Southwest Airlines has asked a federal court to reject a lawsuit from their pilots objecting to the company’s vaccine mandate.
“Southwest Airlines has issued and implemented an Infectious Disease Control Policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, that significantly altered the working conditions, rules, and rates of pay for pilots,” lawyers for the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) said in a lawsuit. Union officials claim Southwest’s vaccine mandate violates a “status quo” provision of the Railway Labor Act, which controls airline-union relations, by changing an existing contract during negotiations.
The airline disputes that position, saying the pandemic requires unexpected responses to unpredictable challenges that trump that labor act. Pilots disagreed and, faced with a November 24 deadline for vaccination or termination, they filed suit in the District Court in the Northern District of Texas.
SWAPA lawyers told the court that the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the airline and pilots does not contain a force majeure clause. Without a force majeure clause, which covers an event or effect that can’t be reasonably anticipated or controlled, pilots say Southwest Airlines must abide by its contractual obligations.
Union attorneys said Southwest’s Covid-19 mandate was the straw that broke the camel’s back, after the airline’s Emergency Time Off and Emergency Extended Time Off programs had previously violated the CBA terms.
Union attorneys noted pilots had answered the airlines call to duty from the earliest days of the pandemic, when, they argued, Southwest Airlines needed pilots to fly its fleet of 737s to keep the airline from going broke.
“While management employees protected themselves by closing down headquarter offices to work from home and meeting virtually, Pilots, along with other front-line workers, did not have that option,” said union attorneys.
The lawyers further noted pilots were on the road every day:
“in airport terminals”
“at hotels with drastically reduced services”
“crammed into hotel shuttles while commuting between hotels and airports”
“While management employees with minor children (now no longer in schools), were able to work with their kids at home, Pilots could not and their families and children were equally put at risk of infection each time the Pilots returned home from a trip,” union attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.
“The injunction that SWAPA seeks is extraordinary,” Southwest said in response.
If granted, it would prevent the airline from meeting Biden’s order and force the rollback of policies adopted to implement U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to help stop the spread of coronavirus in the workplace.
If Southwest’s government contracts were cancelled, it would cause “substantial harm” to the company and its employees, including the pilots represented by SWAPA, the airline said.
The union has threatened to picket Southwest ahead of the busy holiday travel season and, accordingly, Southwest will trim its flight schedule for the end of the year, as part of its response to complaints from pilots, flight attendants and other employees about overworked and understaffed operations.
The skies weren’t so friendly for the airline last week either, when it was forced to cancel hundreds of flights and delay thousands of others. The airline reportedly blamed bad weather and air traffic control issues.
The widespread disruptions began shortly after SWAPA, representing 9,000 pilots, asked the Dallas District court Friday to block the airline’s order for all employees to get vaccinated.
A Dallas hearing on the union’s request for a temporary restraining order is set for Oct. 22.
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