Page:Alaska Airlines v. Judy Schurke - Panel Opinion.pdf/9

Rh attendant gets too many points, they can be reduced by good attendance the next year.

Masserant and her union, the Associated Flight Attendants, disagreed with the airline’s position. But instead of grieving it under the collective bargaining agreement grievance procedure, they filed an administrative complaint with the State of Washington Department of Labor and Industries. The Department determined that Masserant was entitled to use her December vacation leave to care for her child in May. The airline was fined $200 for violating the statute. The airline, Masserant, and the union have agreed to delay state appellate and other proceedings so that this Railway Labor Act preemption dispute may be adjudicated. The district court granted summary judgment against the airline’s preemption claim. We now review the district court decision de novo.

Some of the relevant provisions in the collective bargaining agreement and employer customs are not entirely clear cut. A provision says that “no attendance points are assessed for an absence called in for a sick child,” but it is not obvious how far this reaches. Though sick leave can clearly be used to care for a sick child, no such explicit provision is made for vacation leave and the evidence suggests that vacation leave cannot be so mixed. A flight attendant can trade vacation days with another flight attendant, subject to a deadline and approval. And a flight attendant can accumulate up to 4 ½ points for absenteeism with no disciplinary action, and subtraction of 2 points per quarter thereafter for quarters in which there are no chargeable occurrences, despite the absence of available leave