Labor Laws Dispute at Washington Airports Touches on States’ Rights for DC
WASHINGTON — A dispute over whose labor laws should govern workplaces at the Washington area’s two major airports is spilling over into a debate on states’ rights for the District of Columbia.
Virginia transportation officials say their state laws should control workplace safety. The District of Columbia says federal law takes precedence.
The outcome is likely to determine the rules the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority applies to its workforce at Dulles International Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Both of the airports are located in Virginia. They are participants in the interstate compact created with the consent of Congress in 1985 to oversee management, operations and capital development at the two airports.
The authority is governed by a 17-member board of directors with seven members appointed by the governor of Virginia, four by the mayor of the District of Columbia, three by the governor of Maryland and three by the president of the United States.
The most recent legal wrangling started in 2020 when an equipment malfunction at Dulles airport made a worker lose part of a finger. The Virginia Department of Labor and Industry fined the MWAA $26,000 for safety violations.
The MWAA sued in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to overturn the fines and the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry’s authority to issue safety citations.
The MWAA argued the interstate compact meant it was not subject to any single state’s regulations, only to federal workplace rules. The U.S. District Court agreed, granting a summary judgment.
By joining the interstate compact, “Virginia unambiguously surrendered its unilateral regulatory authority with respect to its occupational safety and health laws,” the court’s judgment said.
It added that for limited purposes of the interstate compact, the District of Columbia was the equivalent of a state.
Now Virginia is appealing to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. Its petition this month says, “The District of Columbia is not a state. Thus, the agreement cannot be an ‘interstate’ compact because only one state — Virginia — is a party to it.”
Any case precedents that show federal law should control interstate compacts would not apply in the case of the two airports in Virginia, the state’s attorneys wrote.
“That conclusion makes sense because D.C. is not a separate sovereign entity, and therefore does not have the same sovereignty to cede as a state,” their filing says.
Virginia’s argument touches on a sensitive issue for the District of Columbia, where local officials are asking Congress for statehood but so far have only met with resistance.
Stephen Clausing, communications manager for the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry, declined to comment. “It is an ongoing case,” he said.
The case is Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority v. Gary Pan in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
You can reach us at [email protected] and follow us on Facebook and Twitter