Airline Pilots May Be Next in the Corporate War on Unions

U.S. commercial pilots are one of the few remaining strongholds of America’s diminished labor movement, but Flexjet LLC is trying to upend that conventional wisdom. Anti-union advocates are watching as a battle between the Teamsters and the jet-leasing company plays out, with one non-profit group representing Flexjet employees who are pushing to get the union out.

Some 550 pilots will start voting Wednesday on whether to embrace the company’s entreaties to dump the Teamsters, which arrived at Flexjet just a few years ago. The government-supervised vote, which will be held electronically through May 30, comes two years after the pilots narrowly voted to join the union. Since then, the Teamsters have been unable to secure a contract deal with the Cleveland-based company. The National Mediation Board, the federal agency responsible for airline labor relations, ordered the election after receiving a petition to oust the Teamsters signed by the majority of pilots at Flexjet and sister company Flight Options.