Opinion ID: 611025
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Rights of Other Employees Under the MOU

Text: 23 The government also argues that the Postal Service cannot be required to transfer Buckingham because doing so would violate the rights of other employees under the MOU. The MOU states that [e]xcept in the most unusual of circumstances, if there are sufficient qualified applicants for reassignment at least one out of every four vacancies will be filled by granting requests for reassignment in all offices of 100 or more man years if sufficient requests from qualified applicants have been received. Qualified applicants are defined as those with at least one year of seniority. The MOU also states that [l]ocal economic and unemployment conditions, as well as EEO factors, are valid concerns. When hiring from entrance registers is justified based on these local conditions, an attempt should be made to fill vacancies from both sources. 24 For a number of reasons, the district court correctly concluded that the Post Office could transfer Buckingham without violating the rights of other employees. First, the MOU expressly anticipates that valid concerns, including EEO factors, will be considered in filling vacancies. Second, because only one in four vacant positions is reserved for transfer requests from employees with one year of seniority, one of the remaining three positions could be filled by a handicapped transfer who needs to be reasonably accommodated as required by the Act. Filling a vacancy in this way might displace an entrance employee, but such a person has no rights under the MOU. Finally, even the one in four preference scheme may be overridden in the most unusual of circumstances. Certainly, the Postal Service's duty to comply with federal anti-discrimination law is a sufficiently unusual circumstance to warrant the minimal displacement of its transfer preference scheme. 25 The government cites numerous cases in which courts have held that rights guaranteed by collective bargaining agreements preclude the reasonable accommodation of handicapped employees. The transfer preference scheme prescribed by the MOU is dissimilar to the collective bargaining agreements in those cases. Transferring Buckingham in order to accommodate his disability would not usurp the legitimate rights of other employees under a collective bargaining agreement. Carter v. Tisch, 822 F.2d 465, 467 (4th Cir.1987). See also Shea v. Tisch, 870 F.2d 786, 790 (1st Cir.1989); Jasany v. United States Postal Serv., 755 F.2d 1244, 1251-52 (6th Cir.1985); Daubert v. United States Postal Serv., 733 F.2d 1367, 1369-70 (10th Cir.1984). In all of these cases, the requested accommodation was explicitly prohibited by the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. The courts therefore held that the employer was not required to contravene the legitimate employment rights of others in order to accommodate a handicapped individual. No such contravention is required in order to accommodate Buckingham.