AERONAUTICAL INDUSTRIAL DIST. v. Campbell

• Decision Date: 22 November 1948
• Docket Number: No. 11750.,11750.
• Citation: 169 F.2d 252
• Parties: AERONAUTICAL INDUSTRIAL DIST. LODGE 727 v. CAMPBELL et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

169 F.2d 252 (1948)

AERONAUTICAL INDUSTRIAL DIST. LODGE 727 v. CAMPBELL et al.

No. 11750.

Circuit Court of Appeals. Ninth Circuit.

July 26, 1948.

Writ of Certiorari Granted November 22, 1948.

Hindin, Weiss & Girard, of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellant.

James M. Carter, U. S. Atty., and Clyde C. Downing and James C. R. McCall, Jr., Asst. U. S. Attys., all of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellees, Campbell, Joplin & Kirk.

Roger B. Smith, Robert H. Canan, and Mark E. True, all of Burbank, Cal., for appellee Lockheed Aircraft Corp.

Before MATHEWS, HEALY, and ORR, Circuit Judges.

Writ of Certiorari Granted November 22, 1948. See 69 S.Ct. 166.

HEALY, Circuit Judge.

The individual appellees are re-employed veterans of the armed forces of the United States entitled to the benefits of § 8 of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, as amended, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 308.¹ At the time of their induction into the army they were employees of appellee Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and were members of appellant Aeronautical Union. At that time a collective bargaining agreement was in effect between appellant and Lockheed, governing the conditions of employment and establishing a system of seniority rights for the employees. At all relevant times appellant was the certified collective bargaining agent for Lockheed's employees.

While appellees were in military service, and prior to their restoration to their former positions with Lockheed, the collective bargaining agreement between Lockheed and appellant was changed in such manner as to accord to union chairmen, employed in similar positions, top seniority over all other like employees in the event of lay-offs due to curtailment of work. Prior to this change, and at the time appellees entered the armed forces, the bargaining agreement provided for layoffs on the basis of straight seniority alone. Within the one year after the restoration of appellees to their former positions each was laid off, due to curtailment of work, while union chairmen with less seniority than any of them were continued in active employment in their job classifications under the top seniority provisions of the bargaining contract mentioned.

The trial court was of opinion that the change in the seniority system at the plant tended to alter adversely the seniority status of re-employed veterans, and thereby to diminish the re-employment benefits which Congress had secured to them by law, hence the attempted change was, as to re-employed veterans, void and of no effect during their statutory year of reemployment. Judgment was awarded each of appellees in the amount of his loss of wages suffered by reason of his lay-off.

Appellant relies for reversal on a series of opinions by the Third Circuit, namely, Gauweiler v. Elastic Stop Nut Corp., 3 Cir., 162 F.2d 448; Koury v. Elastic Stop Nut Corp., 3 Cir., 162 F.2d 544; Di Maggio v. Elastic Stop Nut Corp., 3 Cir., 162 F.2d 546; and Payne v. Wright Aeronautical Corp., 3 Cir., 162 F.2d 549, each of which involved identical or very similar factual situations and questions of law. The court arrived at a conclusion contrary to that reached below. In the first three of ...