Court Opinion

ID: 9448567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:40:08.492788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:29.232957
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent as I think that there was sufficient proof of General Motors’ intent to discriminate against the plaintiff veterans, and I vote to reverse the district court’s dismissal of the complaint.
In each of General Motors’ fiscal years beginning with 1940, with the sole exception of the fiscal year ended June 30, 1946, GM has given each employee who was in the company’s employ at the end of the fiscal year vacation pay amounting to one or two weeks wages, depending on the length of the employee’s service.
GM’s employees were on strike from November 1945 to March 1946. In the negotiations to settle the strike GM proposed that vacation pay for fiscal 1946 be a percentage of each employee’s earnings for fiscal 1946. If the union had accepted, vacation pay would have reflected the 4 months of the fiscal year that the employees were on strike. After considerable bargaining, GM and the union reached an agreement to pay each employee a percentage of his earnings during calendar 1945, during which the employees were on strike only 1% months. However, the percentage selected was so high that the employees other than returning veterans got over $2,500,000 more vacation pay than they would have *723gotten had GM computed vacation pay under the method used for every year before and after fiscal 1946.
About 50,000 of GM’s World War II veterans returned to work at GM’s plants between the end of the strike in March 1946 and the.end of GM’s fiscal year on June 30, 1946. Since vacation pay for fiscal 1946 was computed as a percentage of calendar 1945 earnings, these employees received no vacation pay for fiscal 1946. Computing veterans’ vacation pay in this manner gave GM a saving of over $4,500.000 as compared to computing their vacation pay in the manner used for previous and succeeding years, and a saving of nearly $1,000,000 as compared to computing their vacation pay as a percentage of their actual earnings during fiscal 1946.
On the previous appeal of this case, this court reversed a summary judgment for GM and affirmed a denial of summary judgment for plaintiff, saying that “plaintiff is entitled to a trial on the issue of defendant’s intention to discriminate against veterans.” 229 F.2d 408, 412 (2 Cir. 1955), cert. denied, 351 U.S. 983; 76 S.Ct. 1050, 100 L.Ed. 1497 (1956). At that time plaintiff had not yet introduced the evidence, which is now in the record, proving that the formula selected for fiscal 1946 practically eliminated the vacation pay of returning veterans while increasing non-veterans’ vacation pay. The majority opinion concedes that GM must have known that the formula adopted would have this result. Yet the majority does not find “that there was a purpose or motive to discriminate.”
The Supreme Court has interpreted § 8(c) of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, quoted supra in the majority opinion, as prohibiting discrimination against veterans because they are veterans. Oakley v. Louisville & Nashville R. R., 338 U.S. 278, 284, 70 S.Ct. 119, 94 L.Ed. 87 (1949); Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U.S. 330, 336, 73 S.Ct. 681, 97 L.Ed. 1048 (1953); Trailmobile v. Whirls, 331 U.S. 40, 59-60, (majority), 62-64, 67 S.Ct. 982, 91 L.Ed. 1328 (dissent) (1947); Diehl v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 348 U.S. 960, 75 S.Ct. 521, 99 L.Ed. 749 (1955), reversing per curiam 211 F.2d 95 (3 Cir. 1954). Accord Siaskiewicz v. General Electric Co., 166 F.2d 463, 466 (2 Cir. 1948).
In the closely related field of employer discrimination designed to encourage or discourage membership in a labor union, under § 8(a) (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(a) (3), the Supreme Court has held that although an intent to discriminate is a prerequisite to violation of the statute, Radio Officers’ Union of Commercial Telegraphers Union, AFL v. N. L. R. B., 347 U.S. 17, 42-44, 74 S.Ct. 323, 98 L.Ed. 455 (1954), there need be no specific evidence of intent “where employer conduct inherently encourages or discourages union membership” since “a man is held to intend the foreseeable consequences of his conduct.” Radio Officers’ Union v. N. L. R. B., supra, at 45, 74 S.Ct. at 338. Since GM knew that the change in its method of computing vacation pay necessarily discriminated against the returning veterans, it had the requisite intent to discriminate.
To require specific proof of a “hostile” attitude toward veterans, as does the majority, would severely reduce the scope of the rights granted by § 8(c). GM’s action certainly was not prompted by a dislike of veterans. It was prompted by a desire to settle the matters in issue on favorable financial terms. Section 8(c) of the Selective Training and Service Act, as I interpret it, requires that this be done in such a way that returning veterans are not in fact treated differently from non-veterans. As the loss to the veterans and the consequent gain to GM are both obvious, I think the agreement with the union was discriminatory.
Nor can GM claim that collective bargaining justifies this discrimination. An employer cannot justify illegal discrimination by proof that a union forced it upon the employer. Radio Officers’ Union of Commercial Telegraphers Union, AFL v. N. L. R. B., supra; Fishgold v. *724Sullivan DryDock & Repair Corp., 328 U.S. 275, 285, 66 S.Ct. 1105, 90 L.Ed. 1230 (1946).
Nevertheless, the veterans should not get vacation pay as if they had been working for the entire fiscal year 1946. The majority cites Aeronautical Ind’l Dist. Lodge 727 v. Campbell, 337 U.S. 521, 69 S.Ct. 1287, 93 L.Ed. 1513 (1949), and Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U.S. 330, 73 S.Ct. 681, 97 L.Ed. 1048 (1953), as holding that changes which disadvantage veterans are legal so long as there is no explicit proof of hostility to veterans. But I read them as holding that reasonable changes occurring in the regular course of collective bargaining do not violate the statute. Provisions which are not at all uncommon, see Aeronautical Ind’l Dist. Lodge 727 v. Campbell, supra, 337 U.S. at 528, 69 S.Ct. 1287, 93 L.Ed. 1513, such as the computation of vacation pay on the basis of the amount of work rendered, should not be struck down. This court has expressly held that vacation pay is an incident of actual work and that veterans need not be treated as if they had been at work while in military service. Siaskiewicz v. General Electric Co., 166 F.2d 463 (2 Cir. 1948); Dwyer v. Crosby, 167 F.2d 567 (2 Cir. 1948). Therefore, a GM contract to pay an employee, veteran or non-veteran, a percentage of his earnings during the fiscal year 1946 would have been valid. Such an agreement would not have discriminated against veterans any more than GM’s refusal to give vacation pay to veterans during fiscal 1944 or 1945 while they were in military service the entire year. However, GM’s decision to pay a percentage of calendar 1945 earnings rather than a percentage of fiscal 1946 earnings produced an unjustified discrimination against veterans. Although many veterans worked between the end of the strike and June 30, 1946, they got no vacation pay therefor. The majority quotes the trial court opinion as saying that GM had “a justified belief that vacation allowance was * * * compensation for work . performed.” Consequently, the veterans are entitled to vacation pay based upon a percentage of their actual earnings during the fiscal year 1946.
I would reverse and remand for computation of the plaintiff’s damages.