Court Opinion

ID: 9377889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-08 22:00:51.13744+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:17.666153
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11341    Document: 26-1      Date Filed: 03/08/2023    Page: 1 of 15

                                                       [PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-11341
                           ____________________

        PROFESSIONAL AIRLINE FLIGHT CONTROL ASSOCIATION,
                                                       Plaintiff-Appellant,
        versus
        SPIRIT AIRLINES, INC.,

                                                     Defendant-Appellee.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of Florida
                     D.C. Docket No. 0:21-cv-60396-RKA
                           ____________________
USCA11 Case: 22-11341       Document: 26-1       Date Filed: 03/08/2023      Page: 2 of 15

        2                       Opinion of the Court                   22-11341

        Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, MARCUS, Circuit Judge, and
        MIZELLE,∗ District Judge.
        WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge:
                This appeal requires us to decide whether the district court
        had subject-matter jurisdiction over a labor dispute between Spirit
        Airlines and the union that represents Spirit’s flight dispatch offic-
        ers. The Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq., divides labor
        disputes into two categories: disputes over the interpretation of an
        existing agreement are “minor” and resolved exclusively through
        binding arbitration, and disputes over proposed changes to an
        agreement or over a new agreement are “major” and addressed
        through bargaining and mediation. During a major dispute, district
        courts have subject-matter jurisdiction to enjoin violations of the
        status quo. But district courts ordinarily lack jurisdiction over mi-
        nor disputes. The Professional Airline Flight Control Association
        complained that Spirit is attempting to change their agreement.
        Spirit responded that its unilateral decision to open a second oper-
        ations control center is permitted by the parties’ agreement. The
        district court agreed with Spirit that this dispute is minor and dis-
        missed the action for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. We affirm.

        ∗ Honorable Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, United States District Judge for the
        Middle District of Florida, sitting by designation.
USCA11 Case: 22-11341      Document: 26-1      Date Filed: 03/08/2023     Page: 3 of 15

        22-11341               Opinion of the Court                         3

                                I. BACKGROUND
                The Professional Airline Flight Control Association serves as
        the exclusive bargaining representative of the approximately 75
        flight dispatch officers employed by Spirit Airlines, Inc. Flight dis-
        patch officers manage “major flight decisions” such as flight paths,
        fuel loads, and whether to dispatch flights. Spirit and the union en-
        tered into a collective bargaining agreement in 2018 that is effective
        through October 2023. Neither side can amend the agreement ear-
        lier than 150 days before October 15, 2023.
                The dispatch officers work at an operations control center in
        Miramar, Florida, where Spirit is headquartered. In February 2020,
        Spirit informed the union that because of the threat of hurricanes
        in Miramar, it intended to move the operations control center to
        Nashville, Tennessee. Under section 6.D of the collective bargain-
        ing agreement, the parties began negotiating about moving ex-
        penses.
               In September, Spirit informed the union that instead of mov-
        ing the control center to Nashville, it had decided to keep the
        Miramar control center and open a second control center in Or-
        lando, Florida. The parties recommenced bargaining, now regard-
        ing a wider set of issues, “such as bidding to work in one center or
        the other, cross-center seniority rights, and cross-center shift trad-
        ing.” In January 2021, the parties had not reached an agreement,
        and Spirit informed the union that it would not engage in further
        negotiations. About a week later, Spirit publicly announced its in-
        tention to open the second control center in Orlando and to either
USCA11 Case: 22-11341      Document: 26-1      Date Filed: 03/08/2023      Page: 4 of 15

        4                       Opinion of the Court                 22-11341

        transfer some employees there from Miramar or hire new employ-
        ees. Neither party has made a formal proposal to amend the exist-
        ing agreement.
               In February 2021, the union filed suit in the district court. It
        alleged that Spirit’s decision to open a second control center was
        an attempt to change the parties’ agreement about conditions of
        employment, so the dispute was major. And it argued that Spirit
        was required by the Railway Labor Act to negotiate over the sec-
        ond control center and to maintain the status quo in the meantime.
        The union sought injunctive relief.
                Spirit moved to dismiss the complaint. It argued that the col-
        lective bargaining agreement permits it to unilaterally decide to
        open a second control center. It argued that the dispute concerned
        the interpretation of the existing agreement, not a proposed change
        to the agreement, which made the labor dispute a minor one over
        which the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. The dis-
        trict court ruled that the labor dispute was minor and dismissed the
        complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
                           II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
                We review issues of both subject-matter jurisdiction and the
        classification of a dispute as major or minor under the Railway La-
        bor Act de novo. See Calderon v. Baker Concrete Constr., Inc., 771
        F.3d 807, 810 (11th Cir. 2014); CSX Transp., Inc. v. Bhd. of Maint.
        of Way Emps., 327 F.3d 1309, 1320 (11th Cir. 2003).
USCA11 Case: 22-11341       Document: 26-1      Date Filed: 03/08/2023      Page: 5 of 15

        22-11341                Opinion of the Court                           5

                                  III. DISCUSSION
               The Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq., was enacted
        in 1926 “to encourage collective bargaining by railroads and their
        employees in order to prevent, if possible, wasteful strikes and in-
        terruptions of interstate commerce,” Detroit & Toledo Shore Line
        R.R. Co. v. United Transp. Union (Shore Line), 396 U.S. 142, 148
        (1969); see 45 U.S.C. § 151a. Congress later amended the Act to
        govern the airline industry. See 45 U.S.C. §§ 181–88. The Act pro-
        vides the procedures that carriers and their employees must follow
        to resolve labor disputes.
               There are two types of disputes under the Act, and each trig-
        gers different procedural requirements. See Consol. Rail Corp. v.
        Ry. Labor Execs.’ Ass’n (Conrail), 491 U.S. 299, 302–04 (1989). Mi-
        nor disputes are those that concern “a collective agreement already
        concluded or . . . a situation in which no effort is made to bring
        about a formal change in terms or to create a new one. The dispute
        relates either to the meaning or proper application of a particular
        provision . . . .” Id. at 303 (quoting Elgin, Joliet & E. Ry. Co. v. Bur-
        ley, 325 U.S. 711, 723 (1945)); see 45 U.S.C. § 152 Sixth (discussing
        disputes “arising out of grievances or out of the interpretation or
        application of agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, or work-
        ing conditions”). Major disputes are about “the formation of collec-
        tive agreements or efforts to secure them. They arise where there
        is no such agreement or where it is sought to change the terms of
        one, and therefore the issue is not whether an existing agreement
        controls the controversy.” Conrail, 491 U.S. at 302 (quoting Burley,
USCA11 Case: 22-11341      Document: 26-1      Date Filed: 03/08/2023     Page: 6 of 15

        6                      Opinion of the Court                 22-11341

        325 U.S. at 723); see 45 U.S.C. § 152 Seventh (discussing changes to
        employees’ “rates of pay, rules, or working conditions . . . as em-
        bodied in agreements”). In short, “major disputes seek to create
        contractual rights, [and] minor disputes to enforce them.” Conrail,
        491 U.S. at 302.
                A minor dispute that the parties cannot resolve is subject to
        compulsory arbitration before an adjustment board created by the
        airline and its employees. See id. at 303–04; Whitaker v. Am. Air-
        lines, 285 F.3d 940, 943–44 (11th Cir. 2002) (explaining the differ-
        ences between the adjustment boards for railroads and those for
        airlines); 45 U.S.C. § 184. The adjustment board has exclusive juris-
        diction over a minor dispute. Conrail, 491 U.S. at 304; see also Pyles
        v. United Air Lines, Inc., 79 F.3d 1046, 1050 (11th Cir. 1996) (“Con-
        gress intended that these ‘minor disputes’ be resolved through the
        grievance procedures of the [Railway Labor Act] rather than in fed-
        eral court.”). Employees may not strike over a minor dispute, and
        the parties are ordinarily not required to maintain the status quo
        during arbitration. CSX, 327 F.3d at 1320. There is a limited excep-
        tion: district courts may issue a status-quo injunction if needed to
        preserve the adjustment board’s jurisdiction “by preventing injury
        so irreparable that a decision of the Board in the unions’ favor
        would be but an empty victory.” Bhd. of Locomotive Eng’rs v.
        Mo.-Kan.-Tex. R.R. Co., 363 U.S. 528, 534 (1960). But the Supreme
        Court has “never recognized” a general right to a status-quo injunc-
        tion over a minor dispute where the employer does not also seek a
        strike injunction. Conrail, 491 U.S. at 304. In any event, that
USCA11 Case: 22-11341       Document: 26-1      Date Filed: 03/08/2023      Page: 7 of 15

        22-11341                Opinion of the Court                          7

        “extremely narrow” ground for an injunction, Int’l Bhd. of Team-
        sters Local 19 v. Sw. Airlines Co., 875 F.2d 1129, 1136 (5th Cir.
        1989), is not relevant to this appeal because the union does not ar-
        gue that it is entitled to injunctive relief if the dispute is minor.
               By contrast, when either party seeks to change “agreements
        affecting rates of pay, rules, or working conditions,” section 6 of
        the Act requires the party that seeks the change to give 30 days’
        written notice to the other party. 45 U.S.C. § 156. The parties then
        bargain over the proposed change, and either side can request the
        services of a mediation board. Id. These major-dispute procedures
        are “purposely long and drawn out,” and the parties must “refrain
        from altering the status quo . . . while the Act’s remedies [a]re be-
        ing exhausted.” Shore Line, 396 U.S. at 148–49 (citation omitted);
        see 45 U.S.C. § 156. And in these cases, federal courts may enjoin a
        violation of the status quo “without the customary showing of ir-
        reparable injury.” Conrail, 491 U.S. at 303.
               When a dispute under the Act “reaches a federal court, [the
        court’s] central responsibility is that of taxonomist—classifying the
        dispute as major or minor.” BLET GCA UP, Cent. Region v. Union
        Pac. R.R. Co., 988 F.3d 409, 413 (7th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation
        marks and citation omitted). “[A] union will typically claim a dis-
        pute is major because it is permissible to strike if the carrier insists
        on implementing a certain policy. Conversely, a carrier will insist
        the dispute is minor because it can proceed with the policy while
        the parties” arbitrate. CSX, 327 F.3d at 1320. If either side has filed
        a section 6 notice proposing to amend an existing agreement or to
USCA11 Case: 22-11341      Document: 26-1      Date Filed: 03/08/2023     Page: 8 of 15

        8                      Opinion of the Court                 22-11341

        establish a new agreement, classification is easy: the dispute is ma-
        jor. But when neither side has filed a section 6 notice, the issue re-
        quires more analysis.
                The distinction “between major and minor disputes does
        not turn on a case-by-case determination of the importance of the
        issue presented or the likelihood that it would prompt the exercise
        of economic self-help.” Conrail, 491 U.S. at 305. Instead, the ques-
        tion is “whether a claim has been made that the terms of an existing
        agreement either establish or refute the presence of a right to take
        the disputed action.” Id. “Where an employer asserts a contractual
        right to take the contested action, the ensuing dispute is minor if
        the action is arguably justified by the terms of the parties’ collec-
        tive-bargaining agreement. Where, in contrast, the employer’s
        claims are frivolous or obviously insubstantial, the dispute is ma-
        jor.” Id. at 307. A party that argues that a dispute is minor—typi-
        cally the carrier—has only a “light” burden of proof. Id. at 307 (ci-
        tation omitted). And “if a reasonable doubt exists as to whether the
        dispute is major or minor, [the courts] will deem it to be minor.”
        CSX, 327 F.3d at 1321 (citation omitted).
               This dispute is minor. Spirit’s unilateral decision to open a
        second control center is arguably justified by the terms of the exist-
        ing collective bargaining agreement. Even if its contractual-inter-
        pretation arguments eventually fail on the merits, its arguments are
        not “frivolous or obviously insubstantial.” See Conrail, 491 U.S. at
        307.
USCA11 Case: 22-11341       Document: 26-1       Date Filed: 03/08/2023      Page: 9 of 15

        22-11341                 Opinion of the Court                           9

                The collective bargaining agreement includes a manage-
        ment-rights provision that states that “[e]xcept as restricted by an
        express provision of this Agreement, the Company shall retain all
        rights to manage and operate its business and workforce, including
        but not limited to the right . . . to transfer operations or part of op-
        erations.” The union stresses that Spirit has never before operated
        two control centers. But the right to transfer “part” of operations
        plausibly includes the right to have two control centers. Although
        the union argues that the rights “retain[ed]” by the management-
        rights clause must originate in the Act or in caselaw, Spirit’s argu-
        ment that it retained the rights it had prior to the dispatch officers’
        unionization is not obviously unfounded, so the parties’ disagree-
        ment about the scope of the management-rights clause does not
        make this a major dispute. It follows from the management-rights
        provision that if Spirit has a not-insubstantial argument that there
        is no express provision that restricts its right to transfer operations
        in part, its actions are arguably justified under the agreement. Spirit
        has satisfied its burden.
                 To answer whether there is any express restriction on
        Spirit’s right to transfer operations, both parties focus on section 6
        of the agreement. That section states that “[w]here the Company
        opts to relocate the dispatch office to a new domicile more than
        fifty . . . miles from its current location, the parties will meet to dis-
        cuss and agree upon moving expenses for affected employees.”
        The union contends that the relocation-expenses provision does
        not apply here because Spirit is not moving “the” dispatch office.
USCA11 Case: 22-11341      Document: 26-1      Date Filed: 03/08/2023      Page: 10 of 15

        10                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11341

        Spirit, for its part, argues that the use of “opts” in the provision im-
        plies that it can decide unilaterally whether to relocate its opera-
        tions and that the requirement that the parties bargain over mov-
        ing expenses for “affected” employees implies that some employ-
        ees may be “unaffected”—as would be the case if operations were
        relocated only in part.
                Because the management-rights provision reserves the right
        to transfer operations, in whole or in part, absent an express re-
        striction on that right, it does not matter for purposes of this appeal
        whether section 6 of the agreement itself recognizes a right to
        transfer. That section 6 does not clearly restrict Spirit’s asserted
        right to open a second control center is enough for Spirit’s position
        to be arguably justified by the agreement. The union does not iden-
        tify any other provision that expressly restricts the right to transfer
        operations.
               Spirit reasonably contends that the parties “already bar-
        gained over and reached agreement on Spirit’s right to make uni-
        lateral changes, including the right to transfer part of its opera-
        tions.” The Supreme Court has explained that employers and un-
        ions may bargain for terms “that grant management the power to
        respond flexibly to changing circumstances.” Conrail, 491 U.S. at
        309. Employers are not required “rigidly to maintain the status quo
        pending arbitration of their right to be flexible.” Id. Regardless of
        which party’s interpretation of the management-rights provision
        ultimately prevails, the only question for this Court is whether
USCA11 Case: 22-11341     Document: 26-1      Date Filed: 03/08/2023    Page: 11 of 15

        22-11341               Opinion of the Court                       11

        Spirit’s position is “frivolous or obviously insubstantial.” See Con-
        rail, 491 U.S. at 307. It is not.
                The union next argues that the management-rights provi-
        sion cannot reserve to Spirit the unilateral right to transfer opera-
        tions. It contends that the Supreme Court has “explicitly ruled that
        carriers do not hold a retained right . . . to change employee[s’]
        work assignments in the absence of an explicit or implied contract
        provision prohibiting [them] from doing so.” This argument fails.
                We agree with the district court that the union misreads the
        precedents it cites. Those precedents concern the scope of the sta-
        tus-quo requirement during a major dispute, not the threshold ju-
        risdictional question whether a dispute is major or minor. They
        have no bearing on our inquiry.
               The union first points to Shore Line, in which the Supreme
        Court held that the Act required a railroad to refrain from estab-
        lishing new work assignments while the parties exhausted the sec-
        tion 6 procedures. 396 U.S. at 152–53. The Supreme Court held that
        the status-quo provisions of the Act applied “regardless of the fact
        that the railroad was not precluded from making these assignments
        under the existing agreement.” Id. at 154. In this appeal, the union
        points to that holding to argue that the decision “clearly excludes
        the existence of ‘retained rights.’”
              The problem for the union is that in Shore Line the Supreme
        Court explained that the question before it was “the extent to
        which the [Act] imposes an obligation upon the parties . . . to
USCA11 Case: 22-11341      Document: 26-1      Date Filed: 03/08/2023      Page: 12 of 15

        12                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11341

        maintain the status quo while the purposely long and drawn out
        procedures of the Act are exhausted.” Id. at 143 (internal quotation
        marks and citations omitted). Everyone agreed that the dispute was
        major and section 6 applied; the only issue was the scope of the
        status-quo requirement. See id. at 152–53. The Court answered
        that when the Act’s status-quo requirements are “properly in-
        voked,” both parties must maintain “actual, objective working con-
        ditions and practices,” not only those working conditions expressly
        provided for by agreement. Id. at 153. Shore Line is unlike this ap-
        peal, in which we must first decide whether the status-quo require-
        ment has been properly invoked.
                The union next relies on Order of Railroad Telegraphers v.
        Chicago & North Western Railway Co., 362 U.S. 330 (1960). There,
        the railroad sought to close some of its stations. In response, the
        union notified the railroad, pursuant to section 6 of the Act, that it
        wanted to negotiate to amend the collective bargaining agreement
        so that the railroad could not abolish any jobs without the union’s
        consent. Id. at 332. The railroad argued that it had a managerial
        prerogative to close the stations and that the union’s request to
        amend the agreement did not raise a bargainable issue under the
        Act. Id. at 332, 336. The Supreme Court rejected that argument.
        Id. at 336.
               Importantly, the Supreme Court did not hold that no mana-
        gerial prerogatives exist; it held that the union’s request in that case
        was not “an attempt to usurp legitimate managerial prerogative,”
        id. at 336, but instead was an attempt to settle a labor dispute
USCA11 Case: 22-11341      Document: 26-1       Date Filed: 03/08/2023      Page: 13 of 15

        22-11341                Opinion of the Court                          13

        consistent with the requirements of the Act, id. at 339. And because
        the union was trying “to change the ‘terms’ of an existing collective
        bargaining agreement,” that labor dispute was major. Id. at 336; see
        also id. at 341. Here, by contrast, Spirit has never contended that
        the dispute is not covered by the Act, and neither party has given a
        section 6 notice.
               Finally, the union argues that a later precedent, Pittsburgh
        & Lake Erie Railroad Co. v. Railway Labor Executives’ Associa-
        tion, 491 U.S. 490 (1989), “instructs that the holding in Shore Line
        is not limited only to the breadth of the status quo requirement in
        disputes where [s]ection 6 has been invoked,” “erod[ing]” any dis-
        tinction between Shore Line and this appeal. The union contends
        that “[i]t is of no significance that [s]ection 6 notices had been
        served in Shore Line, but not here.” But the union misreads the
        footnote on which it relies.
               Pittsburgh & Lake Erie explained the reasoning in Shore
        Line: when a union files a section 6 notice, the status-quo provision
        applies to all conditions objectively in existence at the time of filing,
        even if those conditions “otherwise could be changed without vio-
        lating any agreement.” Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, 491 U.S. at 506. And
        it “extended the relevant language of [section] 156 to its outer lim-
        its.” Id. In the footnote on which the union relies, the Court rea-
        soned that because section 6 of the Act deals with “intended
        changes in agreements,” one arguable interpretation is that it
        “would not require the status quo with respect to working condi-
        tions that have never been the subject of an agreement . . . and that,
USCA11 Case: 22-11341     Document: 26-1     Date Filed: 03/08/2023    Page: 14 of 15

        14                     Opinion of the Court               22-11341

        if no notice of changes had been served by the union, could be
        changed by the carrier without any bargaining whatsoever.” Id. at
        506 n.15. “Shore Line rejected that construction.” Id.
               The union reads this footnote to mean that “changes in
        work conditions not addressed in the agreement” are also “within
        the scope of the bargaining and status quo requirements,” even
        when no party has filed a section 6 notice. That reading is plainly
        incorrect. Shore Line, as explained in Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, con-
        cerned the scope of the status-quo provision in a major dispute, not
        the classification of a dispute as major or minor.
              Pittsburgh & Lake Erie explained that the status-quo provi-
        sion applies whenever the bargaining requirement applies, even
        when the carrier’s action, considered alone, would not trigger the
        bargaining requirement. But there still must be some “intended
        change in agreements affecting rates of pay, rules, or working con-
        ditions” for a labor dispute to trigger the bargaining requirement
        in the first place—such as a section 6 notice from the union. 45
        U.S.C. § 156 (emphasis added). Pittsburgh & Lake Erie explained
        that Shore Line extended the status-quo provision to “conditions
        ‘objectively’ in existence when the union’s notice was served . . .
        that otherwise could be changed without violating any agree-
        ment.” Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, 491 U.S. at 506 (emphasis added).
              This appeal presents the “otherwise” scenario Pittsburgh &
        Lake Erie envisioned. The union has not filed a section 6 notice of
        a proposed change to the agreement, and Spirit has reasonably ar-
        gued that its action does not violate the agreement. The bargaining
USCA11 Case: 22-11341    Document: 26-1    Date Filed: 03/08/2023   Page: 15 of 15

        22-11341             Opinion of the Court                    15

        requirement was not triggered. Shore Line’s holding on the scope
        of the status-quo provision during bargaining is inapplicable.
                              IV. CONCLUSION
              We AFFIRM the judgment dismissing the action for lack of
        subject-matter jurisdiction.