Airline fires about 11 workers after walkout
Posted by airlinenews on May 7, 2006
By Joe Napsha
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, May 5, 2006
PSA Airlines, which operates as US Airways Express, said Friday it fired 11 of an estimated 125 ramp and gate workers who walked off their jobs last week at Pittsburgh International Airport in protest of over the company's failure to reach a new contract with their union.Teamsters Local 926 of Pittsburgh, which represents the fired airline employees, on Thursday appealed the firings by filing a grievance with the company, which is standard procedure under its contract, Charles Brynes, secretary-treasurer of the union, said Friday. If the company does not reinstate the workers, the union will seek an independent arbitrator to rule in the case.
The union still is attempting to determine whether 15 or 18 workers were discharged Thursday by PSA, Brynes said.
Brynes, who is chairman of the Teamsters' negotiating committee, said the union will ask the company for an expedited hearing and will seek to have a ruling on a "pilot" case for one or more of the workers. If the union can win that case before a neutral arbitrator, Brynes said he hopes the ruling could be applied to all of the discharged workers.
A few more workers might be terminated as a result of the two walkouts by about 125 workers on the morning and afternoon shifts on April 26, said Phil Gee, a spokesman for US Airways, which owns PSA.The discharged workers walked off their jobs on April 26 in frustration over stalled contract talks, which had been occurring between the union and company in Washington, D.C., last week. The walkout violates the 1997 union contract that prohibits work stoppages and subjects those leaving their jobs to discipline that includes termination, according to a lawsuit PSA Airlines filed against the Teamsters on April 27 in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh.
The lawsuit claims that four union stewards were among those who walked off the job and did nothing to get the employees to return to their work.
The first walkout lasted between two and four hours and delayed about a dozen planes, affecting between 200 and 300 passengers on the morning and afternoon of April 26, PSA Airlines said in its lawsuit. A second walkout occurred about 8 p.m. April 26, which prompted the airlines to use about 35 managers to perform the work handled by the Teamsters.
The union said there was frustration over the company's offer to raise wages by just 7-cents-an-hour after four years of bargaining, but PSA Airlines denied in the lawsuit it ever made such a wage offer in negotiations on April 25 and April 26 in Washington, D.C. Those talks produced little progress, the company said.
U.S. District Judge David Cercone Friday dissolved the temporary restraining order banning any union walkout, which the PSA had requested and he approved on April 28. The judge on Thursday also rejected the company’s request that the court issue a preliminary injunction prohibiting future walkouts.
