American Airline Pilots Say Strike Threat Isn't Totally off the Table

Feb. 26--A pilots strike at American Airlines would be a "murder-suicide" scenario that would mean bankruptcy and layoffs for the company, and that's according to the pilots.

Officials with the Allied Pilots Association outlined the danger of a strike in an Aug. 10 request for proposals it issued when looking for an outside public relations firm. In the document, obtained by Star-Telegram reporter Trebor Banstetter, union officials wrote that they are "unlikely to employ traditional leverage such as the threat of a strike in upcoming negotiations," because a strike would likely drive the airline into bankruptcy and force pilot layoffs and wage and benefit cuts.

But despite that nightmare scenario, union officials say they haven't taken a strike threat off the table.

That's because several events since the proposal was written "have given us more insight into how the [negotiations] are going to proceed," spokesman Gregg Overman told Banstetter.

He said the airline's refusal to agree to a union proposal to provide pilots for a new China flight was the biggest development that changed labor leaders' thinking.

"We're now putting a lot of resources into our strike preparedness committee," he noted. "It's been an evolution in our thinking."

Under federal labor laws, pilots couldn't strike until after May 2008, and even then there are many hurdles before the law allows a work stoppage.

Still, for airline unions, strikes are heavy-duty leverage because they can ground the carrier.

Banks taking over west side

All of downtown Fort Worth and the near West Side isn't covered with banks yet, but it's getting there.

Citizens National Bank moved into its new headquarters at 2720 W. Seventh St. last month and plans a grand opening Friday, Chairman Ray Dickerson says. Meridian Bank Texas, a newly state-chartered institution, is in its temporary headquarters at 915 Florence St. and plans to take the ground floor of the to-be-built Klabzuba Oil & Gas Co. office building at Weatherford and Lexington streets, President Glenn Monroe says.

Meanwhile, State National Bank nears completion of its new offices at 1400 W. Seventh St. Of course, it's already got a branch at 309 W. Seventh St., but the bank expects to lease it out -- to another bank, of course -- when the new digs are ready.

Incidentally, the new State National Bank signs are ready to mount on the new building, just in time to be replaced by new Compass Bank signs sure to come this year when Spanish banking giant Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, which already owns State National, completes its recently announced purchase of Compass Bank. You followed that, didn't you?

Want to know how many banks you'd pass if you made the circuit downtown and then headed out West Seventh Street? By our count, close to 20. Compare that to the four big institutions and handful of community banks the same route would have offered 20 years ago.

Still worried that someday there will only be OneBank?

Boom art

Here's another indicator that boom times have returned for the oil and gas industry: On Wednesday, the Petroleum Club of Fort Worth will host an exhibition and sale of paintings from the "Petroleum Series" by artist John St. John (1929-2000), who specialized in immortalizing the early oil and gas pioneers on canvas.

St. John's Petroleum Series is a collection of 40 original paintings of historic Texas oilfields, legendary wildcatters, railroads, filling stations and the Texas Rangers. Most of the paintings have been in private collections for more than 35 years.

Bass award

Fort Worth billionaire and real estate investor Ed Bass will be awarded the $25,000 Henry Hope Reed Award from the Notre Dame School of Architecture on March 31 in Chicago.

The award is presented in association with the Richard H. Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture. That $100,000 prize is being presented to Jaquelin T. Robertson, an architect and urban planner from New York.

Bass said he will split the $25,000 between the Yale School of Architecture and the Notre Dame school to use for visiting scholars, teachers or lecturers in the architectural ideals of Henry Hope Reed.

Reed is a recognized author and critic and has been the foremost spokesman for the cause of tradition in civic design, according to the Notre Dame School of Architecture.

Reed taught city planning at Yale University. Bass is a Yale graduate and briefly attended Yale's graduate school of architecture.

The Henry Hope Reed award recognizes Bass for the Sundance Square development in downtown Fort Worth, considered one of the most successful urban revitalization efforts in the nation.

This is the 50th annual classical architecture prize, which is endowed by Richard Driehaus, chairman of Driehaus Capital Management in Chicago. It gives the award in association with Notre Dame.

Paying off

It cut into his hunting and kept him from playing varsity football, but a senior at Calvary Christian Academy picked up a $1,000 scholarship as one of six Texas Christian University Texas High School Entrepreneurs of the Year by starting a cattle breeding business.

Christopher Wilshire, 18, traded in a dirt bike four years ago to buy his first three calves. He sold one as a heavier bull and converted college savings to secure more livestock.

Now the Richland Hills resident has 60 black Angus cattle, including 22 breeding cows. His Rockin W Cattle Co. leases property in Newark, Bono, Godley and Paradise, with more added Saturday in Young County for a total of 640 acres.

Little surprise that Wilshire, the son of accountants, will be majoring in ranch management when he starts at TCU this fall.

He heard about the young entrepreneur competition during a visit to the school. When the family approached his principal, Sue Tidwell, she let the Wilshires know that she had already nominated Chris.

Other winners, who attend school in Austin, Highland Park, Sachse and the Lubbock area, started businesses ranging from tutoring and lawn cutting to producing jewelry made from coral and Dr Pepper bottle caps.