Charlene Carter was fired as a Southwest Airlines flight attendant in 2017 after criticizing her union, TWU Local 556, for spending crewmember dues advocating for political causes like abortion.
She had resigned from the union in 2013, but still paid dues as a condition of her employment. While many flight attendants complain that the Railway Labor Act is anti-union (it limits their ability to strike until federal government mediators declare an impasse), it provides for firing employees who don’t pay dues and trumps other provisions that states may pass in Right to Work laws.
Nonetheless, an airline employee can opt out of a union, speak against the union, and campaign against union leadership.
- Carter criticized the union’s President and other Southwest flight attendants union officials for spending union dues attending the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, D.C. in Facebook private messages, and argued for a recall effort against union leadership.
- She was called in to Southwest HR and fired for sending “hostile and graphic” anti-abortion messages to the union’s president, which the airline deemed to violate its civility rules. With the help of non-profit National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation, she sued the airline and union for violating her religious liberty (speaking out against the union’s support for abortion, in part using her funds).
- At the jury trial that she ultimately won, the union e-mails were presented which called for “targeted assassinations” of flight attendant critics of the union and which made fun of Carter for her inability to stop her money from being spent on the causes she opposed.
While she won at the district court level in 2022 – and was awarded $5.1 million in compensatory and punitive damages for the TWU’s and Southwest’s roles in her unlawful termination, the maximum allowed under federal law – they appealed, and a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments yesterday.
The award was already reduced to $800,000,
A Dallas jury ruled in Carter’s favor in July, deciding that Southwest should pay Carter $4.15 million and the union should pay $950,000.
The judge this week reduced that award to $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages from Southwest and $300,000 from the union, $150,000 in back pay and about $60,000 in interest.
Southwest was ordered to tell flight attendants that federal law requires that they not “not discriminate against Southwest flight attendants for their religious practices and beliefs.” The airline did not do that, instead saying that it “does not discriminate.” Southwest was held in contempt, and ordered 3 lawyers for the airline to completed 8 hours of religious liberty compliance training offered by the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom.
The court also ruled that Carter had to be reinstated as a flight attendant.
- The Court’s decision said, “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.” (Emphasis mine.)
- The judge also wrote, “Bags fly free with Southwest. But free speech didn’t fly at all with Southwest in this case.” (Emphasis mine.)
It’s one thing to enforce civility rules between flight attendants. It is another thing to act as the union president’s enforcer.
While anti-abortion private messages sent over Facebook wouldn’t be pleasant to receive, the union president has a public role representing her membership and that goes with the territory (along with the trip removal pay).
I’ve certainly gotten vitriolic emails and comments from coverage over some union issues (such as a potential upcoming American Airlines flight attendants strike, and whether 1,500 flight hours is beneficial for a co-pilot). If the level of discourse aimed at me were instead sent to the union member’s own officers at Southwest Airlines they could get fired. Wow.
Based on your reporting, I believe that Ms. Carter is absolutely right and it’s great that she took her case to court and won.
My personal politics are on the left, even more to the left of the Democratic Party on most issues such as guns [the second amendment was a mistake and America would be better without it] and health insurance [America should have a national healthcare system like in Europe and Canada. If you trust for-profit insurers, I have a bridge to sell you] The electoral college is built in cheating in favor of the right and was grounded in the “southern strategy”… But, my politics are to the right of my political party on the issue of abortion.
As a AA flight attendant, I would be angry if I discovered that my union was advocating for anti-life causes and that I was forced to pay for such advocacy.
Some of us are pro-life for reasons that don’t fit the anti-life caricature of religious fanatic country bumpkins. In fact, I consider myself an agnostic secular Humanist. But without these stereotypes, anti-life “women’s healthcare” [rolls eyes] arguments fall apart.
Voicing pro-life positions in the American public are censored to the point that it’s infuriating. So any “discussion” on this topic is one-sided if the other side isn’t allowed to respond and voice their point of view.
Interesting how this topic came up on an airline forum.
@RebirthofSlickk Wait, this is proof of time travel:
“The electoral college is built in cheating in favor of the right and was grounded in the ‘southern strategy.'”
But, like everyone else out there I know a history that has the creation of the electoral college nearly two centuries before talk of a southern strategy. Thus, by conventional time travel fiction, we know only those who time travelled know the change was made. My gosh, you are a time traveler!
@RebirthSlick … I agree unions ought not advocate for divisive “causes” … I have been pro-union for reasons of job representation to defend any worker against any bad manager .
I would post a message here supporting the great article but I’m afraid I’ll get fired if my union finds out who I am…
Constitutional issues aside, I don’t see how SW could think it would ever be proper to fire one if its employees based on a dispute between the employee and the employee’s union. It was a private communication well outside the scope of the FA’s employment. Also, in a non-upside down world, an employee union and the company itself occupy adversarial positions. It’s scary to see a union and the company that it “collectively bargains” with working together to selectively punish employees.
It will be interesting to see where this goes. The amount of money spent is almost certainly much greater than the reduced award. More information: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit 6/3/2024, 1:00 PM, West Courtroom, Before: JUDGES EDITH BROWN CLEMENT, KURT D. ENGELHARDT AND CORY T. WILSON
Case Number 23-10008 Charlene Carter v. Local 556, Transport Workers Union of America, Et Al., Appellants-Appellees. (Cons. w/ Nos. 23-10536 and 23-10836)
Speaking from some experience working with Southwest… let’s put it this way: Until a few years ago the biographies of Southwest officers on their website included for many of them what church they attend (mostly North Texas megachurches). I think an overarching issue at Southwest is the bad side of promoting so much from within… the majority of leadership that deals with the unions (talking at the Managing Director level and down, but there’s more than a couple VP’s in this category) used to be in the union as front line or even union leadership. So they know the people who run the unions. In the past maybe this helped labor relations, but it is a rather incestuous relationship and I think gets the unions a lot of things they wouldn’t otherwise have (I mean come on, you put a hole in a plane and you don’t even get drug tested? and you get to go get checked out by a doctor of your own choosing? No wonder at one point WN had a 17% OJI rate, highest in the industry)
The only way most unions survive is dues check-off (automatic mandatory withdrawal of dues from your company paycheck). And if you aren’t in the union, you still have to pay them a “service fee” which is essentially dues – which is what this Flight Attendant did.
A Union’s job should be to represent the people it’s supposed to stand for, not stump for ANY political causes. And no worker should be forced to pay dues for a union they want no part of. This whole thing is insane.
Gary, your reporting is flawed. The flight attendant was fired not because of her beliefs. She was fired because she harassed her union’s leader by sending inappropriate, vulgar messages and images to the leader’s personal email repeatedly for months. Apparently, it has reached to a level that the leader had no choice but report the flight attendant’s uncivil, vile behavior to Southwest management. And after reviewing her acts, Southwest management decided to terminate her employment. Simple as that. You can not harass anyone at any work place in corporate America and expect to keep your employment. Again, Southwest did not discriminate against her for her beliefs. Southwest simply fired her because of her unhinged, uncivil behavior to another employee. And her behavior was a violation of Southwest work and conduct rules. And the flight attendant was very well aware of these rules and yet chose to violate those rules repeatedly! If you work at a place where another employee is harassing you by sending you emails, messages day in, day out for several months, how would you feel? And please review the actual notion of the organization that represented the flight attendant at her court case. They are a right wing group that claim their so called “deeply held beliefs” are above any law of this land and they always claim that they are discriminated against when they don’t get their ways. Talk about snow flakes! Their eventual goal is to replace our secular democracy with theocracy! And I am not saying this, but they are saying this! And on a second thought, this flight attendant knew about work rules and the rules of being employed at a unionized work place when she signed up for working for Southwest. And now, after being employed there for many years, she decided that she doesn’t like those rules anymore and create her own rules. Well, it doesn’t work that way, does it? I assume, you (and many commentators on your blog) believe in personal responsibility. Actions must have consequences. This flight attendant’s actions also must have consequences. She was not singled out, she was not attacked, harassed by neither her Union, nor Southwest management. She started the attacking. She singled herself out as if she were on a crusade! Her feelings (or shall we say, her deeply held beliefs) were hurt when she found out that the Union leader doesn’t exactly believe the way she believes, doesn’t have the same life views as she does. And she decided to take matters in her own hands. I am actually not surprised by you siding with the flight attendant due to your anti-Union views. And to many, it may look like she is fighting with the Union. But reality is far from it! She is a willing decoy for the religious extremists!
“the union e-mails were presented which … made fun of Carter for her inability to stop her money from being spent on the causes she opposed.”
Yikes. Shows what unions think of their members.
This is a very filtered version of the story. Here are additional relevant facts (with a few interpretations) as I see them:
*Carter was opposed to unions in general and so chose not to join, which is her right. However, as in many union companies, dues are de facto, membership or no.
* Carter had a personal dislike of Stone, the union leader and fellow flight attendant. The two were politically opposite and it was a volatile time for our country.
*Carter began sending Stone harrassing messages prior to the women’s march. Her focus seems to have been the other woman’s pro- choice beliefs. Carter called her “evil,” “disgusting,” etc. across months of personal messaging.
* The union leaders apparently used dues to attend the women’s march. While union members apparently supported this use, I find it inappropriate, especially in light of the fact that all employees must pay dues regardless of membership.
* After the march, Carter ratcheted up her harassing emails.
* Union leader responded with the inappropriate messages you listed in article.
* Carter’s email campaign became problematic enough that the other woman (who, remember, is a fellow flight attendant, not just a union rep) reported her.
*Southwest had been dealing with a spate of employee online harassment. The divisiveness of the election, which made many Americans lose their civility, had spilled into the workplace and SW was receiving many times the normal number of complaints about employee-to-employee harassment. So their legal team had drafted a number of rules about civility to try to stem this tide.
* When Stone filed her complaint about Carter, she presented months worth of harassing messages. SW reviewed and decided the messages violated their civility clauses, and so terminated her.
* the legal proceedings, including Carter’s free representation by a pretty controversial political group, have interesting implications, imo, as does the notoriety of the particular judge who oversaw the proceedings. I suspect we will see a less biased review of the case in this newest court showing.