Former Customer Rep. Sues Southwest Airlines Over Allegedly Hostile Work Environment, Unpaid Overtime

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Southwest Airlines faces a proposed class and collective action lawsuit filed by a former customer representative who alleges she was denied proper overtime pay and subjected to a hostile work environment based on her race and sex.

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The 22-page lawsuit accuses Southwest of illegally retaliating against the plaintiff, a Black woman who worked remotely from her home in Nevada, after she reported her team lead’s allegedly inappropriate and discriminatory behavior during two virtual training sessions in November 2022. According to the case, the plaintiff was then wrongfully terminated in March 2023 when the alleged harassment and Southwest’s failure to adequately intervene caused her to suffer severe panic attacks that resulted in her taking medical leave.

The plaintiff claims her team lead, an older white male in his 40s, treated their first Zoom training call as if they had just “matched on an internet dating website.” The complaint alleges that the plaintiff’s superior began by telling her she had “such a pretty smile” and, throughout the session, seemed more interested in asking the woman personal questions than discussing job duties or work performance.

During the second training session, the plaintiff kept her camera off to avoid receiving similar comments from the man, the case explains. This “instantly enraged” the team lead, the filing asserts.

“The second training session thus turned into a fifty-six minute [sic] diatribe as [the team lead] belittled [the plaintiff’s] work ethic, character, and personal views,” the complaint alleges. Per the collective action lawsuit, the man called his subordinate a “liar,” told her to “shut up,” and accused her of being “manipulative” because she could “speak well for an African American woman.”

The woman, “physiologically and psychologically shaken” by the meeting, reported the team lead’s behavior to higher-ups at Southwest, who switched the plaintiff to a new team lead while the man apparently faced no disciplinary action, the case says.

“The cumulative effect of [the man’s] harassment, management’s apathy and disbelief and the sudden switch to a new team lead took a harsh psychological toll on [the plaintiff]–she had a panic attack, broke out in hives and had to go to an emergency room,” the complaint shares.

The plaintiff says she continued to experience severe anxiety symptoms and was advised by a mental health professional to take medical leave from December 2022 through February 2023. Southwest approved the leave but subsequently fired the plaintiff when she needed additional time off in March 2023, the filing claims.

“As [the plaintiff’s] employer, Southwest owed a duty of care to [the plaintiff],” the case contends. “At the very least, this duty included not violating Nevada state law and public policy–i.e., not discriminating against [the plaintiff] based on her race and sex, not ratifying and condoning her harassment, not retaliating against her, and not terminating her.”

The filing also claims the airline has violated state and federal labor laws by failing to compensate customer representatives for work performed before clocking in for their shifts. Per the case, employees were required before each shift to spend approximately five unpaid minutes booting up their computer, logging into Southwest’s virtual private network, signing into its timekeeping program and entering their clock-in time.

The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to pay workers one-and-one-half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 each week, the case relays.

“Because [the plaintiff] and class members typically worked 8 hours per shift and 40 hours per week, nearly all boot time constituted unpaid overtime,” the filing alleges.

Finally, the suit charges Southwest unlawfully failed to include all forms of compensation as part of the workers’ regular rate of pay when calculating their overtime wages. For instance, the complaint contends the defendant did not include in this calculation a $75 stipend remote employees receive each pay period, nor did it include non-discretionary bonuses.

The Southwest lawsuit looks to represent any current and former customer representatives employed by the airline in the United States at any time within the last three years.

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