Opinion ID: 1460562
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Customer-Counter-Clerk Position

Text: At the UPS center located in Akron, Ohio there are two shifts: pre-load (the morning shift) and re-load (the evening shift). In pre-load, packages are shipped to the Akron center, where they are unloaded and placed on a conveyor belt for sorting (Primary Sort). From the Primary Sort, the main conveyor breaks off into two parallel, smaller conveyor belts known as the Metro Sort and the East Sort. Moss has worked for UPS since 1976. From 1978 until 1993 (when the position was eliminated) Moss was a part-time, customer-counter clerk at the Akron center. Customer-counter clerks wait on customers and deal with the public. In 1993, Moss became a part-time, pre-load clerk, and worked at the East Sort, where she was the only black employee. As a pre-load clerk, Moss's duties included making address corrections, repairing damaged packages, repacking opened packages, retaping packages, and handling telephone inquiries. Moss was a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and was subject to a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). In 1999 or 2000, Moss learned that UPS was going to build another center in Wadsworth, Ohio. The CBA contained a Change of Operations (COO) provision which under the circumstances of this case would allow employees from the Akron center to follow their work to Wadsworth. Joint Appendix (J.A.) at 619, 624 (CBA at 106; Supp. to CBA at 148). In other words, if a position in Akron was transferred to Wadsworth, the person working in that position in Akron had the right to take the position in Wadsworth. Further, the COO provision provided that when a new center (in this case Wadsworth) opened, any part-time support jobs that were created within thirty days of the opening must be offered, by seniority, to existing part-time support employees from the affected center (in this case Akron). Part-time job openings were filled using intent sheets. According to Moss, as a matter of practice, intent sheets were posted indefinitely until the position was filled and the employee actually began working in that position. Employees interested in the position signed the intent sheet, and the position went to the person with the greatest seniority. In late 2000, intent sheets were posted in Akron for various part-time positions for the Wadsworth facility. Moss saw a posting for her current position (pre-load clerk) even though she had not first been offered the opportunity to follow her work as required by the CBA. She did not see an intent sheet for a customer-counter-clerk position. When Moss inquired about the customer-counter-clerk position, the Metro-Center Manager, Brian Bachiari, told her that UPS had posted and taken down the intent sheet in August 2000, and that the customer-counter-clerk position had been filled. Moss signed the intent sheet for her second choice of pre-load clerk. Later, Moss learned that there were actually two open customer-counter-clerk positions available, but only one of those open positions had been posted at the Akron facility. The two positions were both given to white employees: one was given to a white male, Tom Gradwohl, from the Akron facility, the other to a white female, Margaret Ruddy (Ruddy), from the facility in Middleburg Heights, Ohio. Moss filed a grievance with respect to the manner in which the customer-counter-clerk intent sheet had been posted, alleging that UPS failed to follow policy and the CBA. A grievance hearing was held, resulting in a deadlock decision. At the hearing, Moss made clear that if she could not get a customer-counter-clerk position in Wadsworth, she wanted the pre-load-clerk position in Wadsworth. The next day, Human Resources Manager, Mike Mick (Mick), who had attended the grievance hearing, approached Moss with the Wadsworth pre-load-clerk intent sheet and said, You wanted me to take your name off the pre-load clerk position. J.A. at 586 (Moss Aff. at ¶ 34). Mick told her to cross out her name and initial it. Moss took Mick to mean that UPS would give her the customer-counter-clerk position if she first took her name off the pre-load-clerk-intent sheet, and so she complied with his request. When Moss asked for the intent sheet for the customer-counter-clerk position, Mick informed her that the customer-counter-clerk position had already been filled, and then he walked away.