The following article appeared in the August 12, 1985 issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal

When 42 workers at Long Beach-based Jet America Airlines Inc. ousted their collective bargaining representative last month after a two-year struggle, it marked an unusual victory over one of the largest and most powerful labor unions in the country.

During elections held by the National Mediation Board, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers failed to receive even one vote -- an event termed virtually unprecedented by Roger H. Schnapp, Jet America's outside attorney for labor matters.

"That is an unbelievable election result," says Schnapp, a partner in the Newport Beach law firm of Memel, Jacobs, Pierno, Gersh, and Ellsworth.

In 16 years of practicing labor law, he says, he's "never been successful in having an election come out where every employee rejected the union." Out of a possible 42 votes by Jet America's mechanics, stock clerks and related employees, only two ballots were cast -- neither of them valid.

Also noteworthy about the elections, schnapp says, is that the comprised a rare instance "where an insurgent group is successful in getting rid of the union and is not itself certified. I'm not aware of any other domestic carrier where this has occurred."

Technically, there is no such thing as a union "decertification" election under NMB procedures. Instead, another labor organization must file an application to represent the workers.

In Jet America's case, neither the Machinists union nor Richard Hunter, a mechanic who led the emplloyee revolt against the union, received enough voted to be certified.

Just removing an airline industry union's certification, whatever the margin of victory, is a rare achievement.

It is much harder to remove a union's certification under the Railway Labor Act, which is administered by the National Mediation Board, than it is under the National Labor Relations Act.

The NMB makes it so difficult to get a decertification and puts so many stumbling blocks in your way," Hunter gripes.

In 1984, the National Labor Relations Board conducted 874 decertification elections, of which the unions lost 668. By contrast, in tat same year the NMB held three elections in which unions lost their certifications.

Schnapp provides this chronology of events at Jet America:

The Machinists union was voted into the company in October of 1982, and relations soured even before they had reached a first agreement with the company.

In one seemingly trivial issue of the negotiations impasse, the union balked at the company's proposal for a three-member arbitration panel to be composed of one person from the company, one from the union and a neutral arbitrator. Instead the Machinists insisted on having only a professional arbitrator to hear grievances.

In August of 1983 Jet America's mechanics, stock clerks and other workers filed a petition with the National Mediation Board, signed by more than 90 percent of the employees in each group, asking that the Machinists union's certification be revoked. That action was futile, however, because of a quirk in the NMB's procedures that requires employees to sign separate cards instead of a petition in order to trigger an election.

Hunter, the union detractor, gave it another go in January of 1984, this time using the required format, but was again turned down because of another rule that required a two-year waiting period.

In March of 1985, Hunter tried again. This time, the board decided that he had gotten it right and approved the elections.

Ironically, Hunter was a prime mover in bringing the Machinists into Jet America. It became a reason why he was so ardent about jettisoning the union when it failed to live up to his expectations.

The main cause of Hunter's disenchantment was that the union's negotiating position was "inconsistent" with what the employees wanted, and that the union was telling the employees that they would take whatever the union wanted them to have.

Schnapp says the union was more concerned with what he terms "institutional objectives," or those provisions geared to continue the union's existence. Among them: compulsory union membership and automatic dues deductions from workers' paychecks.

Moreover, he says, the Machinists were insisting on a wage structure far in excess of what the company was willing to pay -- beyond what the employees themselves agreed was possible for a young airlines like Jet America, which began operations in November 1981. "The employees were willing to accept a far lower wage structure," Schnapp says.

But William Scheri, a Machinist union official who is in charge of the airline division, insists that the union was sensitive to the fact that Jet America was a fledgling carrier. "We had proposed wages that were a lot less than we had in effect at other major airlines," he says. "You to have to crawl before you can walk.

"In my opinion the company was (trying to establish) a phoney union headed up by Mr. Hunter," Scheri continues. "It was fully instigated by the company."

Hunter is quick to dismiss that notion. "What else is the union going to say?" he asks rhetorically.

Adds Schnapp, "The facts just don't bear that out." While Jet America was eager to unload the Machinists, the company urged its employees not to vote for Hunter, either. "Not a single employee at Jet America wanted the Machinists," he says. "It's pretty ridiculous for the union to contend that this is a sham."

But the numbers, or lack of them, don't impress Scheri. "The company got to these workers. They had more access to the employees," he retorts.