Opinion ID: 374663
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Retroactive Seniority

Text: 62 FOP also claims that the consent decree impermissibly awards retroactive seniority to blacks, Latins, and women. This assertion widely misses the mark on two counts. First, the consent decree does not award any retroactive seniority at all; it states merely that (t)he City shall compute the seniority of each member of the affected class based on the total seniority of that person with the City. This approach to seniority has nothing fictional or retroactive about it, as each employee is given seniority credit for the time he was employed by the City. 63 Second, FOP's argument that retroactive seniority is impermissible is based on International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 52 L.Ed.2d 396 (1977), which is at most peripherally relevant to the fact situation here. In Teamsters, the Court held that § 703(h) of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(h), 35 immunizes from attack under Title VII otherwise bona fide seniority systems that afford no constructive seniority to victims discriminated against prior to the effective date of Title VII. 97 S.Ct. at 1861. Here, the seniority system was not imposed by the court over the objection of the employer, but it was voluntarily agreed to by the employer. 36 To say that a seniority system is immunized from attack means that the employer cannot be forced against its will to modify the system, not that the employer cannot agree to change it. 64 Here, as in Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U.S. 747, 96 S.Ct. 1251, 47 L.Ed.2d 444 (1976), there can be no argument that the seniority system imposed by the decree in any way deprives other employees of indefeasibly vested rights conferred by the employment contract. See Franks, 96 S.Ct. at 1271. Just as a collective bargaining agreement may, for the purpose of furthering public policy interests beyond what is required by statute, enhance the seniority status of certain employees even though to some extent this will be detrimental to the expectations of other employees, Franks, supra, 37 so may an employer voluntarily consent to changes in seniority provisions that do not abridge contractual, statutory, or constitutional rights of its employees or their bargaining agent to further important public policy interests. 38 Indeed, at least one district court has gone further, and held that an affirmative action compliance agreement negotiated between a federal agency and an employer relieves the employer of its obligation under a collective bargaining agreement to arbitrate grievances concerning employee layoffs, when the procedure for choosing which employees to lay off was mandated by the compliance agreement. See Savannah Printing Specialties & Paper Products Local 604 v. Union Camp Corp., 350 F.Supp. 632 (S.D.Ga.1972). 65 Although City of Miami employees may subjectively have expected the City to continue to use the criteria for promotion it had used prior to the consent decree, the FOP has been unable to articulate any doctrine which would demonstrate that this subjective expectation was protected by Florida law. It merely baldly concludes that the old promotional system gave employees a vested right to expect to be promoted if they qualified under its guidelines . . . . Reply Brief for Appellant FOP at 6. Given the complete absence of any support for this assertion, we doubt its validity. 66 However, we need not stop to conduct a detailed inquiry, since we do not believe analysis along this line would be helpful in determining whether the consent decree is legal under Title VII. It is undoubtedly true that even expectancies characterized as vested rights under state law must fall before a court adjudication that Title VII mandates that the expectancies not be fulfilled. See, Franks, supra, 96 S.Ct. at 1268-69; United States v. Hayes International Corp., 456 F.2d 112, 118 (5th Cir. 1972). Thus, even if vested, the rights would not be absolute. Because of Title VII's emphasis on voluntary compliance, see p. 1331, supra, we believe it equally true that such expectancies, even if vested for some purposes, 39 are not protected against voluntary affirmative action programs which are otherwise valid. The primary focus must be on the reasonableness of the affirmative action plan in the particular circumstances of the employer, as discussed supra pp. 1338-1340, and we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by attempts to characterize it as an interference with vested rights.