Misplaced Priorities Plague Airline Management, Union Says

The Teamsters are calling on customers of Flexjet and Flight Options to tell management to prioritize its workers.

“The management situation at these luxury private jet air carriers is completely unacceptable,” said Capt. David Bourne, Director of the Teamsters Airline Division. “They have spent millions of dollars trying to defeat their pilots’ rights to self-determination. Now, they won’t even come to the bargaining table to negotiate with the pilots after the Teamsters won representation for them in a fair election.”

“Flexjet and Flight Options customers need to know the truth about how this company is treating its workforce,” said Efrem Votja, President of Teamsters Local 1108 in Richmond Heights, Ohio. “Pilots have been lied to, mistreated and abused under the current regime. Flexjet and Flight Options management, and Chairman Kenn Ricci specifically, have continually targeted Teamster organizers and workers with unfair terminations, including a politically motivated furlough of pro-union pilots who were just recalled several months ago. I’m urging customers to pressure senior management to resolve these unjust actions.”

The Teamsters have won multiple actions for wrongful terminations at Flexjet and Flight Options, most recently in 2015 when a court-approved arbitrator ordered that Flight Options rehire three pilots who were fired for organizing. Currently, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Teamsters Airline Division and Local 1108 are suing Flexjet and Flight Options, stating that the companies are again violating the Railway Labor Act, this time by refusing to negotiate with the union.

(Source: Teamsters news release)

FMI: www.teamster.org