 statement which will be made available to you but which I will read for the audio media. This morning at 7 a.m. the Union representing those who man America's air traffic control facilities called a strike. This was the culmination of seven months of negotiations between the Federal Aviation Administration and the Union. At one point in these negotiations agreement was reached and signed by both sides granting a 40 million dollar increase in salaries and benefits. This is twice what other government employees can expect. It was granted in recognition of the difficulties inherent in the work these people perform. Now however the Union demands are 17 times what had been agreed to 681 million dollars. This would impose a tax burden on their fellow citizens which is unacceptable. I would like to thank the supervisors and controllers who are on the job today helping to get the nation's air system operating safely. In the New York area for example four supervisors were scheduled to report for work and 17 additionally volunteered. At National Airport a traffic controller told a news person he had resigned from the Union and reported to work because quote how can I ask my kids to obey the law if I don't end quote. This is a great tribute to America. Let me make one thing plain. I respect the right of workers in the private sector to strike indeed as president of my own Union I led the first strike ever called by that Union. I guess I'm maybe the first one to ever hold this office who is a lifetime member of an AFL-CIO Union but we cannot compare labor management relations in the private sector with government. Government cannot close down the assembly line. It has to provide without interruption the protective services which are government's reason for being. It was in recognition of this that the Congress passed a law forbidding strikes by government employees against the public safety. Let me read the solemn oath taken by each of these employees and the sworn affidavit when they accepted their jobs. I am not participating in any strike against the government of the United States or any agency thereof and I will not so participate while an employee of the government of the United States or any agency thereof. It is for this reason that I must tell those who fail to report for duty this morning. They are in violation of the law and if they do not report for work within 48 hours they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated. End of statement. Well I have some people around here and maybe I should speak to refer that question to the attorney general as to the issue for the gentleman's president. Anybody who violates this law? I have told you what I think should be done. They're terminated. Well as the president has said striking under these circumstances constitutes a violation of the law and we intend to initiate in appropriate cases criminal proceedings against those who have violated the law. How quickly will you initiate criminal proceedings? We will initiate those proceedings as soon as we can. The process will be underway probably by noon today. Well that's the prerogative of the court in the event that any individuals are found guilty of contempt of a court order. The penalty for that of course is imposed by the court. That's yours. We think we had a very satisfactory offer on the table. It's twice what other government employees are going to get 11.4%. Their demands were so unreasonable there was no spot to negotiate when you're talking to somebody 17 times away from where you presently are. We do not plan to increase our offer to the union. As far as I'm concerned under no circumstance. We will not meet with the union as long as they're on strike. When they're off a strike and assuming they're not decertified we will meet with the union and try to negotiate a satisfactory contract. Relatively it's going quite well. We're operating somewhat in excess of 50% capacity. We could increase that. We've determined until we feel we're in total control of the system that we will not increase that. Also as you probably know we have some rather severe weather in the Midwest and our first priority is safety. There has been a court action to impound the strike fund to 3.5 million dollars. We are going before the national labor relations authority this morning and ask for decertification of the union. The last offer we made in present value was exactly the same as the first offer. Mr. Paul I asked me about 11 o'clock last evening if he could phase the increase in over a period of time. For that reason we phased in over a longer period of time it would have given him a larger increase in terms of where he would be when the next negotiation started but in present value was the 40 million dollars originally on the table. Well we will seek whatever a penalty is appropriate under the circumstances in each individual case. It is certainly one of the one of the penalties that is provided for in the in the law and in appropriate cases we could very well seek that penalty. What's appropriate? Well that depends upon the fact of each case. What makes a difference? Well there's no way to answer that question we would just have to wait until we get into court see what the circumstances are and and determine what position we would take in in the various cases under the facts as they develop. Well I'm sure we will when we reach that point but there's no way to pick a figure now. If any situation should arise that would require my presence here naturally I will do that. So that would be a decision that awaits what's going to happen. May I just because I have to back in there for another appointment may I just say one thing on top of this with all this talk of penalties and everything else. I hope that you will emphasize again the possibility of termination because I believe that there are a great many of those people and fine people who have been swept up in this and probably had not really considered the result the fact that they had taken to know the fact that this is now in violation of the law is that one supervisor referred to with regard to his children and I am hoping that they will in a sense remove themselves from the law breaker situation by returning to their post. I have no way to know whether this had been conveyed to them by their union leaders who had been informed that this would be the result of a strike. For deadline at seven o'clock Wednesday morning with them to return to work. No I said wait a minute Wednesday morning yeah 48 hours 11 o'clock. Yes. Why do you think it's a strong action is your first act is why not you know some lesser action this morning. What lesser action can there be the law is very explicit. They are violating the law and as I say we call this to the attention of their leadership whether this was conveyed to the membership before they voted to strike I don't know but this is one of the reasons why there could be no further negotiation while this situation continues. You can't sit and negotiate with a union that's in violation of the law. And their oath. And their oath. Well that that again is not for me to answer. In answer to the previous question we will move both civil and criminal probably more civil than criminal and we are now have papers in the U.S. Attorney's offices under the Attorney General in about 20 locations around the country where we'll be involved in two or three principal people as far as the military personnel are concerned they're going to fundamentally be back up to the supervisory personnel. We have about 150 on the job supposedly about a half hour ago we're going to increase that to somewhere between 700 and 850. Yes we will if and we hope we do not reach that point again as the president said we're hoping these people come back to work they do a fine job if that does not take place we have a training school as you know we will be advertising we have a number of applicants right now there's a waiting list in terms of people that want to be controllers and we'll start retraining and reorganize the entire FAA traffic controller group.