S.F. Law on Benefits Is Upheld

A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld a San Francisco ordinance demanding that airline carriers at San Francisco International Airport offer domestic partner benefits to their unmarried workers.

San Francisco’s 1997 law, the nation’s first, requires contractors doing business with the city to offer the same benefits to unmarried employees’ domestic partners as they do to married employees’ spouses.

In June, the court upheld the bulk of the San Francisco ordinance, which is similar to ones in Los Angeles and Seattle, but did not rule until Tuesday on a challenge by air carriers that said the federal government, not the city, has the authority to regulate airlines.

The city’s ordinance affects the two dozen airline carriers at San Francisco International Airport, which lease land from the city, and an untold number of contractors who perform a variety of work for the city.

Last year, a federal judge sided largely against a suit brought by the airline industry that challenged San Francisco’s law. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled that the airlines must provide the same fare discounts, family leave and bereavement leave to domestic partners as they do to married couples working in San Francisco.

The judge excluded health and pension benefits, saying that the federal government has jurisdiction in that area for the airline industry. After Wilken’s ruling, several airlines began offering the same benefits to domestic partners as they do to married couples.

The carriers argued that the ordinance was an intrusion into their collective bargaining agreements with their unionized workers and that the city did not have authority to order what type of benefits should be included in the agreements.

But the appeals court said such a requirement could be imposed because it is “akin to a minimum labor standard or an antidiscrimination law.”