Fed up with state and local laws requiring private employers to offer paid sick days, the airlines and railroads have filed suit, claiming that the interstate nature of their businesses should make them exempt.
Airlines for America, a trade group that includes American Airlines, United Continental, FedEx and United Parcel Service is asking judges in Washington and Massachusetts to exempt the airlines from the state laws, which provide for paid sick leave for all workers. CSX Corp. has also filed in Massachusetts, saying that the state law is overruled by a federal railroad rule that forbids local interference.
This may just be the beginning, said Michael Soltis, a Connecticut employment lawyer and part-time faculty at the law school at Quinnipiac University. “If they get some measure of success here, you’ve got to believe they would march it around the country to all the jurisdictions.”
The U.S. is the only industrialized country that doesn’t require companies to provide paid sick leave for employees. Many do it anyway, either as a matter of corporate policy or because they’re subject to one of the 40 state or local laws that have cropped up in the absence of a federal mandate. As a result, roughly two out of three private-sector workers are eligible for at least some paid sick time, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The airlines say the motley nature of local laws makes it impractical for them to conform. In the suit, the airlines said a flight crew could be in several different jurisdictions during the course of a single flight.
The Massachusetts suit, filed in April, says that one airline has already closed an unidentified flight attendant base in an unnamed jurisdiction because of the added cost of paid sick-leave laws there.
“These state and local laws are designed for employees working in traditional office environments, working 40 hour weeks, five days per week in a single jurisdiction,” Vaughn Jennings, a spokesman for Airlines for America, said. “Airline flight crews routinely operate in multiple states in a single day, rarely spend much time in any one state, and spend the majority of their time in federal airspace.”
The flight attendants union, which represents 50,000 flight attendants at 20 carriers, and a half-dozen railroad employee union groups support the state laws and say they oppose the airline association’s position.
“As long as airlines operate in the state, they are subject to state laws,” Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, said. “This is not the first time a local or state law has affected the industry. We will fight this misguided lawsuit to ensure flight attendants receive this benefit.”