Midwest flight attendants win appeal in seniority case
11/30/2011
Nov 30 (Reuters) - Republic Airlines and its Teamsters union unlawfully deprived hundreds of former Midwest Airlines flight attendants of their job seniority when the two airlines merged, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Republic failed to honor the Midwest flight attendants' seniority rights when it purchased the airline's parent company Midwest Air Group in 2009. Federal law requires airlines to integrate employees' seniority when two carriers merge.
The Midwest flight attendants sued Republic and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in 2010, accusing the airline and its union of forcing hundreds of Midwest flight attendants into prolonged unemployment.
While Republic integrated the seniority lists for Midwest mechanics, baggage handlers and administrative employees, the company furloughed the flight attendants, requiring them to apply for new jobs with Republic. If they were hired, they came on at the bottom of the seniority roster, according to the court opinion.
The Midwest flight attendants sued under the McCaskill-Bond Amendment to the Federal Aviation Act, which requires air carriers to merge their employee seniority lists when they combine.
Republic and the Teamsters argued that the transaction was not a merger. Instead of acquiring an air carrier, Republic had rather acquired some assets related to air transportation, they argued. Soon after the purchase, Republic returned Midwest's nine leased planes to Boeing and abandoned Midwest's flying certificate from federal regulators. Republic did, however, take over Midwest's air routes.
The district court ruled in favor of Republic and the Teamsters, concluding that the federal law was never meant to protect the employees of an air carrier that "simply goes out of business." But the 7th Circuit disagreed.
"One cannot remove bankrupt and soon-to-disappear carriers from the statute's coverage, as the Teamsters propose, without simultaneously circumventing the statutory text and frustrating the design behind it," Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote for the three-judge panel. The court noted that the federal law requiring seniority integration itself grew out of American Airlines' acquisition of Trans World Airlines, which was bankrupt and on the brink of closing down.
Marianne Robbins, a lawyer for Republic and the Teamsters, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Republic and the Teamsters' Airline Division did not immediately return calls for comment.
Edward Gilmartin, General Counsel for the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and a lawyer for the Midwest flight attendants, said the 7th Circuit was the first appellate court to address the issue. The court "firmly established that once two carriers merge, there must be a fair and equitable seniority integration for the workers," he said. 😱
Most of the four-hundred Midwest flight attendants were furloughed without pay, Gilmartin said. Some, with decades of experience, took jobs at Republic as new hires.
The case is Committee of Concerned Midwest Flight Attendants for Fair and Equitable Seniority Integration et al v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Airline Division et al, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, No. 11-1921.
For the Midwest flight attendants: Jeffrey Bartos and Paul Knupp of Guerrieri, Clayman, Bartos & Parcelli; Edward Gilmartin of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.
