Court of Appeals Hearing Arguments in Case Brought by Southwest Flight Attendant Who Was Illegally Fired for Criticizing Union Officials
District Court jury found and federal judge ruled: TWU union and Southwest violated multiple federal laws in firing Charlene Carter
New Orleans, LA (June 3, 2024) – Today, a three-judge panel of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing arguments in an appeal of a 2022 District Court decision that found that Southwest Airlines and the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 556 illegally fired veteran flight attendant Charlene Carter in retaliation for Carter expressing her religious beliefs. Carter filed the lawsuit in 2017 with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Her lawsuit against the TWU Local 556 union and Southwest challenged her termination by Southwest at the behest of TWU union officials as a violation of both the Railway Labor Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In 2022, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas awarded Carter $5.1 million in combined compensatory and punitive damages against TWU and Southwest for their respective roles in her unlawful termination.
In December 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ordered Southwest and the union to give Carter the maximum amount of compensatory and punitive damages permitted under federal law, plus back-pay, and other forms of relief that a jury originally awarded following Carter’s victory in a July 2022 trial. The Court also ordered that Carter be reinstated as a flight attendant at Southwest, writing that, “Southwest may ‘wanna get away’ from Carter because she might continue to express her beliefs, but the jury found that Southwest unlawfully terminated Carter for her protected expressions.”
Both the union and Southwest appealed their loss to the Court of Appeals, resulting in today’s arguments.
Flight Attendant Challenged Union Officials for Their Political Activism
Carter resigned from union membership in 2013 but was still forced to pay fees to TWU Local 556 as a condition of her employment. The Railway Labor Act (RLA), the federal law that governs labor relations in the air and rail industries, permits the firing of employees for refusal to pay dues and preempts the protections that state Right to Work laws provide.
However, the RLA does protect employees’ rights to refrain from union membership, to speak out against the union and its leadership, and to advocate for changing the union’s current leadership.
In January 2017, Carter, a pro-life Christian, learned that then-TWU Local 556 President Audrey Stone and other Local 556 officials used union dues to attend a political rally in Washington, D.C., which was sponsored by activist groups she deeply opposed, including Planned Parenthood.
Carter, a vocal critic of Stone and the union, sent private Facebook messages to Stone challenging the union’s support for political positions that were contrary to Carter’s beliefs, and expressing support for a recall effort that would remove Stone from power. Carter also sent Stone a message emphasizing her commitment to a National Right to Work law after the union had sent an email to employees telling them to oppose Right to Work.
After a meeting at which Southwest officials confronted Carter about her posts protesting union officials’ positions, the company fired Carter. In 2017, Carter filed her federal lawsuit challenging the firing as a clear violation of her rights under two federal laws. She maintained that she lost her job because of her religious beliefs and criticized how union officials spent employees’ dues and fees on political activism.
Ultimately, after an eight-day July trial, a federal jury agreed with Carter and her Foundation staff attorneys. In email communications unearthed and introduced at trial by Foundation staff attorneys, TWU union militants advocated for “targeted assassinations” of union dissidents and mocked Carter for being unable to stop her money from going toward union-backed causes she opposed.
“Southwest and TWU union officials made Ms. Carter pay an unconscionable price just because she decided to speak out against the political activities of union officials in accordance with her deeply held religious beliefs,” stated National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Yet rather than comply with the jury’s decision and the District Court order, Southwest and TWU union bosses have decided to attempt to defend their ‘targeted assassinations’ against a vocal union critic.
“We are proud to defend Ms. Carter throughout this prolonged legal case to vindicate her rights,” added Mix. “Ultimately, her case should prompt nationwide scrutiny of union bosses’ coercive, government-granted powers over workers, especially in the airline and rail industries, because even after winning her reinstatement Charlene and her colleagues at Southwest and other airlines under union control are forced, as per the Railway Labor Act, to pay money to union officials just to keep their jobs.”
Anaheim Assa Abloy Worker Seeks Federal Court Order Against IBEW Union for Instigating Illegal Termination
Federal law prohibits conditioning employment on union membership, yet IBEW bosses demanded firing after worker refrained from joining union
Los Angeles, CA (June 16, 2023) – An Anaheim-based employee of automated door manufacturer Assa Abloy is hitting the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 441 union and his employer with federal charges, maintaining that union officials unlawfully instigated his firing because he abstained from union membership. The worker, Jaime Zambrano, filed his charges at National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 21 in Los Angeles with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
California’s lack of Right to Work protections grants union officials the power to get workers fired for refusing to pay dues or fees to the union. However, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) forbids union officials from conditioning employment on formal union membership, even in non-Right to Work states. Zambrano maintains that, despite his paying the required amount of union dues to stay employed, Assa Abloy management terminated him at union officials’ behest after he didn’t fill out a union membership form.
Zambrano’s charge also seeks his immediate reinstatement via a 10(j) injunction against both his employer and the union. Under Section 10(j) of the NLRA, the NLRB General Counsel can seek a federal court order immediately stopping particularly egregious violations of federal law.
IBEW Union Officials Made Illegal Membership Demand, Gave Worker No Timeline
Zambrano began paying union dues to the IBEW union in September of 2022. In the spring of 2023, union officials sent him paperwork, including a union membership form. No indication was given of when union officials expected the paperwork to be completed and returned.
Zambrano discovered in late May that Assa Abloy officials were terminating him at IBEW bosses’ request because they had not received the membership form from him. While firing a worker for refraining from union membership is a clear infringement of federal labor law, Zambrano’s charge also says that union officials’ not providing him a timeline of when the paperwork should be completed is a “fail[ure] to comply with the requirements of Philadelphia Sheraton,” an NLRB case that requires union officials to inform workers of exactly what their obligations are.
“Because of these egregious and bad-faith acts, the Charging Party demands that the General Counsel seek 10(j) relief seeking his reinstatement,” reads Zambrano’s charge.
“IBEW union officials are playing outrageous games with Mr. Zambrano’s livelihood and potentially the livelihoods of many other workers who simply don’t want to affiliate with the IBEW,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Getting a worker thrown off a job merely for refusal to join a union is a violation of black letter federal labor law – union officials who can’t get workers to join voluntarily certainly shouldn’t be able to compel such membership by threatening to upend the careers of those who dissent from the union.”
“But even if IBEW officials were acting fully within the bounds of California and federal labor law, Mr. Zambrano would still be forced to pay dues to the union just to keep his job because of California’s lack of a Right to Work law,” Mix added. “This kind of forced association has no place in America, and all American workers deserve Right to Work protections that ensure that union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.”
