significant -- impact on the economy in total.

LEHRER: When you say level out, you mean level out at about 75 percent?

Sec. LEWIS: Level out at somewhere in excess of 75 percent. Again, we look at the airways like you look at an expressway. When it gets overloaded it becomes dangerous. It`s bumper to bumper. If you spread out the planes to 75 percent, it`s safe. That incremental difference is the margin of error.

LEHRER: So what you`re talking about, though, is 75 percent until January, possibly until Easter, is that right?

Sec. LEWIS: That is correct.

LEHRER: I see. Let`s talk about the safety question. You mentioned it a moment ago. The Canadian air controllers say that U.S. airspace is not safe. And that`s what the Spanish air controllers say; that`s what the Portuguese air controllers say; the New Zealand air controllers say. And you say that`s not so; is that right?

Sec. LEWIS: That is correct.

LEHRER: How do you know it is?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, first of all, we`ve checked our records very carefully and as an example, the Canadian controller that charged last evening and this morning that our airways are unsafe-- we checked out some of the circumstances of that situation. One of the planes that-- he said it was within 300 yards of another plane. We found out, on the actual recorded devices, was actually more than 30 miles apart. This is an inflammatory type thing to make the traveling public wary of traveling by air, and also to try to whip up sympathy. How can anybody possibly in Spain or New Zealand really know whether our airways are safe or not when we`re operating them and know whether they`re safe or not? And who knows better than the pilot? I mean, a pilot is anxious to get home; he has a family. He`s not going to fly when things are unsafe. And pilots are telling us time and time again, if anything, it`s going better now than it was before the strike.

LEHRER: Did you take the Canadian charges seriously and investigate what they said, that there were 26 incidents on the Canadian-U.S. border that were dangerous? Did you take those and look at them in a serious way?

Sec. LEWIS: We looked at those, and also we looked at all the other incidences that were cited by both our controllers and American controllers. Matter of fact, if you don`t mind, a letter which just went out this afternoon to those controllers from the minister of transport said, "We`re deeply concerned" -- this is to Mr. Robinson, however -- "that your public"--

LEHRER: He`s the head-- excuse me. He`s the head of the Canadian controllers union, right?

Sec. LEWIS: He`s the head of the Canadian traffic controllers, --"that your public statements over the past several days are misleading and causing unnecessary concern, and perhaps fear, in the minds of air travelers. You are not accurately informed with respect to the alleged incidents." He goes on; you don`t want to have me read it. But indications are that, again, these people are stirred up and they`re trying to create sympathy and putting out inaccurate information.

LEHRER: You mean, you think that`s their sole motivation -- it`s strictly union rhetoric to stir up sympathy, and there`s not a shred of evidence or truth to what they`re saying? Any of these controllers?

Sec, LEWIS: That is absolutely correct. We have had one incident that could have been marginal during this whole strike. That was pilot error, where somebody got about 1,000 feet higher than they should have.

LEHRER: Well now, what has been the situation? Are you talking about-- for the week of this strike, there`s only been one near miss, or something that you would consider--

Sec. LEWIS: That`s correct, and that was pilot error. See, all these things are recorded, and we keep the recordings. And if there is a serious accident, it comes to Lynn Helms, who is the federal aviation administrator, and if there is a serious threat, it also --`? or miss -- it comes to me. And we received the one and we checked all the records on every single one of these things, and there has not been a serious problem.

LEHRER: And this thing is being watched very, very closely?

Sec. LEWIS: It is being monitored by the minute.

LEHRER: By whom?

Sec. LEWIS: By the FAA administrator, by Mr. Van Buren, who is in charge of the controllers, and by our recording devices and by a constant reporting mechanism that comes into the FAA on an hourly basis.

LEHRER: I see.

Sec. LEWIS: Jim, there`s no way that we`re going to see these people fly in planes that aren`t safe, and no way we`re going to have the airways unsafe.

MacNEIL: How does the number of near misses since the strike began compare with the average number before the strike?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, that`s a difficult statistic, and I really have no basis on which to give you any figures except to say that there has only been one, and that was the pilot error, in the last, let`s say, nine or 10 days.

MacNEIL: Wouldn`t that make it lower than the average number?

Sec. LEWIS: I would-- I really can`t tell you because I never checked the figures.

MacNEIL: I see. The Aviation Consumer Action Project, the group formed by Ralph Nader some years ago which today called for an investigation of safety by the National Transportation Safety Board-- to begin with, do you endorse that-- the need for such an investigation?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, actually, I don`t think it`s needed, and that`s a determination-- as you know, that safety board is independent of us, and if they determine to do that, we would certainly not object to it. At the present time, we know that we`re adequately monitoring the entire system, so we don`t see any need for it.

MacNEIL: I guess what the public might wonder -- which is a point raised by this consumer group today -- is that since the FAA and the union each have so much at stake, that it`s hard to get unprejudiced answers. How can the public know that with the administration having so much politically at stake in proving the controllers wrong, that you`re going to give accurate information about, for instance, incidents of near misses and things?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, first of all, I`d like to say we don`t have anything politically at stake in the sense this was not a political decision. This was a very basic decision that went to the very core of our democracy, and the president felt deeply about it and did not make the determination on any basis of politics. As far as your looking in terms of my reliability and Lynn Helms` all I can do is assure you that we are working on this very carefully, that the president is obviously concerned about this possibility of anything unsafe in the airways. And also, with the pressure on us at the present time, if anything, we are being cautious on the side of safety. It`s very much to our advantage to have nothing happen that in any way can discredit what we`ve done to date, and in any way make the traveling public insecure.

MacNEIL: What are you doing that shows you are being cautious on the side of safety?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, first of all, we`re keeping the number of flights down, as we indicated, to 75 percent. We`re shutting down some of the very small control towers. We`re reducing the number of hours that people are working. We are taking the military people who are highly qualified, and we`re training them before we put them on a scope, even if they were on a similar scope during their military service. That kind of thing is what we`re developing to be just very, very cautious.

MacNEIL: Just one more question on this thing. The same Nader group said today that even before the strike, the control system had flaws in it and there were every year hundreds of incidents of near misses. And they say it`s difficult to see how a system that was flawed beforehand could withstand such massive personnel changes without some decline in safety. How can you explain that as--

Sec. LEWIS: Well, first of all, we`re talking about 19,000 pieces of equipment. And when they talk about flaws-- with that many pieces of equipment, a tube is going to go here or there at any time. We do have back up equipment and the system really operates very well. We have also made a commitment in this administration to upgrade all the equipment, which will probably cost us about $10 billion. It`s going to take to about the year 1987 to complete it, but we think the present system is adequate. And if we did not think it was adequate, we wouldn`t use it.

LEHRER: How many qualified controllers do you have on the job now?

Sec. LEWIS: Actually we have 5,000 that stayed on the job; I think it`s 5,009 to be exact. We have about 3,500 supervisors. We have about. I think. 800 military controllers; we`ll go up to about 1,000 today. And then we--

LEHRER: So then, you`ve got about 9,000, then?

Sec. LEWIS: And then we have another 1,000 that we`re relocating from various points in the country where we`re shutting down towers and so forth. We feel to operate this system at 100 percent capacity, we need about 11,000, because there were about 3.000 too many, and about 3,000 perform almost clerical kind of tasks -- answering the phone and filling out forms. The thing-- the thing you have to point out here, Jim, is these people actually spend about four and a half hours on the scope. The rest of the time are lunch breaks, coffee breaks, and whatever other breaks they have. So we`re really not talking about a group -- that during the time we had the full complement -- that spent eight hours looking at a scope and worrying about radar screens and things of that type.

LEHRER: But you`re still roughly at about 50 percent of what you had -- at least on the payroll -- before the strike. You had 17,000-18,000 before, and now you have less than 10,000, right?

Sec. LEWIS: That`s right. Let`s just say in rough terms, we`re about 9,000. That`s why, again, we`re operating at a lesser capacity.

LEHRER: What kind of hours are they working now? What kind of shifts?

Sec. LEWIS: They were working up to about 60 hours. We`re cutting that down this week, and it`ll be down to 48.

LEHRER: Why are you cutting it down? Have there been signs of fatigue?

Sec. LEWIS: No signs of fatigue, but again, we like to err on the side of safety, and a number of these controllers-- and morale is tremendous in these-- in the towers. And the supervisors are enjoying what they`re doing, and many of them say, "Look, just keep us here; we`ll work 10 hours a day, six days a week." We don`t want to take a chance on that. Again, it`s the kind of thing that would give the public concern, and we`re not going to take any chances.

LEHRER: Who`s making the decision as to whether Supervisor A or Supervisor B has worked too many hours and may be fatigued, and could be presenting a safety problem?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, the overall plan is developed here in Washington, out of Lynn Helms` and Mr. Van Buren`s office, and then we have various regional people and we have various people right in the control tower. And they`ve been instructed by our people in Washington here to cut down on schedules and at the end of this week we want everybody at 48 hours maximum.

LEHRER: Well, I`m sure you`re aware Mr. Poli and other members of PATCO are charging that you all are working these people long hours and they`re not getting enough rest, and that a fatigue problem could eventually result in a safety problem. Is that just not so?

Sec. LEWIS: Look, here`s what`s happened. From the beginning when Mr. Poli walked out last Monday, he said the system would be shut down in two days. Then somebody else in his union said it would collapse in three days, and we had about eight people predict it was going to collapse on Saturday. Then we had people say we couldn`t operate the system at all. In point of fact, what we are doing here is, we`re operating the system; we have a reasonable load in terms of the people that are traveling, and it`s running very well. And we`re not overworking the people.

LEHRER: Let me ask you this, Mr. Secretary, to pick up on a point that Robin just raised. Are you and President Reagan prepared to say, on any given day, wait a minute. It isn`t working; the people are being-- the fatigue situation-- what if. for whatever reason, there will not only be 75 percent, but cut it back to 50. to 40 percent, or whatever it takes? I mean, the question being, are you so committed to keeping it going that you might not be seeing these things -- seeing the negatives as they come up?

Sec. LEWIS: Positively not. If we have to operate this system at 20 percent, we`re prepared to do it. I talked to the president this afternoon. He reassured me that he was totally supportive of what we`re doing; we`re satisfied the way the system`s operated; and I assured him we would operate it safely if we had to cut it down to 20 percent.

LEHRER: Did you tell the airlines that today, too?

Sec. LEWIS: We told the airlines that and the airlines agreed. The airlines said, "Look, the first thing you want to do is go for safety, and the second thing we want is a sure schedule. You go for that and that will satisfy us, and we`re going to just sweat it out with you." And as I said, this is not an easy problem for any of us.

MacNEIL: Mr. Secretary, how many dismissal notices have now been sent out to controllers?

Sec. LEWIS: As of just before coming on this show, 10,363. We believe there`s about maybe another 1,500 that we will be sending out.

MacNEIL: Is it still possible for any controllers, to whom dismissal notices have not been sent, to come back and report for work?

Sec. LEWIS: Yes. And even those that have dismissal notices could come back under very limited circumstances, and they would be-- a number of people are being harassed, they can`t get it to work and their cars are beat upon. They turn around and go home. Under those circumstances, if they are legitimate reasons, those people are welcome back.

MacNEIL: If a controller came back, what would be legitimate reasons for getting his job back?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, we had one person who went to go to the gate and was afraid to go through. It was a woman controller that went back and happened to talk to her minister and also talked to her doctor and was very concerned about what she should do. And a day later she called back. She brought in an affidavit from those two people indicating what had happened, and we said, we`d be pleased to have you back.

MacNEIL: But if somebody had a change of heart now, and only decided, say, tomorrow, to go back, he couldn`t get his job back?

Sec. LEWIS: That`s correct. The people that walked out and decided that the $40,000 additional cost per year was more important than serving the public would not be welcome back.

MacNEIL: Does the boycott -- international boycott -- the threat to the economies not only of American airlines but foreign ones, and to foreign travelers, and so on-- has that made you at all reconsider -- you and the president -- reopening talks with the striking controllers?

Sec. LEWIS: No, it hasn`t. And again, it`s not the fact we don`t have compassion for these people. They`re fine people and we`re concerned that they went out on strike. On the other hand, Robin, we tried very hard to keep them at the table, to talk. When this thing broke off last week there were still, say, about $681 million on the table -- 17 times what Mr. Poli signed and agreed to on the 22nd of June. We then gave them 48 hours to reconsider. They didn`t reconsider. So at this point we feel that the principle that`s more important is not the union, not the strike, but the integrity of the United States of America.

MacNEIL: So what`s your advice to all those who can`t have their jobs back now? Go and look for other work?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, regretfully, I think that is the only advice I can give.

MacNEIL: Did you-- have you considered whether the cost to the airlines mentioned today, and to the economy, might not be greater to the nation than the cost of reaching some compromise with the controllers?

Sec. LEWIS: The cost in dollars could exceed what we ultimately settle with with the controllers union. But the cost in terms of this country-- the price is just too high to pay to bring them back and to settle the strike.

LEHRER: Have you already begun hiring new controllers for training?

Sec. LEWIS: Yes. I believe we hired about 260 this week. I think we have another 97 or 100 or something like that coming on next week. These are going into our training program and, matter of fact, people who are interested in the job, we`re getting about 5,000 applications a day -- they can go to their local office of the Office of Personnel Management which are in most of the major cities in this country, and register for the examination between August 11th and the 28th, and we`re going to have an examination on the 28th and we`re going to try to screen out and get the best people we can, and move ahead and rebuild the system.

LEHRER: How many vacancies do you technically have that you want to fill?

Sec. LEWIS: We think, Jim, ultimately we`re going to add about 6,500 people, and that`s why we say it`s about 21 months until everybody`s fully trained and we`re back on line.

LEHRER: And what`s going to be-- have you estimated what it`s going to cost to hire and train those people and put them on line?

Sec. LEWIS: Yes, we have. It`s just about an offset. If you take the cost of training these people, reduced by the number of people we will not hire back during that time period, and the reduction in salaries -- because these people will be coming in at a lower level -- if you take that cost, it will probably save the government somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million. We are not gloating in that, nor are we pleased that we`re saving that kind of money because we prefer not to save it. The loss to the airline industry will obviously exceed the benefit accruing to the government in terms of dollars. That`s a very shallow benefit, though.

LEHRER: At the meeting today with the airline executives, did any of the executives express to you the thought that if this thing does continue, even at a 75 percent rate, that there are some airlines that are going to go under, particularly-- the names that have been mentioned publicly have been Braniff; Eastern`s having some problems. What were you told about that today?

Sec. LEWIS: We didn`t talk in terms of the financial condition of any specific company, but I will say both the president of Braniff and the president of Eastern were in a press conference this afternoon and voiced total support, not only of the safety of the airways, but that they felt we were doing the right thing and had no other choice.

LEHRER: Are you concerned as secretary of transportation that a year from now the cost of this in terms of the airline industry and to the economy is going to be very, very high? I mean, what do-- you must have some kind of ballpark figure in your mind. You must be concerned about it. What`s your thinking about it?

Sec. LEWIS: We have run some preliminary figures, and to the airlines, we feel once we stabilize the schedule, that they will break even or make money. As far as the rest of the economy goes, the resort areas and a number of other industries that can be affected, the people seem to be adjusting. They seem to get to the resorts by train or by bus or some other method of transportation. Actually, what we need now in the airline industry are more passengers, and the reason we don`t have them is the fact that people don`t know whether they`re flying or not.

LEHRER: And you`re aiming for September the 8th, as I heard you say earlier, to have a stabilized schedule. I mean, this would be-- there would be a new Airline Guide. It would have schedules in it and these schedules would be met.

Sec. LEWIS: That`s correct.

LEHRER: And you won`t tinker with it after September the 8th.

Sec. LEWIS: That`s correct. We`ll run that at least through, let`s say, January 8th, and we may extend it like another 90 days, but hopefully we`re going to be able to improve it by January 8th and step it up as we get into the Easter season. We at least want to take it through the Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year`s holidays.

LEHRER: I see.

MacNEIL: To come back to the training, Mr. Secretary, are you going to have to open new facilities in addition to your one at Oklahoma City to handle all these trainees?

Sec. LEWIS: We don`t know at present, Robin. What we`ve `done-- we`re going to go three, eight-hour shifts round the clock in the training center. We`ve also contacted several colleges that have the type of courses we need. We think we can enroll students there. There are also some military resources that we can tap. And until we have a definitive program, I can`t give you-- be any more specific. But we feel that, again, if we have no other facility other than our facility in Oklahoma City, we`re talking about 21 months to process all the trainees that we`ll have to process.

MacNEIL: Will they be given accelerated courses -- faster than normal?

Sec. LEWIS: Positively not. We`re going to stick to the regular schedule of 17 weeks, and sometimes it runs as much as 20 weeks. We`re not going to accelerate anything. In no way are we going to jeopardize the safety of people who are traveling by air.

MacNEIL: Are you going to lower the requirements or qualifications people need to apply for the initial examination?

Sec. LEWIS: None whatsoever. As a matter of fact, we`re going to have so many applicants, we`re probably going to have probably the most highly qualified class we`ve ever had.

MacNEIL: Last week you said on this program that the government had found out since the strike that the country didn`t need as many controllers as it had. Do you know now specifically how many you need?

Sec. LEWIS: Not specifically. But we do know that we have an excess around 3,000 controllers. Again, until we get the system balanced, we don`t know.

MacNEIL: What was the reason for that excess?

Sec. LEWIS: Well a lot of these people were actually answering phones and doing relatively routine clerical work, and we just feel that if somebody`s getting paid $33,000, and asking, even though it`s outrageous, for $40,000 more, that`s a pretty big pile of money for answering the phone and doing clerical work.

MacNEIL: So what are you going to do, create a new category and replace those people with other kinds of people?

Sec. LEWIS: That`s our intention.

MacNEIL: I see. Why do you think so many people are now coming forward looking for these jobs if, as the union has been saying, they work under such pressure and such poor conditions and so on?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, first of all, we don`t think -- and most of the studies have indicated -- there`s not any particular pressure here. So from our standpoint, we feel that a lot of people would like a job that pays $33,000 and we`ve already indicated we`ll give them a $4,000 raise.

MacNEIL: And you have people coming forward now? You have people actually applying now?

Sec. LEWIS: That`s right. For somebody with a high school graduate and reasonable intelligence, $37,000 in a relatively short period of time is a very good job.

MacNEIL: What are the qualifications that are needed to apply for that? You just said a high school graduate of reasonable intelligence.

Sec. LEWIS: And pass the examination which is given by the FAA. And with that combination, going through the training course and-- actually about 25 percent do flunk out going through the training course, which would give us some drop-off. But they`re really the requirements.

MacNEIL: You`ve mentioned a couple of times that it was very important to stick with the principle here for the sake of this democracy. What does the president, and what do you, feel is the sort of example or lesson that is being made by going through this painful process?

Sec. LEWIS: Well, at the time I took the responsibility as secretary of transportation, when the president became president, we took an oath of office. And essentially it said we`d support the Constitution, which is what the president is doing. And furthermore, we would not strike against the United States of America. I recognize that as part of the job. Traffic controllers did the same thing, and our feeling is they should recognize that obligation. And for the president not to support the law when he took an oath saying he would, he is derelict in his duties and not living up to his responsibilities to the American people.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary. That`s our time for tonight. Thank you for coming, Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That`s all for tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.