Teamsters calls ATSG’s cargo pilot split a ‘charade’

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has asked the National Mediation Board to investigate whether two subsidiaries of the Air Transport Services Group should operate as one.    The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has asked the National Mediation Board to investigate whether two subsidiaries of the Air Transport Services Group (ATSG) should operate as one.
   ATSG owns ABX Air and Air Transport International (ATI), which together employ an estimated 400 pilots and operate in the same midsized freighter segment of the industry.
   The Teamsters and its affiliated local union, Airline Professionals Association, Teamsters Local 1224, claim the ATSG has operated the two carriers as a single transportation system, while maintaining two separate carriers, a model they say is “designed to artificially suppress labor costs and conditions.”
   “That charade has to end,” said Rick Ziebarth, an ABX pilot, in a statement.
   “It makes no sense from an economic or a labor perspective,” added Daniel C. Wells, president of the Airline Professionals Association, Teamsters Local 1224. “All it does is run up the customers’ bills and drive pilots away to other carriers.”