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The head of the pilots union at Northwest Airlines is "encouraged" that the airline's board chairman wants to improve relationships with employees, but the pilots now want him to translate his words into action. "If it's a new Northwest, they have to behave differently than the old Northwest," Dave Stevens, chairman of the Northwest branch of the Air Line Pilots Association, said in a Thursday interview. Specifically, Stevens argued that management should enter into negotiations with its unions and make improvements in employees' compensation now, instead of waiting until the contracts come open. Stevens was reacting to comments that Roy Bostock, the airline's new chairman, made in a newspaper story.