Robert A. Siegel

Robert A. Siegel

LOS ANGELES - Robert A. Siegel is so well respected on airline labor matters under the Railway Labor Act that when Spirit and Frontier airlines decided to merge in a $6.6 billion deal, they asked him to represent them both.

Each airline has separate corporate attorneys, but Siegel and his team are the labor advisers on the deal. He had been each airline’s labor counsel over the years, so “they came to us and asked for a joint retention agreement,” he said.

The corporate merger requires merging the two airlines’ unions and collective bargaining agreements. “There is a fairly complicated Railway Labor Act procedure for that, and that’s what we’re advising on,” he said.

Siegel scored a hard-fought litigation victory in September involving another airline merger, this one between cargo carriers Atlas Air and Southern Air. Forging a new, five-year collective bargaining unit covering both sets of Teamster-represented pilots required a specialized “interest arbitration.”

“It was a fairly significant case for us,” Siegel said because the company and union proposals were about $400 million apart. The union argued that wages and work rules for its new contract should be comparable to those of FedEx and UPS. After an 11-day hearing, the arbitrator agreed with Siegel that Atlas and Southern were more like smaller carriers. “The arbitrator’s phrase was size and business plan matter,” he said.

He has had several wins in recent years for United Airlines. He won a summary judgment in 2019, declaring that pilots on military leave were not discriminated against in terms of accruing sick time. The 7th Circuit affirmed in December. Moss v. United Airlines Inc., 20-3246 (7th Circ., Dec. 14, 2021).

Siegel is representing a trade group of all the major airlines in a pair of declaratory judgment actions challenging states’ laws on paid sick leave. The airlines argue that applying those laws over the more detailed sick-leave provisions in union agreements violates the dormant commerce clause because the number of pilots and attendants taking sick leave spikes under the state laws, which causes cancellations and delays.

Siegel is set to go to trial on the issue in Massachusetts in September. The 9th Circuit upheld Washington State’s sick leave law last year, and now the airlines have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. Air Transport Association of America Inc. v. The Washington Department of Labor & Industries, 21-627 (U.S. Sct., filed Oct. 27, 2021).

-Don DeBenedictis