Union says Allegiant talks have stalled out

Local asks mediation board to intervene

The union representing flight attendants for Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air has sent a letter to the National Mediation Board asking the regulatory body to intervene in a sixyear contract negotiation.

The Transport Workers Union of America Local 577’s letter to board chairwoman Linda Puchala and member Harry Hoglander sets in motion a process that could ultimately lead to a strike. The letter, dated Tuesday, was received by Allegiant from the board on Thursday.

“After six-years of direct and mediated negotiations, TWU strongly believes that this process is not in any way leading to a conclusion and will not reach a successful endpoint without a change in the dynamic of the negotiations,” TWU International President John Samuelsen said in the letter.

Union officials say Allegiant flight attendants are among the lowest paid in the industry and that company management has no interest in negotiating what would be the second union contract in company history.

Allegiant pilots, working with the Teamsters union, ratified Allegiant’s first union contract about a year ago.

Union leaders for the flight attendants say they’ve been working without a contract for six years.

They say a company proposal was rejected in September by 76 percent of the 1,100 flight attendants represented by the union. Allegiant says the rejected proposal was a tentative agreement that both parties had agreed to.

“The company did what it has done best as a negotiator: It repeatedly changed the status quo during the negotiations — an obvious effort to punish the flight attendants for having the audacity to choose to be represented and seek better terms of employment, and a further mark of bad-faith negotiating,” Samuelsen

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and as many as 100 during the busy season, Mann said.

In the latest lawsuit, Dawgs seeks an unspecified amount in damages plus a court order to stop Crocs from selling a pair of sandals with a Z-shaped pattern similar to a Dawgs shoe. The shoe has sold more than 1 million pairs in stores and online, according to Dawgs’ court filings.

The lawsuit is part of a long series of legal battles between Crocs and Dawgs that started less than a year after Dawgs formed in 2006. Dawgs became one of 11 companies Crocs accused of copying shoe designs.

Dawgs is the sole company left among the 11 fighting Crocs. The others have settled or gone out of business.

In 2013, Crocs and Dawgs executives met to discuss a settlement and possible acquisition, according to Dawgs’ filings. During the meeting, Dawgs executives showed the Z Sandals and divulged sales numbers.

Earlier this year, Crocs started to sell a similar shoe with a wider Z-shaped pattern called the Women’s Swiftwater Sandals, according to Dawgs’ court filings. Dawgs has asked the court to stop Crocs from selling the shoe.

Separate from the issues over the Z Sandal, Dawgs said it lost at least $75,000 in revenue and investigation costs from an incident involving e-commerce website Zulily. Dawgs accuses Crocs account manager Kim Lawrie of using Dawgs’ Zulily password to look up information on a November sale, according to Dawgs’ filings. Lawrie is a former employee of Zulily.

Dawgs accuses Lawrie of using information from that sales event to tell the e-commerce website to

drop Dawgs shoes Crocs considered knockoffs. Dawgs’ relationship with the e-commerce website has soured since, according to the court filings.

Losing Zulily has cost the company tens of thousands of dollars in revenue, according to the court filings.

Lessons for businessowners

Owners of valuable trademarks and brands take action to make sure customers don’t get confused over products that look or function similarly.

Earlier this year, a local man announced plans for a brothel themed around the Oakland Raiders NFL team that will move to Las Vegas.

When asked if the brothel could be open to a lawsuit, Gibson Lowry law firm partner J.D. Lowry had said major-league sports teams are protective of their promotional material.

They will even demand T-shirt and gear hawkers on the side of the road stop selling unauthorized goods, Lowry said.

If patent and trademark owners don’t take legal action, a competitor could say the company doesn’t care about its property, she said.

The Dawgs and Crocs fight reflects a trend in patent litigation, said Steven Rinehart, a Salt Lake City patent attorney with Vested Law.

In the past, large companies debated patents in front of courts and government agencies familiar with patent laws, Rinehart said. Nowadays, patent holders sue all over the country in district courts less familiar with patent law.

The move has been used to kill small competitors who can’t afford the legal bills, he said.

The fight has also moved to online marketplaces like Amazon and ebay. Patent holders will threaten the websites with legal action if they don’t remove products the patent holder considers a knockoff, Rinehart said.