Delta Air Lines Inc. v. Air Line Pilots Ass'n

• Decision Date: 18 January 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-16472,Docket No. 00-03207-CV-WBH-1,00-16472
• Citation: 238 F.3d 1300
• Parties: (11th Cir. 2001) DELTA AIR LINES, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL, ET AL., Defendants-Appellees. D.C.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1300

238 F.3d 1300 (11th Cir. 2001)

DELTA AIR LINES, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL, ET AL., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 00-16472

D.C. Docket No. 00-03207-CV-WBH-1

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS ELEVENTH CIRCUIT.

January 18, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia

Before TJOFLAT, BARKETT and MAGILL^*, Circuit Judges.

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

This case is before the court on Delta Air Lines' appeal of the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction against the Air Line Pilots Association. Because we find concerted action on the part of the pilots and because the Air Line Pilots Association has a duty under the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. 152 First, to prevent such action, we reverse and remand to the district court with instructions to issue an appropriate injunction.

I.

A.

Delta Air Lines, Inc. ("Delta") and the Air Line Pilots Association, International ("ALPA") are parties to a collective bargaining agreement ("CBA") that governs the terms and conditions of employment for over 9,800 pilots employed by Delta.¹ Delta and ALPA commenced negotiations for a new CBA in September 1999. These negotiations are ongoing.

In the midst of these ongoing negotiations, Delta pilots began to decline to fly "overtime." Overtime is built into Delta's flight schedule, accounting for approximately five to seven percent of scheduled flights, and derives from the CBA.² "Overtime" is in some ways a misnomer, for this is really unscheduled "open time" on the flight schedule in which pilots may volunteer to fly additional flights above their pre-arranged flight schedule. Although Delta maintains a pool of reserve pilots to operate flights in the event a scheduled pilot is unavailable, it relies upon pilots to "pick up" these overtime flights in order for Delta to operate all of its scheduled flights.³ A pilot has the right, under the CBA, to exercise his or her individual choice and decline to pick up overtime flights. Additionally, a pilot can avoid being assigned to operate overtime flights by exercising his or her CBA rights not to answer a telephone call and not to return a telephone call to Delta; pilots may not be assigned to overtime flying unless they have spoken with Crew Scheduling.

Although each individual pilot may make personal choices about how and whether to work overtime, Delta relies upon many of the pilots choosing to work this open time to fulfill its scheduled flights. If all of Delta's pilots were to refuse to pick up additional flights and refuse to work overtime, Delta would not be able to operate its full complement of flights. Although there are some alternatives available to Delta under the CBA, including raising the "cap" on pilot hours in a given month, staffing flights with reserves or management pilots, and pre- canceling flights and rebooking passengers in advance, these alternatives are limited and generally do not allow Delta to fly its full complement of scheduled routes.

Beginning in November 2000, apparently just in time for holiday travel, Delta pilots intensified their "no-overtime campaign."⁴ This action by the pilots, viewed in the context of the holiday travel season and the ongoing labor negotiations between ALPA and Delta, leads to the obvious inference that the pilots are seeking to pressure Delta into making concessions in the negotiations for a new CBA.

The effects of the pilots' no-overtime campaign are evident from Delta's flight statistics. Historically, Delta cancels no more than one or two of 2,700 flights daily due to lack of pilots. However, in November 1999, pilots averaged 2,053 daily requests for overtime; in November 2000 they averaged only 1,276 daily requests. In the first three days of December 1999, pilots averaged 1,678 daily requests; in those same days in December 2000 they averaged 503 requests. Delta canceled a total of ten flights due to pilot shortages for the month of November 1999, while it canceled 375 flights in November 2000. In the first three days of December 1999, Delta had no cancellations; in the first three days of December 2000 Delta canceled 386 flights.⁵ Clearly, the pilots' efforts to refuse overtime is affecting both Delta's flight schedule and the traveling public.⁶

In the midst of the no-overtime campaign by the pilots, Delta tried to work with ALPA by enlisting ALPA's assistance in ending the pilots' concerted no-overtime campaign. During this time, ALPA issued a number of directives to the pilots advising them of their rights under the CBA regarding overtime; ALPA recommended flying overtime at premium rates - green slip flying. By November 2000, when some pilots were advising (and sometimes threatening) other pilots not to seek or fly overtime, the Delta Master Executive Council of ALPA ("MEC")⁷ advised pilots several times, through several media, that pilots should respect the choices of others regarding overtime and that whether to fly overtime was the individual choice of each pilot. These steps by ALPA and the MEC had no measurable effect on the pilots' no-overtime campaign. Delta was unable to overcome the no-overtime campaign either through compensatory scheduling methods or through ALPA's communications; therefore, Delta filed the present action.

B.

Delta filed a verified complaint on December 5, 2000 in the district court for the Northern District of Georgia. The complaint alleged an unlawful job action in violation of the Railway Labor Act ("RLA"), 45 U.S.C. 151-188.⁸ The complaint named fifty-one defendants, including ALPA, the MEC and its officers, and several individual pilots.⁹ Delta filed motions for a temporary restraining order ("TRO") and a preliminary injunction on December 5. The district court held a hearing on Delta's motions for a TRO and preliminary injunction on December 6. The district court denied both motions on December 11. Delta filed its Notice of Emergency Appeal the following day, December 12. Delta also moved for an injunction pending appeal; we denied that motion on December 13. However, in that same order, we granted Delta's motion for an expedited appeal. Moving on the expedited basis, oral argument was heard on January 11, 2001.

II.

A.

The Railway Labor Act was passed in its initial form by Congress in 1926, with the support of both the railroads and the unions. Although a number of amendments have been introduced over the years, including extending the RLA to the airline industry in 1936, the stated purposes have remained constant. The first of the RLA's five listed purposes is "[t]o avoid any interruption to commerce or to the operation of any carrier engaged therein." 45 U.S.C. 151a.¹⁰ To accomplish its purposes, especially this first purpose, the RLA imposes a substantive duty upon "all carriers, their officers, agents and employees to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements . . . and to settle all disputes . . . in order to avoid any interruption to commerce or to the operation of any carrier growing out of any dispute between the carrier and the employees thereof." 45 U.S.C. 152 First. Because the statutory structure reveals that this duty is at the "heart" of the RLA, see Bhd. of R.R. Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U.S. 369, 377- 78, 89 S. Ct. 1109, 1115, 22 L. Ed. 2d 344 (1969), and because of the legislative history of the provision,¹¹ the Supreme Court has clarified that section 152 First imposes a legal duty enforceable by courts: "[W]e think it plain that [section 152 First] was intended to be more than a mere statement of policy or exhortation to the parties; rather, it was designed to be a legal obligation, enforceable by whatever appropriate means might be developed on a case-by-case basis." Chicago & N.W. Ry. Co. v. United Transp. Union, 402 U.S. 570, 577, 91 S. Ct. 1731, 1735, 29 L. Ed. 2d 187 (1971).

The RLA sets forth a detailed sequence of steps that carriers and their employees (or their employees' representative) must undertake in negotiating collective bargaining agreements. The RLA intentionally provides for slow movements by all parties during this negotiation and bargaining process. As the Supreme Court has recognized, the RLA "subjects all railway disputes to virtually endless `negotiation, mediation, voluntary arbitration, and conciliation.'" Burlington N. R.R. Co. v. Bhd. of Maintenance of Way Employees, 481 U.S. 429, 444, 107 S. Ct. 1841, 1850, 95 L. Ed. 2d 381 (1987) (quoting Detroit & Toledo Shore Line R.R. Co. v. Transp. Union, 396 U.S. 142, 148-49, 90 S. Ct. 294, 298, 24 L. Ed. 2d 325 (1969)). The bargaining procedures of the RLA are "purposely long and drawn out" in the hope that reason will, in time, produce an agreement. Bhd. of Ry. and S.S. Clerks v. Fla. E. Coast Ry. Co., 384 U.S. 238, 246, 86 S. Ct. 1420, 1424, 16 L. Ed. 2d 501 (1966).

During the long negotiating process, the RLA seeks to protect the public, carriers, and unions alike by imposing a legal duty upon carriers and unions to maintain the status quo with respect to "rates of pay, rules, [and] working conditions," even when there is a disagreement about the CBA. 45 U.S.C. 155-56; Consol. Rail Corp. ("Conrail") v. Ry. Labor Executives' Ass'n, 491 U.S. 299, 302-03, 109 S. Ct. 2477, 2480, 105 L. Ed. 2d 250 (1989).¹² A failure by either side to maintain the status quo during the bargaining and mediation process may give rise to injunctive relief, even without the customary showing of irreparable injury. Id.; see also Detroit & Toledo Shore Line R.R. Co., 396 U.S. 142, 90 S. Ct. 294 (upholding a status quo injunction).

B.

In cases where a carrier seeks injunctive relief against a union, a court must look not only to the RLA, but also to the Norris-LaGuardia Act ("NLGA"), 29 U.S.C. 101-115, to determine whether the court has jurisdiction. As a general rule, the NLGA prohibits courts from issuing injunctive relief in labor disputes.¹³ 29 U.S.C. 101, 104; ...