Story ID: 
Flexjet Pilots To Vote on Union Decertification
By: Chad Trautvetter
Caption: Move comes more than two years after the company’s 600 pilots voted for representation by IBT 1108.
Word Count: 234
Fractional provider Flexjet has been notified by the National Mediation Board (NMB) that its pilots filed an application with the NMB to hold an election to decertify Teamsters Local 1108 as their union. This move comes more than two years after 51 percent of the company’s more than 600 pilots voted for representation by IBT 1108.

That vote followed the 2013 merger of Flight Options and Flexjet; at that time, Flight Options pilots were represented by IBT 1108, while Flexjet was non-union. In September 2015, the NMB determined that Flexjet and Flight Options, as wholly owned subsidiaries of OneSky Flight, were operating as a single transportation system, ordering the pilot groups to be combined and paving the way for the December 2015 vote in favor of union representation.

“As in the past, we respect our pilots’ legal right to choose representation,” said Flexjet CEO Mike Silvestro. “Over the course of the past two years, I have heard from our pilots that the union has overpromised and under-delivered. We trust our pilots’ judgment as professionals and, today, we congratulate them on this decision.”

“If successful, this effort would mean that all Flexjet/Flight Options pilots would go back to being ‘at will’ employees,” IBT 1108 said. “The decertification petition…has been sponsored and encouraged by company management, which has preferred confrontation [with] and litigation against its pilots instead of negotiating with them in good faith.”