Transportation Workers

United Airlines said Thursday that it would begin charging $15 for the first piece of checked luggage, becoming the second major U.S. airline to impose a fee for a service that has long been included in the fare. The luggage charge for coach-class passengers on the nation's second-largest carrier was quickly matched by US Airways, raising the prospect that the other two big carriers, Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines, would follow suit.

As a baggage runner and low-level security official, Maria Romero has worked for three years in the army of blue-collar functionaries who help keep the airlines operating at Los Angeles International Airport. The 41-year-old mother of three says she earns $11.25 an hour, searching aircraft cabins and lugging passenger bags from screening checkpoints to ticket counters at the Tom Bradley International Terminal.

Transport workers shut down most trains in Paris, testing the patience of residents forced to walk, bike or skate to work with a strike aimed at derailing President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to end special retirement benefits that he says hurt France's competitiveness. Sarkozy called on unions to enter talks. Both the state train authority, which began its strike Tuesday night, and the Paris transport system announced a fresh day of walkouts today. Only 90 of 700 trains ran Wednesday.

BEVERAGES Northwest Airlines Corp. told a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York that it had reached a tentative agreement with the union representing ground workers, but talks with pilots and flight attendants appeared to be deadlocked. Northwest asked the judge overseeing the bankruptcy case for permission to invalidate its labor contracts with the pilots and flight attendants. In announcing the agreement with the International Assn.

New York City's 33,000 transit workers rejected a new contract by seven votes, raising fears of another crippling strike like the one that brought subways and buses to a standstill a month ago. The Transport Workers Union voted down the contract, despite the urging of union President Roger Toussaint to ratify the agreement. He said the final tally was 11,234 against and 11,227 in favor. Mayor Michael R.

Mayor Gavin Newsom wants cable car crews to know he doesn't think all of them are lining their pockets with pilfered fares. The mayor met privately with union leaders and workers Friday to take some of the sting out of his comments earlier in the week that he was convinced some cable car operators were stealing money that should have gone into the public till. Those who went into the closed-door meeting hoping for a \o7mea culpa \f7were disappointed.

Northwest Airlines Corp.'s baggage handlers accepted a new labor contract that would cut their pay 11.5% and eliminate jobs at the troubled carrier. Sixty-two percent of the members of the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers who voted approved the agreement. The vote came two days after flight attendants rejected similar concessions, threatening Northwest's Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Northwest, based in Eagan, Minn., is trying to trim annual labor spending by $1.

Police Chief William J. Bratton said Tuesday that an investigation has identified several workers at Los Angeles International Airport who have criminal histories, but a federal official said the only probe he is aware of found five security employees who had warrants for non-disqualifying misdemeanors.

The list looks like a typical roster of suspected Islamic extremists. One man had regular contact with a close associate of the "shoe bomber" who tried to blow up a jet flying to Miami from Charles de Gaulle International Airport here. Others are accused of undergoing terrorist training overseas or associating with a North African network involved in bomb plots in Europe. Many allegedly attended sermons by radical clerics. But this is no ordinary group of suspected radicals.

The three-man crew accused of failing to switch a railroad track before last month's freight train crash and deadly chlorine leak were fired by Norfolk Southern. Railroad spokesman Robin Chapman said the workers were terminated because they "failed to perform their duties properly." Union officials said the three men would appeal; each had at least 25 years of experience. The Jan.