Opinion ID: 403759
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Government Printing Office

Text: 7 The Government Printing Office is a unit of the legislative branch employing workers in the competitive service. See Joint Appendix (J.A.) 143. Authority to hire workers skilled in the printing trades is vested in the Public Printer, 44 U.S.C. § 305 (Supp. IV 1980). Wages are set by the Printer in conference with a committee selected by the trades affected, subject to approval by the Joint Committee on Printing of the Congress, id. Workers from the printing trades at GPO, although they hold positions in the competitive service, are not covered by the civil service classification scheme, 5 U.S.C. § 5102(c)(9) (Supp. IV 1980); see J.A. 144. 8 As a result, mandates against discrimination by GPO have had a somewhat different history from mandates against discrimination in the Executive Branch. The original version of Title VII, although not authorizing suits against the federal government, commanded the President to use his authority to ensure equal employment opportunities within the federal government. Civil Rights Act of 1964 § 701(b), Pub.L.No.88-352, 78 Stat. 254. Under this authority, the President promulgated a succession of Executive Orders mandating equal opportunity. The first anti-discrimination proclamation to cover GPO specifically was Executive Order No. 11478, 34 Fed.Reg. 12,985 (1969), which applied to those portions of the legislative and judicial branches of the Federal Government ... having positions in the competitive service and to the employees in those positions. In similar language, the 1972 Title VII amendment allowing suits against the federal government embraced GPO, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(a) (1976), as did the 1974 extension of the right to sue the federal government under the Equal Pay Act. 29 U.S.C. § 203(e)(2)(A)(iii) (1976). 9 Aside from supervisory and managerial personnel, the GPO Bindery employs three classes of workers: journeymen bookbinders, journeymen bindery workers, and printing plant workers. J.A. 147. Journeyman bookbinder is a craft position, that is, a position requiring training in the trade, which in private industry typically is provided through union apprenticeships. Journeymen bindery workers and printing plant workers are classified noncraft by GPO and receive lower wages than bookbinders. J.A. 147-48. When this lawsuit began in 1974, all 279 bookbinders employed by GPO were male; by 1978, only one woman had joined the bookbinders' ranks. Conversely, all but one of the 325 bindery workers employed at GPO in 1974 were women. J.A. 146-47. 10 Some twenty-nine different machines in the GPO Bindery traditionally have been assigned to bookbinders. J.A. 153-54. These range from a complex mailer, operated by two bookbinders with three bindery workers and a printing plant worker, to simple, single operator machines such as perforators, paper folders, paper cutters, hole punchers, and machines for rounding book corners. Other bookbinder tasks include passport inspection (until 1978), covering passports and pamphlets by hand, gluing tablets, and occasional security detail. One group of bookbinders-the Library Section-hand binds, a craft occupation of the old-fashioned genre. Wages paid to craft bookbinders, however, do not vary with the tasks assigned. J.A. 148. 11 GPO divides the non-craft bindery workers into four grades, with increased wages for the higher grades. J.A. 148. Grade 2 bindery workers perform various hand work such as stitching and pasting. They load and unload larger machines in tandem with bookbinders, other bindery workers, or printing plant workers. Grade 2 bindery workers also inspect some finished work; in 1978, six were trained to inspect passports. Grade 3 bindery workers operate the oversewer and Singer sewing machines. J.A. 149-53. Grade 4 bindery workers operate manual and automatic feed Smyth sewing machines-multineedle machines for stitching and gluing bundles of pages together into what becomes the inside of a book. Grade 5 bindery workers are bindery work leaders, who direct other bindery workers with the assistance of some Grade 3 workers. Bindery work leaders, however, have no classic supervisory authority such as control of leave, evaluation, or discipline. J.A. 149. 12 In general, both bookbinders and bindery workers are hired at GPO after experience in private industry. Bookbinders must have served a four-year apprenticeship or have the equivalent in practical craft experience. The equivalent means either training in hand bookbinding, or the ability to operate a folding or gathering machine and one other bookbinding machine. J.A. 155. Bindery workers, even those performing the simplest loading tasks, must have at least two years' experience in private industry. Although occasional instruction is provided on particular machines-and bindery workers allege that discrimination limits the training available-GPO with one exception operates no training program of its own. Employment in GPO thus mirrors employment practices in the private printing industry. Indeed, Kenneth Kingsbury, Superintendent of the GPO Bindery from 1970-77, testified that GPO followed industry and union practices in assigning work. Transcript (Tr.) Mar. 13, 1979, at 11. 13 The bookbinding industry has had a pervasive history of sex segregation. Work traditionally has been divided into men's work and women's work, with the latter stereotypically including hand sewing and sewing machine operation. Industry unions have a similar history of segregation; the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders defined men's work and women's work separately until 1969, J.A. 165, when their constitution was amended to provide that journeymen and journeywomen classifications referred to operations performed rather than to the operator's sex. Plaintiffs' Exhibit 4, International Brotherhood of Bookbinders Book of Laws § 57 (1969). The union constitution continued, however, to stipulate different routes of entry into the trade for men and women, including registration procedures for boys and men, the indenturing of male apprentices, and a four-year apprenticeship for men but a two-year apprenticeship for women. Id. §§ 52-54. Union segregation theoretically ended when the Bookbinders were merged into the Graphic Arts International in 1972, but the bookbinders and bindery workers at GPO were represented by separate, almost entirely single-sex locals until June, 1981. 14 The one departure from GPO's pattern of hiring from private industry was its craft apprenticeship program, begun about 1922 and discontinued in 1974. J.A. 151. The program took four years; salaries began at one-half the salary of the lowest-paid craft position and progressed to 90% of the lowest paid craft position by the fourth year. Tr. Mar. 16, 1979, at 101. Bindery workers who wanted to enter the apprenticeship program thus were obliged to take a pay cut, which they allege discouraged their entry. Bindery workers also contend that the four year requirement was unnecessary in light of their own required experience and training. 15 Beginning about 1969, GPO reserved some positions in the apprenticeship program for its own employees, with the asserted purpose of increasing minority representation in the program. Tr. Mar. 16, 1979, at 87-88. During the final years of the program, 1967-74, 475 men and 52 women (9.8%) entered. Thirty-five of the women in the program came from within GPO; six of these were former bindery workers. J.A. 134-42. Seventy-one men and only one woman were assigned to the Bindery. 2 GPO contends that the program was a major means for women to advance from within, a contention understandably disputed by the plaintiffs. Because almost no craft training was available to women in private industry, the apprenticeship program was the only route for women to gain craft status in the Bindery. 16 Before 1970, all GPO employees could compete for supervisory training by taking a test offered by GPO. In 1970, GPO restricted competition to administrative/clerical employees and craftsmen and discontinued the test. Tr. Mar. 16, 1979, at 112-13. In 1973, GPO limited competition yet further, to craftsmen only. As of October 1978, no women held supervisory positions in the Bindery. Only 65 (3.1%) of craft (including proofreader) or supervisory positions in the entire GPO production department-not just the Bindery-were held by women. J.A. 147. 3 Not surprisingly, the parties offer different explanations for the limitations on supervisor selection. GPO claims the qualifications were reasonable, while the plaintiffs claim that GPO acted to screen out qualified women applicants.