ATI Pilots Considering Strike

August 18, 2000 9:10 AM, EDT

Teamsters pilots for a BAX Global subsidiary are threatening to strike because they say they are frustrated with a lack of progress at the bargaining table.

About 292 pilots for Air Transport International, based in Little Rock, Ark., have formed a strike committee after strike talks went nowhere, according to Douglas Way, ATI’s Teamster Local 747 executive committee chairman.

“Staff morale has deteriorated as we have watched management’s reliance on contractors grow. Work that we can and should be doing is instead farmed out at double cost -- the cost of our planes and crews on the ground combined with the cost of contractors carrying BAX freight,” Way said.

The National Mediation Board intervened in the case last September at the pilot’s request because of what the Teamsters called fruitless negotiations. Union members have formed a strike committee in response to “management’s intransigence at the strike table,” the Teamsters said.

BAX Global offers international freight forwarding and supply chain management services. The Irvine, Calif.-based firm acquired ATI in February 1998. Before that, the air carrier had been flying for BAX on a contract basis.

Neither BAX nor ATI could be reached for comment.