Over 60 mostly immigrant, unionized airport transport workers will spend yet another Thanksgiving on the picket line as their strike against SkyHop Global enters its second year.
Their union, Teamsters Local 210, alleges that the company has refused to negotiate and has instead continued to respond with retaliatory actions — including cutting hours and firing employees who have expressed support for the union. Despite these concerted attacks on the striking workers, President Trump has gutted the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), severely limiting its ability to intervene in ongoing labor disputes.
And more recently, since the NLRB closed because of the record-long government shutdown, the union said that they were completely left without any legal protection for over a month in their struggle for a fair contract.
“Since June, [Skyhop has] fired two workers who joined the picket line,” said Bernadette Kelly, Recording Secretary of Local 210. “They refuse to bargain with the union, and the fact that the NLRB was closed means we basically had no legal recourse.”
One of those fired workers was Bangladeshi immigrant Mamunur Rashid, 47, who started working for SkyHop as a replacement worker in March while workers were on strike.
In June, Rashid claims that SkyHop began asking its newly hired employees to sign an agreement, stating that if they voted to decertify the union, they would receive $3 more an hour in their paycheck, raising their wages from $23.50 an hour to $26.50. Rashid initially refused.
“Unions are our friends, why would I want to sign no to [joining] a union?” he said in an interview with Documented.
For two weeks, Rashid claims that he and another co-worker held out, refusing to sign despite management pressure to do so. During those two weeks, he claims management switched his shift from morning to night and cut his hours. He said he also actively avoided going into the office so he would not have to sign.
Finally, feeling stressed, Rashid relented and signed the paper to decertify the union.
“They told me that if I don’t sign, I could lose my job,” he said. “I was new. They forced me to sign.”
Even though Rashid ended up signing the decertification petition in the end, he believes that his initial hesitation left him a marked man. On August 25th, Rashid claims he was fired after management witnessed him speaking to some of the striking workers on the picket line near the office.
In response, on September 11th, the union filed an unfair labor practice on Rashid’s behalf, which Documented reviewed, charging the company with retaliation. But with the NLRB’s backlog since the shutdown, and President Trump’s attacks on the agency, which has limited the NLRB’s ability to intervene on behalf of workers, the case may not be resolved for quite a while.
SkyHop Global is a national ground transportation service that provides transportation for airline crew members between airports and hotels with a fleet of 200 passenger transport vans employing 300 drivers.
With operations around the country, the company has amassed at least five wage theft lawsuits over the past ten years in the states of California, Florida, New York, Washington, and Minnesota.
18 months ago, on May 5, 2024, 60 SkyHop drivers who transport airline crews at New York City’s three major airports voted to join Teamsters Local 210. Despite joining the Local 210, the union claimed that SkyHop management refused to bargain and instead retaliated against workers by cutting hours and firing pro-union drivers.
In response, the union filed its first unfair labor practice charge against the company with the NLRB one year ago, on Nov. 22, 2024. Unable to reach an agreement, two days later, 60 SkyHop drivers walked off the job.
Four months later, on March 28, 2025, the union filed another charge with the NLRB against SkyHop for refusing to negotiate.
Now, a year after filing its first unfair labor practice charge, workers are still on strike with no end in sight. SkyHop management did not return Documented’s requests for comment.
Although he receives some financial assistance from the union, Rashid is still out of a job and attempting to get unemployment so he can support his wife and two kids.
“Everything is a problem,” he said. “I applied for unemployment, but I didn’t get it. It’s been hard.”
As the labor standoff continues, workers are likely to continue striking throughout the rest of the holiday season and into the new year.
