The National Mediation Board has determined that Flight Options and Flexjet failed to provide sufficient evidence of election interference in a complaint they filed against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the union that represents the companies' pilots. The ruling, issued yesterday, includes a partial dissent stating that the case “represents a close call as to whether or not to conduct further investigation.”

Flight Options/Flexjet, considered as a single carrier in the complaint, filed the motion for a determination of interference on January 8 following the December 16 certification of a vote by the carrier’s workers in favor of representation of the IBT.

The carrier alleged the IBT misused private customer and employee data to influence the election. The allegation pointed to emails sent to customers raising concerns about the company’s senior officer and a planned headquarters move. But the NMB found that the carrier did not provide “substantial evidence” that the action represented misuse of data by the IBT. The NMB also found that Flight Options/Flexjet failed to provide evidence to support its claims that IBT unlawfully obtained or misused pilot contact information, or that it engaged in a “pervasive campaign of coercion, intimidation, harassment and misrepresentation.”

The NMB noted that carriers possess “unique power and authority in the workplace” and “while the test for carrier and union interference is the same, its application to identical factual situations may lead to different conclusions.”

However, the dissenting opinion, authored by Nicholas Geale, noted that “the changing of just eight votes would have altered the result of this hotly contested election. Based on the evidence proffered by several carrier employees, there is certainly an argument that the results were impacted by potentially inappropriate conduct by individuals who may or may not have been representatives of IBT.”

Flexjet issued a statement following the NMB findings saying the decision “demonstrates that carriers and labor organizations are held to unequal standards in elections to determine union representation.” Flexjet pointed to the dissenting opinion, which also stated, “The majority decision in part relies on the fact that labor organizations are held to different standards during elections, which is…longstanding NMB precedent, but something I believe should be changed.”

Flexjet responded that its filing “helped to bring to light this very important inequity, and we hope it will lead to improvements in this process for such elections going forward, despite the final decision.”