National Mediation Board sorting out tie dispatchers vote

The National Mediation Board is sorting out a tie vote in a union representation election involving Allegiant Air’s small dispatchers work group.

The board, which monitors elections involving union representation, said it will seek legal briefs from parties involved on a vote that concluded Tuesday in a 7-7 tie between the airline division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 986 and “no representation.”

Under the board’s rules, if a representation election ends in a tie, no representative would be certified.

But the board also has a rule that indicates that if three or more parties are on the ballot, a runoff vote would be conducted between the two highest finishers.

Allegiant Air, a division of Allegiant Travel Co., issued a statement Tuesday that said “no representation” won the vote, effectively decertifying the union. However, the company did not list the vote count or the number of voters in its statement.

There were three choices for dispatchers to consider in the representation vote, the Teamsters, no representation and Ronald D. Doig, a long-time Allegiant dispatcher who was placed on the ballot because he raised the decertification issue.

The board must resolve whether a runoff vote will be scheduled considering that the third option on the ballot, Doig, received no votes.

An Allegiant spokeswoman said there 17 dispatchers on the payroll and 14 of them participated in the election.

On Wednesday, the Teamsters asked the board to delay issuing a decision on the election until May 6 to give all sides the opportunity submit briefs. The board issued a Thursday-morning deadline for the Teamsters and a Friday-morning deadline for Allegiant and Doig to file briefs.

In December 2012, dispatchers voted 15-5 for Teamsters Local 986 to represent them becoming, at the time, the second Allegiant work group to unionize. Flight attendants voted in 2010 to be represented by Transport Workers Union Local 577. Allegiant’s pilots later voted to be represented by Teamsters Local 1224.

The union that apparently has been decertified is a different division of the Teamsters than the one that represents Allegiant’s pilots.

The pilots and company management are awaiting a decision from U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon on whether pilots will be allowed to strike.

At issue in the court matter is whether Allegiant failed to return to status-quo work rules that Gordon ordered in July 2014. The pilots argue that the company deployed a new trip bidding system that moved pilot scheduling away from a seniority-based line system to a preferential system that gives the pilots less say on when they fly.

Contact reporter Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Find @RickVelotta on Twitter.