Opinion ID: 300089
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Accounting and Purchasing and Ticket Departments

Text: 38 In August 1969, approximately twenty-five employees (eighteen white and seven black) performed fifteen different contract jobs in these two departments. Thirteen jobs are group 1 and two are group 3. As of December 1, 1969, all blacks hired into the departments have become group 3 Store Helpers or Store Laborers; all whites, except one, have begun in group 1 positions, such as Stockman or Apprentice Clerk. The sole white exception has been S. C. Woodward, who was hired as a Store Helper in 1938 then became a group 1 Ticket Seller in 1939. 39 Both departments are within the work jurisdiction of the BRAC. Consequently blacks have been subject to the group 3-group 1 transfer or promotion restrictions contained in the agreement, discussed supra in regard to the Baggage and Mail Department. Terminal records disclose that no black received a promotion from group 3 to group 1 until June 1969, when Nathaniel Sears became a Stockman. The District Court stated: 40    Nathaniel Sears    testified that he had sought promotion to a Group 1 (Stockman's) job in 1967. The record shows that there are two Stockman's jobs, one of which required typing, and that the job not requiring typing became vacant in 1967. That job was then filled by a Group 1 employee (J. W. Griffin) who previously held the other Stockman's job and who held seniority rights entitling him to bid on the vacant job. Thus, the Stockman's job remaining vacant was the one which required typing. Mr. Sears did not apply for it after being told that typing was a requirement since he could not type. The Stockman's job which does not require typing became vacant again in 1969, Sears was asked if he wanted to apply, he applied for it and was awarded it. 41    The Court finds no racial discrimination in this sequence of events nor in the job experience of Mr. Sears. The initial opening in 1967 was in the same Stockman's job which Mr. Sears now has. However, Mr. Sears did not have seniority rights entitling him to bid on that job and the employee awarded the job did (and, moreover, he had qualifications superior to those of Mr. Sears). The failure to accord Mr. Sears, and others similarly situated, such seniority rights cannot be said to be racially discriminatory. 42 Id. at 586.