Starting a union
 

I work for a smallish airline. We are a less than 200 pilot group . We want to unionize. We easily have 10% interest. We have spoken with both ALPA and Teamsters and both said we were too small for them to get involved.

The group got a suggestion to come up with cash for retainer for a labor lawyer and we passed around a hat at work. We got a number of people to commit money for a retainer but haven't had a lawyer bite yet.

Can a member here provide some advice on how to move forward? Has anyone done this before from the start?

We did this at Tradewinds back in 2006/2007.
The Teamsters were happy to have us onboard.
Management was begging us to start a union: Compensation for DH in coach from Miami to Jo’burg on days off was all of $50.00.:rolleyes:
Also seen similar movements at Evergreen and Tower Air: Small pilot groups but no problem joining a union.

We spoke with Teamsters and they were not interested.

Which, there’s several locals doing airline service.

135
1224 does several carriers
986
959

https://teamsterair.org

https://www.apa1224.org/index.aspx

Many moons ago, I was at a 135 charter operator and we tried to start a union. We even succeeded in the certification. What did I learn? If you need a union, you need to find another job. It was costly, guys got fired or trashed reputations in the fight for nothing.

They’re great at big 121 lines, at stepping stone operations, move on.


Gf

......
 

Thats the best free advice I've seen on here in a long time.

This is bad advice. I was represented by ALPA at a regional with about 300 pilots. Worth every penny, they effectively fought management every step of the way and secured thousands for the pilots in back pay, contract signing bonuses etc. It is my understanding that ALPA represents pilot groups with as little as 50 pilots, though I'm not sure if they represent 135 operations

And I'd think that 300 pilots is probably about the minimum to be worth the squeeze, if it's under the umbrella of an established union.

If you're going independent, probably need ten times that... and the examples I can think of have very high per-capita gross income.

Didn't Flexjet unionize with the Teamsters years back and the voted the union out about 2 years ago?

They weren't that large and there were a 91K or 135 op.

Does anyone have any union contacts on starting a Union? We are an airline style Part 135. We could really use one. The disconnect with management is growing day by day.