Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/337/521
Timestamp: 2014-03-07 13:34:06
Document Index: 619803937

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 8', '§ 308', '§ 308', '§ 8', '§ 308', '§ 308', '§ 8', '§ 8']

AERONAUTICAL INDUSTRIAL DIST. LODGE 727 v. CAMPBELL et al. | LII / Legal Information Institute
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337 U.S. 521 (69 S.Ct. 1287, 93 L.Ed. 1513)
AERONAUTICAL INDUSTRIAL DIST. LODGE 727 v. CAMPBELL et al.
Argued: and Submitted Jan. 31, 1949.
[HTML] Mr. Maurice J. Hindin, Los Angeles, Cal., for petitioner.
We brought this case here, 335 U.S. 869, 69 S.Ct. 166, to resolve a conflict of views between two Courts of Appeals in their interpretation of the rights given to veterans of World War II by § 8 of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, as amended, 54 Stat. 885, 890, 58 Stat. 798, 50 U.S.C.App. § 308, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 308. Three veterans brought this suit for compensation for the period of a layoff while employed at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, a respondent here. The facts controlling the legal claims of all three may be represented by the circumstances attending Kirk's employment and layoff.
The petitioner, Aeronautical Industrial District Lodge No. 727, was the duly recognized collective bargaining agent of the employees at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. In September, 1941, the union had negotiated an agreement with Lockheed covering the range of subjects touching conditions of employment typical of such agreements in the aircraft industry. This agreement was in effect when Kirk was employed in August, 1942, by Vega Aircraft Corporation, which afterwards was merged with Lockheed. He joined the union and has remained a member throughout this controversy. He left Lockheed two years later to enter the Army, from which he was honorably discharged in January, 1946, and was restored to his job at Lockheed in accordance with § 8(a) of the Selective Service Act. 54 Stat. 885, 890, as amended, 50 U.S.C.App. § 308(a) 50 U.S.C.Appendix, § 308(a). While Kirk was in military service his union made a new agreement with Lockheed modifying the terms of the 1941 agreement in various particulars. Crucial to the issue here was a change in the seniority provisions of the former agreement. The change provided that 'Union Chairmen who have acquired seniority shall be deemed to have top seniority as long as they remain Chairmen.'
In plain English this means that thereafter employees who served as union chairmen were entitled to be retained in case of layoffs regardless of their length of service in the plant.
In the latter part of June, 1946, and within a year after Kirk's reemployment, it was necessary to lay off employees in Kirk's industrial unit. These layoffs followed the conventional sequence of seniority, time for military service being duly credited, with the exception that union chairmen were retained in accordance with the 1945 agreement, even though they had less time with the company than those who were laid off, veterans or not. Kirk was among those laid off, and the retention as union chairmen of men who were junior to him is the basis of his claim that § 8 of the Act had been infringed.
Kirk was brought back to work within a month, but Lockheed refused to pay him for the time he was laid off. For this sum he brought this suit. Petitioner Union was allowed to intervene in order to protect its labor contract. Judgment went for Kirk, and the Union alone took the case to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. That court affirmed the judgment,
169 F.2d 252, holding that § 8 of the Act forbade disregard of length of employment, so far as veterans are affected, in enforcing provisions in a collective agreement for the retention of union chairmen in the event of layoffs regardless of their length of service. In so holding it ran counter to a series of decisions in the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Gauweiler v. Elastic Stop Nut Corp., 162 F.2d 448; Koury v. Elastic Stop Nut Corp., 162 F.2d 544; DiMaggio v. Elastic Stop Nut Corp., 162 F.2d 546, and Payne v. Wright Aeronautical Corp., 162 F.2d 549.
Barring legislation not here involved, seniority rights derive their scope and significance from union contracts, confined as they almost exclusively are to unionized industry. See Trailmobile Co. v. Whirls, 331 U.S. 40, 53, note 21, 67 S.Ct. 982, 988, 91 L.Ed. 1328. There are great variations in the use of the seniority principle through collective bargaining bearing on the time when seniority begins, determination of the units subject to the same seniority, and the consequences which flow from seniority. All these variations disclose limitations upon the dogmatic use of the principle of seniority in the interest of the ultimate aims of collective bargaining. Thus, probationary conditions must often be met before seniority begins to operate; sometimes it becomes retroactive to the date of employment; in other instances it is effective only as from the qualifying date; in some industries it is determined on a company basis, in others the occupation or the plant is taken as the unit for seniority determination; sometimes special provisions are made for workers in key positions; and then again these factors are found in varying combinations. See Williamson & Harris, Tren § in Collective Bargaining, 100102 (1945); Harbison, Seniority Policies and Procedures as Developed through Collective Bargaining 110 (1941).
In the ordinary and orderly course of formulating the terms of employment, the 1945 agreement between the union and Lockheed in some directions modified the provisions of the 1941 agreement. A labor agreement is a code for the government of an industrial enterprise and, like all government, ultimately depends for its effectiveness on the quality of enforcement of its code. Because a labor agreement assumes the proper adjustment of grievances at their source, the union chairmen play a very important role in the whole process of collective bargaining. Therefore it is deemed highly desirable that union chairmen have the authority and skill which are derived from continuity in office. A provision for the retention of union chairmen beyond the routine requirements of seniority is not at all uncommon and surely ought not to be deemed arbitrary or discriminatory.
The fact that it may involve, as in Kirk's case, the temporary layoff of a veteran while a nonveteran chairman with less time at the plant is retained, is wholly unrelated to the veteran's absence in the service. Under the 1945 agreement chairmen were to be elected once a year, and unless the election occurred on the day before a veteran returned to the plant, his chance of election would be the same as that of persons who had been continuously at work in the plant.
All this presupposes, obviously, that an agreement containing the 1945 provisions expresses honest desires for the protection of the interests of all members of the union and is not a skillful device of hostility to veterans. There is not the remotest suggestion that the 1945 agreement was other than what it purported to bethe means for securing both to veterans and to non-veterans better working conditions through elected leaders not subject to the contingencies of a labor turnover.
'(b) In the case of any such person who, in order to perform such training and service, has left or leaves a position, other than a temporary position, in the employ of any employer and who (1) receives such certificate, (2) is still qualified to perform the duties of such position, and (3) makes application for reemployment within ninety days after he is relieved from such training and service or from hospitalization continuing after discharge for a period of not more than one year
Lockheed, the respondent in the District Court, did not appeal. But since the judgment was not merely for money damages but also involved the construction of the collective agreement, the union had the right to appeal. Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corp., 328 U.S. 275, 281284, 66 S.Ct. 1105, 11091110, 90 L.Ed. 1230, 167 A.L.R. 110.
See Greenman, Getting Along With Unions 26 (1948); Union Agreements in the Cotton-Textile Industry, U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bull. No. 885 28 (1946); Thomas, Automobile Unionism 56 (1941); Collective Bargaining Provisions, Seniority Provisions, U.S. Dept. of Labor 2829 (1948); Collective Bargaining in the Office, American Management Assn., Research Rep. No. 12 72. The advantage of this modification in seniority according to length of service in the plant is 'the mutual interest of union and management in preserving the continuity of the bargaining and grievance adjustment personnel.' Seniority Provisions in Union Agreements, U.S. Dept. of Labor, Serial No. R. 1308 7 (1941). While there is not complete agreement on the advantage of seniority for union chairmen, it is certainly within the area of collective bargaining. See Williamson and Harris, Trends in Collective Bargaining 101103 (1945); see Greenman, Getting Along With Unions 8586 (1948). The Nation l War Labor Board recognized 'that the functions of shop stewards and other local union officials were of value to a company as well as to its employees in settling and preventing labor grievances. For this reason, it usually directed seniority preference for union officials in disputes over the issue.' The Termination Report of the National War Labor Board, U.S. Dept. of Labor, Vol. I, p. 148.