Johnson v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Synthetic Rub. Pl.

• Decision Date: 27 March 1974
• Docket Number: No. 73-1712.,73-1712.
• Citation: 491 F.2d 1364
• Parties: R. L. JOHNSON, Plaintiff-Appellant-Cross Appellee, v. The GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY, SYNTHETIC RUBBER PLANT, et al., Defendants-Appellees-Cross Appellants, International Union of Operating Engineers, AFL-CIO, Local Union No. 347, Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellee. INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, AFL-CIO, LOCAL UNION NO. 347, Plaintiff-Cross Appellee, v. The GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY, HOUSTON CHEMICAL PLANT, Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

491 F.2d 1364 (1974)

R. L. JOHNSON, Plaintiff-Appellant-Cross Appellee, v. The GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY, SYNTHETIC RUBBER PLANT, et al., Defendants-Appellees-Cross Appellants, International Union of Operating Engineers, AFL-CIO, Local Union No. 347, Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellee.

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, AFL-CIO, LOCAL UNION NO. 347, Plaintiff-Cross Appellee, v. The GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY, HOUSTON CHEMICAL PLANT, Defendant-Appellee-Cross Appellant.

No. 73-1712.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

March 27, 1974.

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Gabrielle K. McDonald, Mark T. McDonald, Houston, Tex., Jack Greenberg, William L. Robinson, Morris J. Baller, C. Vernon Mason, New York City, for R. L. Johnson.

V. Regan Burch, Jr., Houston, Tex., for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. et al.

William N. Wheat, Houston, Tex., for Intern. Union of Operating Engineers.

William A. Carey, Gen. Counsel, Julia P. Cooper, Associate Gen. Counsel, Beatrice Rosenberg, Joseph T. Eddins, Josephine A. Trevathan, Charles L. Thomas, Attys., E. E. O. C., Washington, D. C., amicus curiae.

Before GEWIN, AINSWORTH and MORGAN, Circuit Judges.

GEWIN, Circuit Judge:

One of our nation's emerging legal and moral precepts is that persons may not be denied employment on the basis of their race. When the employment relationship becomes tainted with racial discrimination, federal remedial legislation has created a right of action ensuring that a discriminatee may be made whole for an employer's misconduct. As in other instances, the legislative branch has placed a heavy burden on the judiciary in the ultimate resolution of such grievances. It is our difficult task, therefore, under inherent equitable principles to devise the manner, means and method for resolving these disputes. In this regard, the complexity of the judiciary's responsibility is further enhanced by the tremendous volume and variety of the cases emanating from pervasive and prohibited employment practices. Today we are obliged to determine the appropriateness of a back pay award and other remedial relief needed to restore a class which has been subjected to prohibited racial discrimination to the economic level it would have achieved but for the employer's discriminatory conduct.

As we have stated in a related context:

It may be observed that on the surface the present case concerns only the meaning of certain statutory provisions. But beneath the legal facade a faint hope is discernible rising like a distant star over a swamp of uncertainty and perhaps of despair. Those who love their work may sometimes forget that a successful human community requires the performance of many vapid and colorless tasks. Even the most tedious physical labor is endurable and in a sense enjoyable, however, when the laborer knows that his work will be appreciated and his progress rewarded.

* * * * * *

The ethic which permeates the American dream is that a person may advance as far as his talents and his merit will carry him. footnote omitted And it is unthinkable that a citizen of this great country should be relegated to unremitting toil with never a glimmer of light in the midnight of it all.¹

I. The Facts

On September 17, 1969, appellant R. L. Johnson instituted this employment discrimination action on behalf of himself and all other black employees similarly situated at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company's plant hereinafter "Goodyear" in Houston, Texas. The class predicated its right to relief on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act² and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. In order to provide a complete resolution of the issues involved, the class was permitted to join as a party-defendant Local 347 of the International Union of Operating Engineers (the union). Johnson and the class prayed that the court enjoin Goodyear and the union from their continued discriminatory employment practices and requested back wages to make the members of the class allegedly the victims of such discrimination whole.³

Goodyear's Houston plant was originally operated by the United States Government during the war years of World War II. Goodyear assumed ownership and control in 1955. The plant, which produces synthetic rubber, is divided into the following eight departments: production, utilities, shipping and traffic, receiving and stores, the laboratory, oiler group, fire, and labor.

In 1957, Goodyear adopted a policy which required all new hirees to possess a high school diploma and pass certain written tests. These job qualifications were imposed on all new employees except those workers hired into the labor department. Additionally, any tenured employee wishing to transfer out of the labor department was required to meet the new criteria. Those employees hired before 1957 into non-labor department positions however, did not have to meet the new qualifications to retain their positions.

The economic status which the labor department occupies within Goodyear's organizational chart is not in doubt. Goodyear admitted and the evidence demonstrates that labor department jobs are the lowest paying positions in the plant. Furthermore, black employees at Goodyear were completely confined to the labor department until 1962. The evidence indicates that even following that date their appearance in the other departments of the plant was slight.⁴ The employee composition of the labor department remained all black until September of 1965 when one white employee was hired into it.

In 1968, Goodyear promulgated a new employment plan which permitted the transfer of labor department employees to other departments within the plant if they possessed a seventh-grade education and could pass the required examinations. However, potential labor department transferors would lose their accumulated departmental seniority upon transfer. In 1969, Goodyear eliminated the testing barrier for pre-1957 labor department employees but continued the departmental seniority system.⁵ Ultimately in July of 1971, Goodyear abandoned its testing and educational requirements for all transfers. Later, on November 8, 1971, Goodyear endeavored to unilaterally modify its collective bargaining agreement with the union which imposed departmental seniority, but on November 19, 1971 the union sought and obtained a preliminary injunction from the district court against any change. The district court resolved that the validity of the seniority provision in the collective bargaining agreement should be decided simultaneously with Johnson's claims since they were inextricably connected.

Johnson was hired in 1944 and has been an employee of the labor department since that time. He possesses an eleventh-grade education (considered equivalent to a high school diploma). Notwithstanding Goodyear's various alleged "affirmative" actions previously enumerated, Johnson has never sought a transfer because such a transfer would deprive him of his accumulated seniority in the labor department.

Following trial on the merits, the district court rendered its opinion on August 10, 1972.⁶ It held that Goodyear had discriminated against blacks hired before 1957 because they had been assigned automatically to the plant's labor department and subsequently were confined to that department by Goodyear's testing and educational criteria required for a transfer to other departments in the plant. Conjointly as to these black employees, the court enjoined the use of departmental seniority and granted them plant seniority through their first transfer to another department.

The court also concluded that blacks hired between 1957 and July 2, 1965 were the victims of proscribed conduct by Goodyear's hiring and transfer practices which placed black employees in the labor department and prescribed a high school diploma for a subsequent transfer to non-labor department positions. Accordingly, it conferred upon these employees plant seniority through their first transfer and forbade the interposition of the educational standard as a barrier to their transfer. The court, however, declined to grant further relief because it determined that Goodyear had not discriminated against blacks hired subsequent to July 2, 1965. It held that Johnson had failed to prove that the tests adversely affected labor department employees seeking transfer subsequent to 1957. The court denied back pay relief except to the named individual plaintiff, Johnson, without delineating any reasons for its conclusion.

With respect to the union, the court found that it had impermissibly restricted black employees to the labor department by being a party to the collective bargaining agreement which imposed departmental seniority. The court imposed back pay liability on the union from the time the union sought and received a preliminary injunction against Goodyear's unilateral modification of the seniority agreement until its judgment. Furthermore, it ordered the union to pay one third of the court costs and one third of Johnson's attorney fees.

All parties have appealed from the court's judgment. Essentially, Johnson alleges that the district court erred in concluding that black employees hired after 1965 into the labor department were not the victims of discrimination by Goodyear's testing program and in refusing to award class-wide back pay. Goodyear claims that the evidence does not support the finding that the use of the high school diploma as a pre-condition to hire or transfer discriminated against blacks. The union maintains that there was no evidence presented which would provide a basis for the finding that it had discriminated against black employees and thus the lower court erred in holding that it was liable for part of the back pay and counsel fees awarded to Johnson.

II The Employment Practices

A. High School Diploma Requirement

The district court found that Goodyear's high school diploma requirement began in 1957 for hiring or interdepartmental...