PHOENIX — Southwest Airlines was hit with more state labor fines this week after workers say the company retaliated against them for taking their earned sick time.
Four more workers joined about a dozen who have already taken formal action by filing retaliation complaints with the Industrial Commission of Arizona Labor Department.
The workers are all aircraft mechanics. They say they got write-ups and/or warnings in their personnel files for taking sick time that they had earned.
The warnings said the workers were taking excessive absences and that further absences may result in termination.
The state Labor Department investigated the complaints and sided with the employees, fining Southwest more than $422,000 just this year. Southwest is appealing the fines.
The workers filing the complaints are older. They started working for the company in their 20s and 30s, accruing hundreds of hours of sick time over the years, said Rui Leonardo, president of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association Local 32.
“We work a lot outside,” he said. “We’re working with our hands up above our heads for many hours. We’re on our knees crawling into tight spaces.”
As workers get into their 50s and 60s, their bodies “start to complain a little bit,” he said.
“They're just asking to use their earned benefit,” he said.
In one case that previously went before the labor department, a worker said he received a letter of instruction after using 11 sick days in 12 months. The department considered that retaliation because the employee was given a warning letter within 90 days of taking the earned sick time.
In another case the state reviewed this week, a worker took 180 hours of earned sick time within 12 months and received a write-up in his personnel file.
Industrial Commission Chairman Dennis Kavanaugh noted that the employee had been with the airline for more than 25 years and “is about 66 years old and at least in part the sick time he was claiming he was out due to COVID.”
Leonardo said he is concerned about those details.
“You have many companies out there also saying, ‘Don't come to work if you're sick.’ But then if you call in sick, you're gonna get in trouble. It's a weird pickle that they're putting us in on something that we earned.”
The state’s Labor Department says Southwest Airlines is subject to the Fair Wages and Healthy Families Act, a ballot initiative passed by voters in 2016. That law requires employers to provide paid sick leave and makes it illegal to retaliate against them for using that accrued leave.
Southwest, however, contends that the bargaining agreement between Southwest and the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association is subject to federal labor laws, which the airline contends preempts many state and local laws.
Arizona State University Law Professor Michael Selmi said under state law, any paid sick leave the workers earn, they can take.
“And they can take without retaliation from the employer, without discipline from the employer,” he said.
A letter in the personnel file about the earned sick leave would constitute discipline, he said.
ABC15 was the first to report two weeks ago about the worker’s complaints. Southwest Airlines said in a statement at the time that the company provides employees with some of the most generous benefit packages in the airline industry.
Southwest said the employees who filed complaints greatly exceeded 40 hours of sick leave in a year and received written warnings, saying their attendance needed to improve.
Southwest said none of those employees lost their jobs.
Lee Seham, an attorney who represents nine of the workers who filed retaliation complaints, said those cases are being consolidated into a single case to be heard before an administrative law judge.
A hearing date has not yet been set.
Email ABC15 Investigator Anne Ryman at anne.ryman@abc15.com, call her at 602-685-6345, or connect on X, formerly known as Twitter, and Facebook.
