Fasten your seat belts! Teamster-member pilots with Republic Airline Holdings, Inc. (RAH), are warning potential new hires and customers about their abysmal pay and working conditions. The pilots are telling them they would be much better off with another airline, and they caution that the safety of both pilots and passengers is at stake.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 357, which represents 2,300 professional aviators, ran an advertisement in USA Today last Friday and created two websites to publicize their disgust with RAH. Local 357 also began a White House petition asking for the law to be changed so companies can't endlessly extend contract negotiations. RAH pilots have been trying to reach a deal on a new contract since 2007, and have not received a contractual raise in more than five years.
 

This advertisement ran in the May 17 edition of USA Today.

Meanwhile, RAH -- which operates regional jets for American, Delta, Frontier, United and USAirways -- has increased employee contributions for health care and uprooted pilots from their home bases. Many pilots subsist on less than $1,000 a month in take-home pay and are spending more time away from their families.

As both websites state:

Aviation is a rewarding career in many ways, but Republic Airways management does their best to keep that at a minimum. They continue to beat the competition and expand the business by ensuring that we are among the lowest compensated pilots in the industry. Republic Airways works against us in every possible fashion to keep us cheap at our own expense and sacrifice.

How could a company let issues grow to the point that the pilots’ union is taking out ads and creating a website like this? Believe it or not, management does it on purpose. The “stepping stone” mentality was intentionally designed to get low-experienced pilots in the door who will stay for a minimum time then move on once better employment is found – essentially making the company into a temporary staffing agency for other airlines. The industry has changed, but our company (along with our pay and work rules) have not kept up with the times.

It is time for RAH leadership to come to the table and negotiate in good faith with hard-working pilots who are only asking for a fair shake. To say our lives are in their hands is not an exaggeration. Pilots should be fairly compensated for the critical work they do. Until RAH changes its ways, new pilots and customers should vote with their feet by choosing other airlines.

The New Jersey General Assembly this afternoon cracked down on the misclassification of port and parcel delivery truck drivers as independent operators. By a 42-30 vote, lawmakers sided with the Teamsters and other pro-labor groups by approving strict penalties for companies who attempt to cheat the system and drivers.

Currently, some companies shirk their responsibilities by claiming that drivers who in practice work for them are actually contract workers. That spares them from paying Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and employee benefits, including overtime pay. Assembly Bill 1578 makes it more difficult for trucking companies involved in short-distance hauling - known as drayage trucking - or package delivery to engage in this unfair practice. As stated in the legislation:

[T]his bill creates a presumption that a work arrangement in the drayage trucking or parcel delivery trucking industry is an employer-employee relationship unless the party receiving the services can overcome the legal presumption of employment. Under the bill, trucking services performed in the drayage trucking industry or parcel delivery industry by an individual for remuneration are deemed to be employment unless and until it is shown to the satisfaction of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development that:

1. The individual has been and will continue to be free from control or direction over the performance of that service, both under the individual’s contract of service and in fact;

2. The service is either outside the usual course of the business for which the service is performed, or the service is performed outside of all the places of business of the employer for which the service is performed; and

3. The individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession, or business.

For years, corporations wanting to employ their workers on the cheap have denied hard-working drivers their proper due. At the same time, trucking companies trying to do the right thing were put at a disadvantage because they were paying higher labor costs. We're glad New Jersey lawmakers see that good drivers and good companies should be protected against unscrupulous actors.

That said, don't give up the fight now! The bill will go to the state Senate for consideration. Let's make sure hard-working truckers get the fair pay they deserve.