Do airlines follow state labor laws for an employees residences, or do they follow the laws associated with the state of the airline headquarters?

Let's say I lived in Utah and worked for Delta Air Lines. Would Utah law or Georgia law apply?

Thanks!

It depends. Various factors, and I probably can't even list all of them...

RLA/CBA... generally anything specified in your union CBA is federal under the RLA. So it's going to be hard to get help from state labor agencies or courts with that. It's happened though, I know that FA's (and even FO's back in the $19/hour era) were able to get minimum wage for DUTY via a State (Utah IIRC).

OSHA... for crew and airplanes this is federal, and left to the FAA, not federal or state OSHA. So your only protections are whatever FARs apply. If you're not in (or near?) an airplane, non-FAA OSHA probably applies.

General Employee Benefits... if not specified in a CBA then you're probably treated like any other local employee. Same for things like harassment claims... if YOU'RE accused of something, the union discipline process will apply (off probation). If you accuse someone else, who's not RLA, then it's a local matter.

I know that some local rules have even been applied to crew, but the two cases I recall of were actually non-union: Skywest and Virgin America employees got 100% company-paid medical when based at SFO due to local law.

For hiring practices, since you're not yet a union member, that will be 100% state/local law and I believe that's mostly company headquarters location since crew are not really hired into a specific base (we're assignable to anywhere). But some states try to SPECIFICALLY require that anyone hiring their residents comply with whatever rules they may have... in that case your state of residence might matter.

So no easy answer... if it's obvious CBA stuff ask your union folks. Otherwise you'd need to ask a local lawyer.