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Pulcino v. Federal Express Corp.3/1/1999
Leanne Gross Pulcino, a former Federal Express flight attendant, sued FedEx alleging unlawful discrimination based on injuries she sustained while working as a FedEx handler and on her union affiliation. Pulcino appeals the trial court's order dismissing her disability discrimination claim and limiting her union discrimination claim to wrongful discharge. Because Pulcino was not disabled as defined by law, the trial court properly dismissed the disability discrimination claim. But we agree with Pulcino that RCW 49.32.020 gives her a cause of action against FedEx for wrongful interference with organized workers, and the court erroneously limited her union discrimination theory to wrongful discharge. Accordingly, we reinstate the union discrimination claim and remand for further proceedings.
FACTS
Leanne Gross Pulcino was a flight attendant ("FA") with Flying Tigers, a charter airline that transports military personnel, from May 1981 until FedEx purchased Flying Tigers in 1989. FedEx, which had been nonunion since its founding in 1973, acquired more than 10 collective bargaining units with this purchase. By 1992, however, only the FA unit remained. On April 13, 1992, FedEx informed the FAs that due to military downsizing, it had decided to discontinue its military passenger service and lay off 250 FAs. The letter assured the FAs that FedEx was "presently meeting with {their} collective bargaining representatives regarding these issues."
After the lay-off, FedEx CEO Frederick Smith sent a letter to the FAs, explaining that "the terms and conditions of employment for the flight attendants are established as a result of negotiations with their collective bargaining representative." The letter continued, stating Smith claimed that the recently-concluded negotiations between FedEx and the Teamsters, the FA's representative, gave the FAs access to two personnel representatives to assist them in their job search, and that "flight attendants will be considered equally with external candidates for any position at Federal Express for which they are qualified." FedEx was unable to identify any contract provision or negotiation document which directs that FAs were to be treated as external candidates after the lay-off. An August 7 e-mail from a FedEx supervisor clarified that this "external" labeling meant that the FAs could not transfer or bid into internal FedEx jobs through career opportunity postings.
After Pulcino learned of the layoff, she tried to reach one of the assigned personal representatives, Jan Edwards, but because of Edwards' continued unavailability, Pulcino did not contact her until a few weeks before the scheduled furlough. In response to Pulcino's request for a courier job within commuting distance, Edwards indicated that the Bothell station had an opening, but that she did not know what the position was. Pulcino contacted Bothell's station manager, who told her he had only a part-time handler position open. Pulcino accepted the position, understanding that she would transfer to a courier job when one became available. As a handler, Pulcino was required to stack items onto pallets, shrink wrap and maneuver the stacks onto pallet jacks, and push the pallets into trucks at the Microsoft dock. She claims after she started work, FedEx withheld her paychecks for several weeks and would not provide her with benefit information.
Pulcino had several meetings with management to determine why she had not been receiving paychecks and why they had not given her a courier position. During one of those meetings, she saw that her manager, Marques Bailey, had handwritten notes in front of him, attached to which was a fuschia-colored Post-It which said
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