If you thought things were progressing rather too smoothly with corporate acceptance of San Francisco's pioneering new law, which requires all firms contracting with the city to extend the same benefits to registered domestic partners as it does to legally married couples, you were right: the Air Transport Association (ATA), a trade organization of 22 U.S. and 3 international air carriers, filed a lawsuit May 12 challenging the law's application to airlines. San Francisco Supervisor Susan Leal thought she'd successfully negotiated a deal with the United Airlines (UA), by far the largest user of the city-owned San Francisco International Airport, but UA is a member of the ATA and now a party to the lawsuit. "So much for the friendly skies," said Chief Assistant City Attorney Dennis Aftergut (referring to the company's slogan).
"If another community passed an ordinance requiring that we could not provide
benefits to domestic partners, we would file the same lawsuit," ATA president
Carol Hallet claims. While sheer cynicism would suggest there'd be less corporate eagerness to challenge such a theoretical statute -- one that would save money by presumably subtracting rather than adding benefits -- the whole question is moot: since the airlines have not been extending domestic partner benefits to date, ATA would not have standing to make such a challenge.
The ATA's filing asserts that only federal law should have any control over airline activities, on the grounds that otherwise conflicting local ordinances would make their work impossible. They also seek autonomy that will keep benefits discussions strictly between labor and management without governmental interference. They cite a number of laws and cases in which the
courts have upheld these positions to a great extent, dating as far back as the 1926 Railway Labor Act. Probably the most on point of the citations is the 1983 "Shaw v. Delta Air Lines" decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that New York's Human Rights and disability benefits laws were, in part, pre-empted by ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. As read by the ATA, ERISA exempts airlines from any regulations which even "relate to" employee benefits.
San Francisco believes its law is not about employee benefits so much as it is about non-discrimination. Employers are not told what benefits, if any, to give -- they can achieve non-discrimination by eliminating all spousal benefits just as effectively as they can by extending equal benefits to unmarried partners.
The actual ordinance doesn't even go into effect until June, but it applies to any contract of more than two years' duration signed in the preceding months. United had previously agreed to a two-year contract with an option to be continued another 23 years if compliance were achieved, instead of signing for its more or less automatic 25-year renewals. A United spokesperson said only that the company had changed its mind after reviewing the city law, which they feel is illegal.
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