There is surprisingly little mention of it, though Mr. Bloomberg has hinted at penalties he might reach for if sufficiently provoked. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani set out to fine individual perpetrators $25,000 per day, then doubling the fine every day after. But the action needs to come primarily from Albany, where Gov. George Pataki hides out, managing to say practically nothing about the union, contending now with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, whose most prominent members made substantial contributions to the Pataki campaign. The result is continuing speculation about the application of the rules.

It should be simply apparent that UAL, in Chapter 11, has to travel toward recovery, or into Chapter 7, which means auctioning its assets and folding into history. The relevant unions, pre-bankruptcy, offered to trim $5.2 billion in expenses, which suggests there was that much fat there to be trimmed. What's easy is to eliminate flight services to low-passenger sites, though it is not easy at all to be left to live in a community that suddenly finds itself isolated from modern travel. Mechanics can threaten to work on other companies' planes, but the pilots and the flight attendants are not situated to bargain weightily.

It comes down to this: The rule about overhead and income can't be skirted indefinitely, and only bargaining under the pressure of the free market can keep United Airlines aloft.

In New York, one waits for hard action by the governor. Tough stuff, on the order of contempt charges and fines and jail for those who break the law and affect the lives, habits and property of the entire community. The head man of the Transport Workers Union a generation ago liked to go to the last minute (usually, New Year's Eve) in order to maximize public pressure.

Bloomberg and Pataki are recently elected and re-elected officials in the state of New York, and the city waits to hear from them the words: This strike will not happen. There is a rule here, and we intend to observe it. Then tell their constituents what they will do, in skywriting.