## Facts

- Trans World Airlines, Inc. (TWA) and the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants (IFFA) operated under a collective bargaining agreement containing a seniority-based bidding and furlough system.
- After exhausting Railway Labor Act (RLA) bargaining and mediation procedures without reaching a new agreement on wages and working conditions, IFFA called an economic strike; the preexisting seniority system was not renegotiated and remained in effect.
- During the strike, TWA continued operations by hiring permanent replacements, retaining attendants who did not strike, and rehiring strikers who returned to work during the strike.
- TWA filled strike-created vacancies by applying the existing seniority bidding system to attendants who were working, including nonstrikers and returning strikers.
- TWA announced and implemented a post-strike policy of not displacing permanent replacements or junior “crossover” employees to reinstate full-term strikers, leaving many full-term strikers without immediate work.
- A post-strike arbitral agreement provided that reinstated full-term strikers would return as vacancies arose with the seniority they would have had absent the strike.
- IFFA sued, claiming senior full-term strikers were entitled to displace newly hired replacements and less senior crossover employees, either under the agreement or the RLA.

## Issues

1. Whether the RLA requires an employer ending an economic strike to lay off junior crossover employees to reinstate more senior full-term strikers.
2. Whether federal common law developed under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), including the Mackay Radio rule on replacements, guides the RLA analysis and applies to crossover employees.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Eighth Circuit (6–3, O’Connor, J.).
- The Court held that the RLA does not require TWA to lay off junior crossover employees to reinstate more senior full-term strikers at the conclusion of an economic strike.
- The Court treated NLRA-based federal common labor law as persuasive in RLA disputes and concluded that the Mackay Radio principle permits an employer to protect jobs of replacement workers and does not compel displacement to reinstate strikers.
- The Court rejected a separate reinstatement preference for full-term strikers over junior crossover employees where the strikers’ seniority was preserved for future bidding and vacancies.

## Legal Principles

- In RLA cases, courts may look to federal common labor law developed under the NLRA for guidance when the RLA does not supply a contrary rule.
- Under the Mackay Radio doctrine, an employer may hire permanent replacements during an economic strike and is not required to discharge them to reinstate strikers when the strike ends.
- The RLA does not create a statutory requirement that junior crossover employees be displaced to reinstate senior full-term strikers, absent contractual language imposing that obligation.
- Preserving returning strikers’ seniority for future opportunities can satisfy seniority-based expectations without requiring immediate displacement of working employees.

## Conclusion

The Court held that, after an economic strike governed by the RLA, an employer may refuse to lay off junior crossover employees (as well as permanent replacements) to reinstate more senior full-term strikers, and may instead reinstate strikers as vacancies arise while preserving their seniority.


Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Independent Fed’n of Flight Attendants, 489 U.S. 426 (1989)