The year was 1968. Don Draper ruled Madison Avenue, and stewardesses (that’s what they were called then) ruled the skies…that is, as long as they did not work for United Airlines and were not married. A fight for their equal rights started in 1968, and was won 18 long years later, on October 6, 1986.
Until November 7, 1968, United Airlines required its female stewardesses to remain unmarried as a condition of employment. No similar restriction was placed on male stewards (called cabin flight attendants). The dichotomy was exposed when United Airlines hired 48 male native Hawaiians on its Honolulu routes to provide “local color” (United’s words, not The Edge’s). The male Hawaiians were permitted to marry. United Airlines’ attempt at justifying this policy was, at best, awkward: it argued that male business travelers were lured to flying by single stewardesses.
According to the United States Supreme Court case, United Airlines v. McDonald, the “no marriage” rule resulted in the termination of a “large number” of stewardesses. One of the first to bring a challenge was Mary Sprogis, who brought an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) challenge in August of 1966. The EEOC issued a right to sue letter, and then Sprogis filed an individual action in a federal district court. That case morphed into a class action representing 1,725 women.
The flight attendants’ union supported Sprogis. Six weeks after the commencement of the federal lawsuit in 1968, the union was able to negotiate a deal that stewardesses who were already on the payroll could get married. Three years later, United Airlines began hiring married women.
Unfortunately, the union’s fight on behalf of current employees at the time could not get the 1,725 women who had lost their jobs back to work. It took eighteen years of litigation, all the way through the United States Supreme Court, to finally get closure for these victims of discrimination. This month in labor history, on October 6, 1986, a federal judge approved the class action settlement that finally resolved the matter once and for all. Pursuant to its terms, United Airlines agreed to pay more than $37 million in back pay and to reinstate 475 women to employment. The settlement also provided for seniority and pension adjustments.