In Beckington v. American Airlines, Inc., the Court held that employees could not sue their union for colluding with the employer under the circumstances.  The Court noted that the Railway Labor Act authorized employees in the railroad and airline industries to select a union to act as their exclusive representative for collective bargaining with their employer. As a result, the union assumes a duty to “represent fairly the interests of all bargaining-unit members during the negotiation, administration, and enforcement of collective-bargaining agreements.”  The Court noted that if the union breaches its duty of fair representation, aggrieved employees have a cause of action against the union that is “judicially ‘implied’” under the RLA. The question before the Court was whether those employees may also sue their employer under the RLA for allegedly “colluding” with the union in the union’s breach of duty.  The Court said no. It stated that nothing in the Railway Labor Act’s text or collective bargaining framework supported expansion of the doctrine that a union owes its constituents a duty of fair representation.

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