Fifth Circuit Reverses Arbitrator’s Ruling in Southwest Airlines Labor Dispute
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The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has overturned an arbitrator’s ruling in a labor dispute that was filed against Texas-based Southwest Airlines. In Southwest Airlines v. Local 555, No. 18-10122 (5thCir., January 9, 2019), a labor union, Local 555, entered into a newly negotiated collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) with Southwest Airlines in 2016. The terms of the CBA stated “it would become ‘effective’ after Southwest accepted the agreement and the union ratified it.” The CBA also required “that grievances be filed within ten working days of notice of a management decision.” Although the CBA was ratified by Local 555 members on February 19, 2016, it was not signed by the parties until March 16, 2016.
Less than ten working days after the CBA was signed, but more than one-month after it was ratified, Local 555 filed a grievance with the airline over Southwest’s purported use of non-union vendors. In response, Southwest challenged the timeliness of Local 555’s grievance in arbitration. An arbitrator, however, ruled the grievance was timely because it was filed less than ten working days after the CBA was signed by the parties. Interestingly, another arbitrator determined that an essentially identical grievance was untimely while the original arbitration proceeding was still ongoing.
Next, Southwest asked the Northern District of Texas to review the arbitrator’s ruling. The federal district courtupheld the arbitrator’s decision and Southwest appealed the case to the nation’s Fifth Circuit. In the company’s appellate brief, “Southwest limited the scope of its appeal to the district court’s affirmance of the arbitrator’s ruling on timeliness.”
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