Breeze Aviation Group., Inc. v. National Mediation Board.
No. 23-4079. 6/17/2024. D.Utah. Judge Hatrz. Railway Labor Act—National Mediation Board—Subject Matter Jurisdiction—Union Representation Elections—Determination of Class of Employees.
June 17, 2024
Breeze Aviation Group, Inc. (Breeze) is an airline that operates commercial flights. Breeze began operations in 2021, and by 2022, it had 137 pilots on its payroll, 71 of whom were still in training due to delays in the Federal Aviation Administration certification of airplanes in Breeze’s fleet of Airbus A220 aircraft. In April 2022, the Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA) filed an application with the National Mediation Board (NMB) seeking a union representation election among Breeze’s pilots. The NMB set a cutoff date for voter eligibility of March 31, 2022, and Breeze provided the NMB a list of its full-time pilot employees as of that date. ALPA challenged the inclusion of the 71 pilots who had not completed training and were not yet regularly flying for Breeze. Breeze responded that the trainee pilots should be included in the representation election or, alternatively, the NMB should extend the cutoff date by six months to allow the trainee pilots to complete their training and vote in the election. The NMB refused to find the trainee pilots eligible or to modify the cutoff date, and the election resulted in the NMB’s certification of ALPA as the representative of pilots employed by Breeze. Breeze filed a complaint against the NMB seeking (1) a declaration that the representation election was a gross violation of the Railway Labor Act (RLA), (2) a declaration that the certification of ALPA was null and void, and (3) an injunction requiring the NMB to hold another election. The district court granted APLA’s motion to intervene, and ALPA moved to dismiss the action. The court granted the motion, ruling that no gross violation of the RLA had occurred, so it had no jurisdiction to review the NMB’s decision.
On appeal, Breeze argued that the NMB improperly excluded trainee pilots from voting in the union election by failing to adhere to the RLA requirement that the majority of any class of employees has the right to determine who the class representative is, and the RLA’s definition of employee includes trainee pilots. Under the RLA, the NMB has almost unbridled jurisdiction to resolve disputes regarding employee representation, including by holding union representation elections and certifying union representatives in the railway and airline industries. Accordingly, judicial review of NMB action is extremely narrow, and federal courts have jurisdiction to review NMB certification of union representation only where the pleadings show that the certification decision was a gross violation of the RLA or that it violated an employer’s, employee’s, or union’s constitutional rights. Here, the NMB’s decision to follow a long line of its precedents by requiring the trainee pilots to be performing regular line work before voting in the representation election was within its discretion, so its decision on who could vote was not a gross violation of the RLA.
Breeze also contended that the NMB improperly refused to extend the cutoff date for voter eligibility to allow more pilot trainees to complete their training and become eligible to vote, asserting that the NMB’s decision disenfranchised a majority of the employees of the relevant class. However, Breeze’s argument failed to cite any RLA requirement that the NMB violated, and the NMB’s decisions about voter eligibility cutoff dates fall within its discretion to establish rules governing elections. Accordingly, the district court correctly decided that it lacked jurisdiction over Breeze’s claims.
The order was affirmed.
The full opinion is available at https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/010111065784.pdf.