Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-309_o758.pdf
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SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO. v. SAXON 

Syllabus 

(1) The parties dispute how to define the relevant “class of work-
ers.”  Saxon argues that because the air transportation industry en-
gages in interstate commerce, airline employees, as a whole, constitute 
a “class of workers” covered by §1.  By contrast, Southwest maintains 
that the relevant class includes only those airline employees actually
engaged day-to-day in interstate commerce.  This Court rejects Saxon’s 
industrywide  approach.    By  referring  to  “workers”  rather  than  “em-
ployees,” the FAA directs attention to “the performance of work.”  New 
Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 586 U. S. ___, ___.  And the word “engaged” sim-
ilarly emphasizes the actual work that class members typically carry 
out.  Saxon is therefore a member of a “class of workers” based on what 
she frequently does at Southwest—that is, physically loading and un-
loading cargo on and off airplanes—and not on what Southwest does 
generally.  Pp. 3–4.

(2) The  parties  also  dispute  whether  the  class  of  airplane  cargo 
loaders  is  “engaged  in  foreign  or  interstate  commerce.”   It  is.  To  be 
“engaged” in “commerce” means to be directly involved in transporting 
goods across state or international borders.  Thus, any class of workers 
so  engaged  falls  within  §1’s  exemption.    Airplane  cargo  loaders  are 
such a class. 

Context confirms this reading.  In Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 
532 U. S. 105, the Court applied two well-settled canons of statutory
interpretation to hold that §1 exempted only “transportation workers,” 
rather  than  all  employees.  The  Court  indicated  that  any  such  ex-
empted worker must at least play a direct and “necessary role in the 
free flow of goods” across borders.  Id., at 121.  Cargo loaders exhibit 
this central feature of a transportation worker.

A final piece of statutory context further confirms that cargo loading 
is part of cross-border “commerce.”  Section 1 of the FAA defines ex-
empted  “maritime  transactions”  to  include  “agreements  relating  to 
wharfage . . . or any other matters in foreign commerce.”  Thus, if an 
“agreemen[t] relating to wharfage”—i.e., money paid to access a cargo-
loading facility—is a “matte[r] in foreign commerce,” it stands to rea-
son that an individual who actually loads cargo on vehicles traveling 
across borders is himself engaged in such commerce.  Pp. 4–7. 

(b) Both  parties  proffer  arguments  disagreeing  with  this  analysis, 

but none is convincing.  Pp. 7–11.

(1) Saxon thinks the relevant “class of workers” should include all 
airline employees, not just cargo loaders.  For support, she argues that 
“railroad employees” and “seamen”—two classes of workers listed im-
mediately before §1’s catchall provision—refer generally to employees 
in  those  industries.    Saxon’s  premise  is  flawed.    “Seamen”  is  not  an 
industrywide category but instead a subset of workers engaged in the 
maritime shipping industry.  For example, “seamen” did not include