Robert Roach Jr., general vice president for transportation at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents airline mechanics, saw the action as an effort by the company to force the unions into granting more concessions, on top of two rounds agreed to in bankruptcy.
"There is not a set of circumstances that would allow us to go back in and reopen the collective-bargaining agreements," Mr. Roach said yesterday in an interview. "This is not going to work."
Union leaders said the airline, based in Arlington, Va., had presented them with the outline of a business plan at a December board meeting that called for cost cuts of $200 million to $300 million, in part through wage and benefit concessions.
Before they could participate, the union leaders said the carrier would have to streamline its operations further. A spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association, Jack Steffan, said further cuts would do no good unless management changed the way the airline was run.
A spokesman for the Association of Flight Attendants, Jeff Zack, added that US Airways needed to revamp a wide range of practices including its schedules, the way it assigns employees and the prices it pays for fuel. "It's disingenuous of them to say they need cuts from workers to save the airline," Mr. Zack said.
Mr. Steffan, whose union has called for the ouster of US Airways' chief executive, David N. Siegel, said that "if throwing money at this management would solve the problem, we would do it in a heartbeat."