Is This Veteran Flight Attendant Losing Perks For Skipping Union Dues? He’s Taking His Case to the Supreme Court
- Ali Bahreman, a veteran Allegiant Airlines flight attendant, lost his seniority perks of being able to bid for trips, days off and vacation because he refuses to pay union dues. Now he is appealing to the Supreme Court following a series of legal setbacks.
A veteran flight attendant is calling on the Supreme Court to hear his case about a clause in his contract that effectively treats him like a new-hire crew member because he doesn’t want to pay union dues.
Ali Bahreman is a long-serving Allegiant Airlines flight attendant who has been fighting a legal campaign against the Las Vegas-based carrier and the Transport Workers Union (TWU) since 2020 over how he is being “punished” for not paying union fees.
The lawsuit alleges that Allegiant agreed to write a union security agreement into the latest flight attendant contract which is designed to remove certain privileges from any crew member who doesn’t pay their union dues.
In the case of Bahreman, his seniority with the airline is no longer taken into consideration when he bids for trips – one of the most valuable perks of seniority is that flight attendants are more likely to get awarded the trips and days off they bid for.
Bahreman initially had some success in his legal action, successfully fighting a petition by Allegiant and the TWU union in 2021 to have the case summarily dismissed.
Since then, however, Bahreman has faced a series of setbacks, most recently in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where a federal judge ruled that Allegiant and the TWU were legally allowed to have a security agreement.
Bahreman is being helped by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a non-profit that supports workers who don’t want to be part of a mandatory union, such as in the aviation industry.
“Mr. Bahreman’s case shows how deep the rabbit hole of union boss legal privileges goes,” commented the non-profit’s president, Mark Mix. “The Ninth Circuit’s decision turns the U.S. Supreme Court’s ‘duty of fair representation’ on its head and exposes the underlying constitutional tensions that the Court identified long ago in the 1944 Steele High Court decision.”
Bahreman’s attorneys don’t dispute the fact that unions have long been legally allowed to enter into contracts that require the payment of union fees as a condition of employment, but they claim Allegiant and the TWU have overreached.
The argument is that union contracts can’t discriminate against certain classes of worker – a legal precedent that was set back in 1944 when the Supreme Court ruled that it was unlawful for a union to impose a contract that discriminated against workers based on their race.
In Bahreman’s case, however, his attorneys say that his status as a non-union member is a protracted worker class.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation calls the Ninth Circuit’s decision “puzzling” and that the judgment “greenlights discrimination by union bosses in their treatment of union members and nonmembers, which flies in the face of the duty of fair representation that federal law imposes on all union officials.”
Matt’s Take – Airline Workers in Other Countries Aren’t Forced to Pay Union Dues
It’s a particular US oddity that workers at unionized airlines are required to join the official union and pay union fees as a condition of employment. You would have thought that in a country that embraces freedom so much, workers would also be free to choose whether or not to join a union.
There are many airlines around the world where workgroups are represented by two or more unions, and workers are allowed to choose which union they want to join – or not join a union at all.
The practical effect is that any bargaining that makes its way into a contract or a legally binding agreement applies to all workers, regardless of whether they have paid union dues or not. Quite simply, it’s illegal to treat workers differently or remove benefits if they didn’t pay into a union.
One immediate benefit of this system is that unions really have to listen to the needs of the people they represent if they are going to win their support and, importantly, their hard-earned cash.
Do you think flight attendants should be forced to pay union dues?
You have to pay union dues when you work for any airline after you get off probation if you get into trouble the union is there to fight for you if a flight attendant does not want to pay union dues let them go to a non-union airline the only one is Delta union dues are automatically deducted from your pay check but the union is there to protect you in the event you get into trouble. A passenger can say anything but the union will fight for you Sara Nelson the president of AFA has saved many jobs over the years jobs which would have been lost had it not been for the union.
The benefits a flight attendant receives is because the union fought for it. This flight attendant technically should be terminated for what he is doing. I flew for Eastern for 20years and another airline for 29years and took a buyout I am still trying to fly but facing age discrimination maybe the union will fight fight for me.
Your last comment contradicted the rest of your post. You paid union dues for 49 years and now you say “maybe the union will fight fight for me.” You wasted half a century of union dues and now, when you need them, they do nothing.
It would be more accurate to characterize Mr Bahreman’s situation as asking the US Supreme Court to grant certiorari and consider the merits of his case. The Supreme Court denies the overwhelming majority of certiorari petitions, but I suspect that the 6-3 conservative majority caused Right to Work Legal Defense to conclude that the probability of success calculation merited expenditure of resources. If certiorari is denied the Ninth Circuit decision stands. To your question, with the bias of a million miler pax (corporate lawyer) who has voluntarily donated to AFA relief funds, I have no sympathy for Mr Bahreman. Matt, you suggest that autonomy is the right in question. But framed through an economic lens, this case presents a classic freeloader problem. The FA wants the benefits of collective bargaining afforded the community but doesnt want to pay his proportionate share of the costs associated with negotiating the contract. Collective bargaining in US law elevates community over autonomy. Which Right to Work legal defense devalues. That is their ideology. In contrast, cabin culture values community, Pax can tell when community is lacking in a particular crew, ie “I hate flying with ‘that’ guy. Perhaps that explains why most US airlines find value in the union shop and aren’t pushing for right to work in the industry.
I don’t think you should have put your opinion in the story..