Union Says The Agreement Is Illegal

The  union representative of the pilots of Republic Airlines and Frontier Airlines filed a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Denver against Frontier Airlines Inc., its parent company, Republic Airways Holdings Inc. and a "shell company" set up by the rejected former union of Frontier.

The lawsuit brought by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) alleges that Frontier, Republic Airways Holdings and the former union of Frontier pilots, the Frontier Airline Pilots Association, conspired to interfere in the representation election held in June by the National Mediation Board (NMB) among the pilots of the airlines controlled by Republic Airways. The IBT alleges that Frontier and Republic colluded with FAPA during the balloting period to interfere in the election in exchange for FAPA agreeing to concessions for Frontier pilots. FAPA recently lost a union representation election to the IBT.

"The last-minute concession deal cut by Frontier, Republic Airways and FAPA gave concessions in exchange for Frontier agreeing to help FAPA perpetuate itself at Frontier no matter what the outcome of the votes of the pilots," said IBT Airline Division Director Capt. David Bourne. "On the eve of the ballot count, FAPA gave pay cuts and other concessions to management in a desperate effort to avoid a vote of the pilots and short circuit the NMB election—that is just the sort of illegal behavior that Congress passed the Railway Labor Act to prevent."

The lawsuit asks that the court nullify the FAPA concession agreement. It also asks that the court issue an injunction ordering Frontier and Republic to deal only with the IBT, who the NMB declared to have won overwhelmingly an election among the pilots of Republic, Frontier, Lynx Aviation and Midwest Airlines in June.

FMI: www.teamster.org