Opinion ID: 389263
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Union's Liability

Text: 33 The district court predicated UTU's liability on § 703(c) of Title VII, which provides, in pertinent part: It shall be an unlawful employment practice for a labor organization (3) to cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an individual in violation of this section. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(c). UTU contends that even if the seniority system is invalid under section 703(h), the union cannot be held liable. The essence of its arguments can be summarized as follows: (1) UTU exercised no hiring or transfer authority; (2) UTU did not influence Santa Fe's hiring policies and used only lawful means to protest the assignment of braking tasks to porters; (3) UTU owed plaintiffs no duty of representation. 34 At trial, the parties stipulated that UTU had no hiring authority. 454 F.Supp. at 167. UTU contends that its lack of legal hiring or transfer authority is determinative. 8 Obviously, lack of authority to hire or transfer is not determinative on the issue whether the union violated § 703(c). That section proscribes the indirect role of encouraging discrimination by an employer, by making it an unlawful hiring practice for unions to cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate. 35 UTU argues that because the railroad was not a closed shop until 1965, its white membership requirement (removed in 1960) did not deter blacks from applying for brakeman positions or influence Santa Fe's hiring policies. Separately, UTU contends that its efforts to take braking duties from porters were simply lawful resort to administrative agencies to regain the disputed head-end braking duties, claiming that (n)owhere in the record is there anything to support even an inference that on the Santa Fe UTU demanded that blacks be hired only as Chair Car Attendants or Train Porters. UTU Brief 22. 36 We find these arguments unpersuasive. The net effect of UTU's actions was that it gained control of most braking work, and it allocated the work to its white members only. We agree with the district court's holdings that UTU's role in creating the invalid seniority system was at least as great as Santa Fe's, 454 F.Supp. at 180, and that the discrimination perpetuated by the seniority system was approved by, acquiesced in, and maintained and demanded by the 'white' unions. 454 F.Supp. at 174. A union's role as a party to a collective bargaining agreement may be sufficient to impose back pay liability on the union. See Kaplan v. International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, 525 F.2d 1354, 1360 (9th Cir. 1975); Johnson v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 491 F.2d 1364, 1381 (5th Cir. 1974). We hold that these actions were at least an attempt to cause the employer to discriminate against plaintiffs and, therefore, violated § 703(c). 9 37 The fact that UTU was the bargaining agent for brakemen and not for porters does not change the result. While the Railway Labor Act (RLA), 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq., empowers unions to act as the exclusive bargaining agent for those it represents, it in no way immunizes a union's discrimination. Bargaining agents may not use their power to discriminate against the non-union or minority members of the craft they represent, Steele v. Louisville & Nashville RR., 323 U.S. 192, 65 S.Ct. 226, 89 L.Ed. 173 (1944), or against minority employees in other craft designations. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Howard, 343 U.S. 768, 775, 72 S.Ct. 1022, 1026, 96 L.Ed. 1283 (1952). 10 Moreover, liability here is premised on the Civil Rights Act not on the RLA. While Title VII did not invalidate the RLA, it proscribes discriminatory conduct not dealt with and not immunized by the RLA. 38 Thus, the union's role in freezing the status quo of a prior discriminatory seniority system, not immunized under section 703(h), renders it liable to those upon whom the seniority system had an adverse impact. 39 The trial court gave relief against the union only to the train porter subclass, denying relief to the chair car attendants. It reasoned that the impact of the seniority system is upon those class members who performed braking duties but did not accrue braking seniority, i. e., persons employed as train porters. It also stated that because plaintiffs employed as chair car attendants at the effective date of the Act were not performing braking duties, they had no right to accumulate brakeman seniority and the invalid seniority system had no discriminatory impact upon them. Plaintiffs argue that all class members, porters and chair car attendants alike, suffered the same disparate impact of a restriction of employment opportunities and thus all are entitled to the same relief. Defendants support the district court's denial of recovery to chair car attendants, but assert that the award to the porter subclass was improper because the porter position was not substantially similar to the brakeman position. 40 We agree with the district court that the union is liable in damages to the porters. Notwithstanding defendants' assertions, the porters were Santa Fe employees performing braking functions essentially like the nonblack brakemen. 11 These porters were not denied the job, instead they were denied the title of brakeman, extra pay accruing to that position, and the opportunity for further employment advancement. These results were perpetuated into the post-Act period by the invalid seniority system. The union is liable because it helped perpetuate this discrimination. See Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 349, 97 S.Ct. at 1861. If the craft distinction between porters and brakemen is ignored as invalid, the union has a duty not to use its power to discriminate against non-union or minority members of the craft. Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Ry., 323 U.S. at 192, 65 S.Ct. at 226. If the craft distinctions are credited, the union, nevertheless, has a duty not to discriminate against minority employees in the other craft designations. See Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Howard, 343 U.S. at 774, 72 S.Ct. at 1025. 41 The chair car attendant's position is different in some respects, but we hold that UTU is liable to this subclass also. The difference is that as of the effective date of Title VII these men were not performing braking functions. The union argues that the chair car attendants were a separate craft, not represented by UTU or its predecessors under the craft-type organization in effect in the railroad industry. All of this is true, but the chair car attendants were victims of the invalid seniority system, in the perpetuation of which the union played a major role. During all of the pre-Title VII years the entry level job on the Santa Fe for a black outside the Silsbee, Texas, district was as chair car attendant. Until 1959 a black could work up to the porter position, where he could perform a brakeman's functions and receive somewhat comparable pay. The entry level job for a white was as brakeman. The union helped perpetuate the discrimination by imposing all white membership rules until 1960, and by seeking and succeeding in obtaining demotion for these class members from the position of porter to chair car attendant. All members of this subclass qualified and served as train porters until demoted in 1959. After 1960, brakemen and switchmen operated under merged seniority rosters. We understand they could be promoted to conductor and could work in that position without losing seniority as brakemen-switchmen. But members of the subclass of chair car attendants were frozen into their position. No one could be promoted to porter. There was no merger of porter or former porter chair car attendants seniority rosters with those of the brakemen-switchmen, nor any right, as we understand, to retain seniority in the old job if a brakeman's position was sought. This situation continued in the post-Act period under contracts negotiated between UTU and Santa Fe. The system discouraged application for the better paying brakemen's positions. Teamsters said 42 One kind of practice 'fair in form, but discriminatory in operation' is that which perpetuates the effects of prior discrimination. As the Court held in Griggs : 'Under the Act, practices, procedures, or tests neutral on their face, and even neutral in terms of intent, cannot be maintained if they operate to  freeze the status quo of prior discriminatory employment practices.' 401 U.S., at 430 (91 S.Ct. at 853). 43 Were it not for § 703(h), the seniority system in this case would seem to fall under the Griggs rationale. The heart of the system is its allocation of the choicest jobs, the greatest protection against layoffs, and other advantages to those employees who have been line drivers for the longest time. Where, because of the employer's prior intentional discrimination, the line drivers with the longest tenure are without exception white, the advantages of the seniority system flow disproportionately to them and away from Negro and Spanish-surnamed employees who might by now have enjoyed those advantages had not the employer discriminated before the passage of the Act. This disproportionate distribution of advantages does in a very real sense 'operate to freeze the status quo of prior discriminatory employment practices.'  44 431 U.S. at 349-50, 97 S.Ct. at 1861-62 (footnote omitted). 45 Labor unions as well as employers may be held liable for the perpetuation of prior discrimination through their role in negotiating collective bargaining agreements. E. g., Kaplan v. International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, 525 F.2d 1354 (9th Cir. 1975); Macklin v. Spector Freight Systems, Inc., 478 F.2d 979 (D.C.Cir.1973). Thus the trial court erred in not holding UTU liable in damages to the chair car attendant subclass.