Opinion ID: 501223
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Elliott-Larsen Act

Text: 68 The union's first claim is that the District Court misapplied Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Act, Mich.Comp.Laws Ann. Secs. 37.2101-.2804 (1985). The District Court found the union liable for violating the specific terms of Sec. 37.2204(a)-(d), which deals with discrimination by a union against its membership. 2 Under the burden-shifting analysis incorporated into the Elliott-Larsen Act from Title VII, the District Court found that the plaintiffs proved a prima facie case of discrimination which the defendant did not rebut by offering nonpretextual, nondiscriminatory reasons. The union claims that Sec. 211 of the Elliott-Larsen Act, which exempts disparate treatment that results from a bona fide seniority plan, provides a defense to plaintiffs' prima facie case. 69 It is clear from the record that plaintiffs have indeed shown a prima facie case of discrimination by the union. The attitudes exhibited by the union officials reveal a pervasive gender bias that manifested itself in an unwillingness to represent the female office workers. The second category of factual findings which were described above amply illustrates this discrimination. I find the District Court's factual finding of discriminatory animus on the part of the union to be supported by the testimony and circumstantial evidence in the case. 70 Whether the union's seniority defense is sufficient to rebut the plaintiffs' prima facie case is a more difficult question. The union contended that the plaintiffs lost their jobs through the neutral operation of the seniority system, not discrimination by the union. The District Court, however, undertook its own examination of the seniority provision and determined that the plaintiffs would not have lost their jobs under the seniority system if it had been properly applied; therefore, the union could not claim the seniority system as a defense. 71 In my view the District Court erred in its construction of the seniority system applicable to the Square Deal/Cassens merger. To understand the operation of that system it is necessary to understand each of its component parts. The first level of seniority provided for office workers by the agreement is terminal seniority. Terminal seniority allows an office worker to bid for jobs available in his or her bargaining unit within a particular terminal. See National Master Automobile Transporters Agreement, Michigan Office Workers Supplement, Article 38, Sec. 2 (NMATA Supplement). It is important to note that since office workers were restricted to a separate bargaining unit, terminal seniority could only be used to secure office work. Company seniority reflected an employee's seniority within the entire company, rather than within just a particular jobsite. In the event of layoffs at a particular jobsite, a senior employee could exercise seniority rights to gain employment at a different office, at the expense of the junior employee holding that other job. As with terminal seniority, however, office workers exercising company seniority could only bump other office workers; they could not cross-bump junior workers from the non-office bargaining units. See NMATA Supplement, Article 39, Sec. 3. 72 Article 5, Sec. 1 of the National Master Automobile Transporters Agreement provides a procedure to combine seniority lists in the event of a merger. This section mandates dovetailing of the terminal seniority lists of the two merging entities. The District Court read this section to require that one list be prepared for each company, with that list ranking employees by their seniority without regard to their bargaining unit. The effect would be to abolish the historic segregation of lists by job classification. Under this reading, an office worker with 15 years seniority could cross-bump a non-office worker with less seniority. Since this clearly would not be possible in the absence of a merger because of the clear language of Article 39, Secs. 2-3 of the NMATA Supplement, the District Court must have found that the merger provision contemplated lumping all employees into one group regardless of their former bargaining unit with the effect of allowing cross-bumping. 73 The District Court erred in its construction of the merger provision. The provision itself contemplates that multiple lists could result from dovetailing. The merger provision directs that the office workers list from one company be merged with the office workers list from the other company--and that other bargaining unit lists be combined in the same way--in order to maintain the segregation of workers by their bargaining unit or job description. The contract does not envision that the event of a merger will allow office employees to do what they could not do otherwise: cross-bump less senior employees from different bargaining units. 74 The District Court relied on a number of instances in which cross-bumping was allowed--including the driver/yard special bid--to determine that cross-bumping was not prohibited. Whatever the evidence on bumping between other bargaining units, it is clear that the office unit was never allowed to bump into non-office jobs. Custom and practice therefore reinforce the clear language of the contract provision in prohibiting office workers from cross-bumping, and the office workers had no right to bid for non-office jobs either before or after the merger. 75 Although I find the District Court's analysis of the union's seniority defense to be erroneous, this finding would not affect the union's ultimate liability. The defense interposed by a bona fide seniority system would allow differences in compensation, or in terms, conditions, or privileges of employment arising from the operation of such a seniority system. The disparity here, however, is in the representation afforded female office workers by the union. No seniority plan forced the union to ignore, mislead, or segregate the female office workers. The defense, therefore, affords no relief from the substantive basis of the plaintiffs' complaint--it is a meritorious, but incomplete defense. 76 The seniority defense, however, is important in two other respects. First, the process of labor contract interpretation that is required to prove or disprove the defense raises the possibility of federal preemption under Sec. 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act. This problem is addressed in the preemption section below. The second issue is whether the plaintiffs' inability to obtain new, non-office jobs with Cassens under their contract mitigates the damages attributable to the union's discrimination. In other words, if the plaintiffs would have lost their jobs anyway, what reduction is due in the damage award assessed against the union? This question is addressed in the section on damages also presented below.