Big Tax Break For SkyWest May Be Helping Subsidize Big Layoff at United

Soon after winning millions of dollars in subsidies from Idaho with the promise of bringing high-paying jobs to the state, SkyWest was hired to replace United workers, paying substantially lower wages.

Fresh off earning $1.3 million in state tax incentives with the promise of bringing 50 high-paying jobs to the Boise Airport (BOI), Utah-based SkyWest Airlines announced it had been contracted to replace 50 United Airlines workers at the airport with contract workers who are paid significantly less money.

The Idaho Statesman reports that some are now questioning if tax payer money inadvertently helped make United workers unemployed.

SkyWest earned the tax breaks under a new state program by promising to create 50 maintenance jobs, paying an average of $52,000 a year at a yet-to-be-constructed hanger. BOI said SkyWest’s presence at the airport could eventually reach 100 employees when it announced the start of construction on the new hanger.

Less than six months later, United outsourced all of its jobs at BOI to Skywest.

SkyWest spokeswoman Marissa Snow told the Statesman that SkyWest did not know it would be contracting to outsource United jobs when it was attempting to win the tax concessions from the state.

Megan Ronk, COO for the State Commerce Department which manages the tax incentive program, told the newspaper that nobody in her department was aware that SkyWest was bidding to outsource the United jobs.

Ronk insists the outsourcing of United ground operations at BOI and the tax incentives for the new maintenance operation at the airport are completely unrelated. “If SkyWest were to apply for another (tax incentive) award for airport operations, we would consider the merits of that application separately,” said Ronk.

Former United employees told the Statesman the workers at BOI were “given the option of transferring to other cities or taking jobs that pay $9 an hour with few or no benefits.”

United — founded in Boise, Idaho in 1926 — no longer has any employees based in the city of its birth.

[Photo: United Airlines]