Boeing Punished Unionized Pilots With Layoff, NLRB Judge Rules

The Boeing Co. violated federal labor law when it conducted discriminatory layoffs of unionized instructors who train airline pilots to fly the company’s planes, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled.

While Boeing had whittled down the group of unionized flight training airplane instructor pilots from about 55 to seven through a series of “antiunion acts” over the course of several years, the remaining pilots’ rejection of a 2020 effort to kick out their union was the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” Administrative Law Judge Gerald Etchingham ruled Friday.

“I find that Boeing was motivated by antiunion animus and was punishing its unit FTA pilots for their union activity in April 2020 as Boeing fully expected to rid itself of the Union for this small unit of pilots once and for all at that time,” the judge said in his 66-page ruling.

Etchingham rejected Boeing’s contention that the aerospace giant would have gotten rid of the pilots despite their union activity, calling the company’s business justification for the layoffs “to be entirely lacking in credibility and comprised entirely of pretext.”

For example, the judge noted that Boeing said it was cutting a tenth of its workforce in 2020, but “10 percent of 7 FTA pilots is less than one not all 7.”

Boeing’s transfer of what had been the union pilots’ training work to contractors also violated federal labor law, the ALJ said.

The company’s attorney, Michael Pratt of Perkins Coie LLP, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case is The Boeing Co., N.L.R.B. A.L.J., Case 19-CA-272489, 3/22/24.