Opinion ID: 186991
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Other air carrier employees

Text: First, the FAA reasonably concluded that the phrase other air carrier employees can include employees of an air carrier's contractors as well as its direct employees. Although not perhaps its most common meaning, employee can be used to refer to an employee of a contractor as well as to an employer's direct employee. See Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth. v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 925, 933, 104 S.Ct. 2827, 81 L.Ed.2d 768 (1984) (while word `employee' denotes a contractual relationship and a contractor never is contractually bound to the employees of a subcontractor, general contractor and its subcontractor's employees were held to be employer and employees under section 5(a) of Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 905(a), based on statute's language and history (internal quotation omitted)). Indeed, the language of the Omnibus Act indicates the Congress may have intended that employee have just such an expansive meaning. On its face, the Omnibus Act as initially enacted expressly required testing employees of certain contractors (in addition to direct employees), namely, airport security screening contract personnel. 105 Stat. at 953 (emphasis added). Further, the phrase and other air carrier employees, immediately following the list of the three specifically enumerated testing categories, suggests that the Congress considered airport security screening contract personnel to be employees just as it did the other two listed classes (airmen and crewmembers). [5] Id. (emphasis added). Else the word other, used in the sense of more or additional, see Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 1598 (1993), would have been entirely inappropriate. See also S.Rep. No. 102-54, at 18 (May 2, 1991) ( groups of employees required to be covered by the new testing programs include airmen, crew members, and airport security screening contract personnel ) (emphases added). The juxtaposition of the statutory terms likewise suggests that the class of other air carrier employees subject to testing can be read to include other contractors' employeesa point the petitioners do not dispute. See Pet'rs Br. at 9 (A person need not be on an air carrier's payroll to qualify as an `air carrier employee.' The industry, for example, has long accepted that employees of certificated repair stations may meet this description. . . .). They do, however, vigorously contest that the phrase includes employees of all subcontractors (at whatever tier, whether or not certificated), contending instead that the phrase cannot reasonably embrace employees of noncertificated subcontractors. Before addressing their argument, we provide some background on the FAA's certificated maintenance program. As the petitioners explain, air carriers routinely contract with repair stations that are certificated under 14 C.F.R. ch. I, subch. H, pt. 145. Pet'rs Br. at 7. A Part 145 repair station is authorized to [p]erform maintenance, preventive maintenance, or alterations on aviation components or to [a]rrange for another person, that is, a subcontractor, whether certificated or not, to perform the maintenance. 14 C.F.R. § 145.201(a)(1)(2). [6] If the subcontractor is not certificated, the certificated repair station must ensure that the noncertificated person follows a quality control system equivalent to the system followed by the certificated repair station, id. § 145.202(a)(2), and must approve the aviation component for return to service, see id. §§ 43.7, 145.217(b) (A certificated repair station may contract a maintenance function pertaining to an article to a noncertificated person provided(1) The noncertificated person follows a quality control system equivalent to the system followed by the certificated repair station; (2) The certificated repair station remains directly in charge of the work performed by the noncertificated person; and (3) The certificated repair station verifies, by test and/or inspection, that the work has been performed satisfactorily by the noncertificated person and that the article is airworthy before approving it for return to service.). With this background, we first address the FAA's interpretation of the statutory language as extending to employees of subcontractors generally, then consider the petitioners' objection to employees of noncertificated subcontractors in particular. First, as to employees of subcontractors generally, having concluded that the statute itself expressly contemplates testing certain contractors' employees (airport security screening contract personnel) and that the statutory phrase other air carrier employees may include contractors' employees, we see nothing in the statutory language that prevents the FAA from also treating a sub contractor's employees as statutory employees of air carriers. The Omnibus Act itself does not mention subcontractors and we believe the FAA, under Chevron step 2, reasonably included subcontractors among the contractors whose employees are other air carrier employees subject to testing. The FAA soundly reasoned that it is important that individuals who perform any safety-sensitive function be subject to drug and alcohol testing under the FAA regulations and that to conclude otherwise would be inconsistent with aviation safety. 2006 Final Rule, 71 Fed.Reg. at 1667. As for employees of noncertificated subcontractors in particular, we believe that they too may be reasonably treated as other air carrier employees and thus subject to mandatory testing under the Omnibus Act. The petitioners do not object to the FAA's requiring drug and alcohol testing of certificated subcontractors' employees, noting that the aviation industry has long accepted that employees of certificated repair stations may meet this description because they work in the aviation industry, deal directly and routinely with air carriers, are heavily regulated by the FAA, and (like an air carrier's own specially licensed employees) are involved in the critical function of making airworthiness determinations, Pet'rs Br. at 9. They insist, however, that employees of noncertificated subcontractors may not be considered air carrier employees subject to mandatory testing and they offer what may well be a valid ground for treating certificated and non-certificated subcontractors differently, namely, that [f]or certificated entities, . . . drug and alcohol testing logically operates as part and parcel of an already-comprehensive program of government supervision so that the certificated firmprecisely because it chooses to be certificatedcan be seen as acting as an alter ego of the air carrier, so that its workers can be fairly characterized as `air carrier employees.' Id. at 15. This distinction, however, is not mandated by the language of section 45102(a)(1) which says nothing about certification vel non. What section 45102(a)(1) does require is that the FAA Administrator determine those safety-sensitive functions  performed by other than airmen, crewmembers, [and] airport security screening contract personnelsubject to drug and alcohol testing and the FAA has consistently and reasonably included aircraft maintenance work among such functions. See 1994 Alcohol Rule, 59 Fed.Reg. at 7391 (including aircraft maintenance or preventive maintenance duties among safety-sensitive duties); 1994 Drug Rule, 59 Fed.Reg. at 42,928 (same); cf. 1998 Rule, 53 Fed.Reg. at 47,058 (including maintenance or preventive maintenance among sensitive safety- or security-related duties subject to drug testing). It is not unreasonable, then, to construe the statute, as the FAA does, to require testing of maintenance employees, certificated or not, in order to ensure that all maintenance work, by whomever performed, is done properly and that each aviation component is safe for aviation use. In the FAA's view, it would be inconsistent with aviation safety for individuals performing maintenance work within the certificated repair station to be subject to drug and alcohol testing, while individuals performing the same maintenance work under a subcontract would not be subject to drug and alcohol testing. 71 Fed.Reg. at 1670. The petitioners nonetheless cite four principles of statutory interpretation, Pet'rs Br. at 11, which, they contend, undermine the FAA's interpretation. We find none of them compelling. The petitioners first assert the FAA's interpretation would offend the basic principle that statutes `must be harmonized' because it runs headlong into a robust congressional policy of promoting the nation's small businesses. Pet'rs Br. at 11 (quoting 82 CJS Statutes § 352; citing 15 U.S.C. § 631(a) (It is the declared policy of the Congress that the Government should aid, counsel, assist, and protect, insofar as is possible, the interests of small-business concerns. . . .)). We note no disharmony in the FAA's regulation. The Congress has provided a specific statutory procedure under the RFA to ensure that agencies shall endeavor, consistent with the objectives of the rule and of applicable statutes, to fit regulatory and informational requirements to the scale of the businesses, organizations, and governmental jurisdictions subject to regulation. RFA, Pub.L. No. 96-354, § 2(b), 94 Stat. 1164, 1165 (1980). This is the procedure which the Congress mandated to harmonize the express interest advanced in the Omnibus Act's testing provisionsthe interest of aviation safety, 49 U.S.C. § 45102(a)(1)  with the concerns of small businesses. If the FAA properly follows the procedure in its rulemaking  a matter we address infra Part II.D  it discharges its responsibility in this regard. The petitioners next assert the FAA's interpretation will impermissibly `imping[e] upon important state interests,' Pet'rs Br. at 11 (quoting BFP v. Resolution Trust Corp., 511 U.S. 531, 544, 114 S.Ct. 1757, 128 L.Ed.2d 556 (1994)), because extension of the federal government's drug-and-alcohol testing regime to noncertificated subcontractors necessarily will disrupt state choices about both (i) the privacy interests of local employees and (ii) the business prerogatives of local employers, id. (state statutory citations omitted). This argument fails, however, because the Omnibus Act expressly preempts state drug testing laws. See 49 U.S.C. § 45106(a) (A State or local government may not prescribe, issue, or continue in effect a law, regulation, standard, or order that is inconsistent with regulations prescribed under this chapter.). Third, the petitioners contend that the FAA's interpretation would violate the rule that: `A statute must be construed, if fairly possible, so as to avoid not only the conclusion that it is unconstitutional but also grave doubts upon that score,' relying on its contention that the 2006 Final Rule violates the Fourth Amendment. Pet'rs Br. at 12 (quoting Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 237, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998)). As our discussion below reveals, however, the petitioners' Fourth Amendment challenge offers no grave concerns about the 2006 Final Rule's constitutionality. See infra Part II.C. Finally, the petitioners assert the FAA's interpretation ignores the context of the legislation  namely, the major legal and political concerns that widespread drug testing of employees might raise, Pet'rs Br. at 13and the Congress's own admonition that the Administrator be very selective in extending the coverage of this provision to other categories of air carrier and FAA employees and that [the statute] should not be treated as an open authorization to test all aviation industry employees. S.Rep. No. 102-54, at 18 (May 2, 1991). In the quoted report, however, the Congress singled out mechanics as among the employees required to be tested [a]s defined in statute and regulation. Id. at 17. And nowhere does the legislative history distinguish between mechanics employed by certificated subcontractors and those employed by noncertificated subcontractors.