OSHA Orders Southern Air to Compensate Former Employees who filed AIR21 Claims

OSHA has ordered Southern Air to withdraw defamation lawsuits filed against several former employees and pay them more than $7.9 million in wages, damages and legal fees. According to OSHA, Southern Air filed the lawsuits in retaliation for the employees' protected activities under the whistleblower protection provisions of AIR21.

In this case, Southern Air sued the former employees for defamation, claiming they filed false and disparaging complaints about the company's staffing and safety inadequacies, including false complaints with the FAA and OSHA. After the airline filed these lawsuits, the former employees filed a whistleblower complaint with OSHA. Subsequently, OSHA determined that the lawsuits were filed in retaliation for the workers' OSHA and FAA complaints.

In addition to the monetary award, OSHA directed the airline to purge the former employees' personnel files and other records of all warnings, reprimands or derogatory references resulting from protected whistleblower activity; refrain from mentioning the complainants' protected whistleblower activity or conveying any damaging information in response to third party inquiries; and provide all Southern Air crew members with copies of the FAA Whistleblower Protection Program poster and OSHA's notice to employees, and post these in each Southern Air facility.

The airline has stated that it will appeal OSHA's order. Southern Air President Brian Neff stated that he was "disappointed that OSHA's investigators chose to release these findings without first performing a thorough investigation into the matter, including notifying Southern Air of any facts upon which they were relying to support their findings and providing Southern Air with a full opportunity to respond."

Earlier this year, a state court denied a motion to dismiss the airline's lawsuit against one of the former employees, permitting that case to proceed.