Cox v. International Longshoremen's Ass'n, Local 1273

• Decision Date: 26 May 1972
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 69-H-886.
• Citation: 343 F. Supp. 1292
• Parties: Buddy Lloyd COX et al., Plaintiffs, v. INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASSOCIATION, LOCAL 1273, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas

343 F. Supp. 1292

Buddy Lloyd COX et al., Plaintiffs, v. INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASSOCIATION, LOCAL 1273, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 69-H-886.

United States District Court, S. D. Texas, Houston Division.

May 26, 1972.

Anthony J. P. Farris, U. S. Atty., Wayne H. Paris, Asst. U. S. Atty., Houston, Tex., for plaintiffs.

Chris Dixie, Dixie, Wolf & Hall, Houston, Tex., for defendant Local 1273.

Robert Eikel, Eikel & Davey, Houston, Tex., for defendant stevedore companies.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

CARL O. BUE, Jr., District Judge.

This is an action which was tried to the Court. Plaintiffs as veterans seek advancement in seniority as longshoremen and the recovery of back wages of which they were allegedly deprived as a result of the refusal of their alleged employers, International Longshoremen's Association, Local 1273 (Local 1273) and thirty stevedore companies, to grant credit for their time spent in the Armed Forces toward job seniority status pursuant to the Universal Military Training and Service Act, 50 U.S.C. App. § 459.

The facts necessary for decision are essentially undisputed. Plaintiff Cox began working periodically as a longshoreman through Local 1273 in 1963 while still in high school. After completion of his high school education in June of 1965, he continued to work intermittently as a longshore laborer until February 16, 1966, when he was inducted into the United States Army. On February 1, 1968, he returned to longshore work after having received an honorable discharge from the Armed Forces. Plaintiff Heaton similarly worked as a longshoreman through Local 1273 while completing his high school education and thereafter periodically until inducted into the United States Marine Corps on February 21, 1966. On June 24, 1968, he returned to perform a relatively nominal amount of longshore work while, anomalously, waiting for an honorable medical discharge from the Armed Forces. Plaintiff Palmer began longshore work through Local 1273 in 1964 and worked intermittently until inducted into the United States Marine Corps on March 8, 1966. Following receipt of an honorable discharge, he returned to longshore work on March 22, 1968. After returning to this civilian employment at the Houston waterfront, two of the plaintiffs, Cox and Palmer, worked 1,200 hours in a fiscal year and were advanced from an unclassified or probationary type status, generally referred to as Class D, to seniority status designated as Class D-1. However, seniority credit for time spent in military service was not granted to those two plaintiffs, as well as plaintiff Heaton, since they did not work 1,200 hours in the fiscal year prior to their induction pursuant to the union's hiring hall rules.¹ Although plaintiff Heaton remains in the suit as a party, it is apparent that the controlling circumstances on which the legal issues turn in this litigation are found only in the actions of Cox and Palmer.

In order to view in proper context the various contentions of the respective parties, it is important at this point to describe in some detail the system of allocation of work employed at the Port of Houston under which the stevedore companies employ longshoremen to load and unload vessels; it is also important to underscore the role played by the longshore union in this work context at the times material to this lawsuit. It is undisputed that this system is basically unique in the industry, the Court being apprised that there is no precisely parallel procedure employed in any other major American port.

The available work involving the loading and unloading of vessels at the Port of Houston is divided equally between defendant union, Local 1273 and another longshore union, Local 872. Local 1273 has a collective bargaining agreement with a representative association of the thirty defendant stevedore companies. Pursuant to this agreement, Local 1273 operates an exclusive hiring hall for the referral of longshoremen to the various stevedore companies requiring longshore labor in the Port of Houston.

Substantially all stevedore work in this port is performed by longshoremen who are referred through one of the two local unions. These stevedore companies, which are in direct competition with one another, present orders for gangs to the unions as they need longshoremen to load or unload vessels. The need for gangs by a particular company fluctuates considerably during the work year. Although vessels are constantly arriving at and departing from the Port of Houston, a particular stevedore company may or may not have a contract or contracts to perform stevedoring services for the vessels actually in port at a given time. In order to simplify an otherwise unmanageable record keeping process, the local unions and stevedore companies maintain one central system for keeping the payroll and seniority records of longshoremen.

The seniority procedures employed by Local 1273 determine the selection of longshoremen for referral to the various stevedores. The guiding principle is that a longshoreman must work 1,200 hours in a given fiscal year in order to receive seniority credit for that year. If the longshoreman does not work the required 1,200 hours per year, he loses one seniority year as a penalty. These laborers are classified by the union in conformity with their years of seniority as follows:

                CLASS             YEARS OF EMPLOYMENT
                Gold Star                     25
                AAA                           20
                AA                            15
                A                             10
                B                              5
                C                              2
                D-1                            1
                D (unclassified or casual)    less than 1
                

The hiring hall procedure requires gang foremen, who are selected by the unions, to choose their work gangs from the men according to seniority down to and including the casuals or D classified men, all of whom are divided into their respective classes at the time of selection in the hiring hall. Under this system any particular D classified man or casual may or may not be offered employment on a given day. His chance of a job depends on the number of higher classified men present at the hiring hall, the number of gangs needed for the available work and the preference expressed by the gang foremen in selecting members of their work gangs from the longshoremen on hand.

It is essential to recognize that under this system of employment anyone can enter the hiring hall, position himself in the section for casuals in the hall and instantly be theoretically eligible for selection to work in a gang. No employment application need be made to the union or to the stevedore companies to work as a casual longshoreman. In the event a casual is selected for work by a gang foreman, he then reports to the stevedore company at shipside to work the particular vessel which the stevedore has contracted to load or unload. The stevedore company may reject at shipside, and thus refuse to employ, any man sent to work for them by the union where proper cause can be shown. Once accepted, the longshoreman then becomes the employee of that particular stevedore company for the duration of that particular job. Until a casual has worked 1,200 hours in one classification year so as to earn and advance to a D-1 classification, he is in direct competition for selection to a gang with all other casuals, regardless of the number of hours under 1,200 previously worked. Since all longshoremen receive the same basic rate of compensation, the sole advantage in holding a higher classification is the seniority status which carries with it the preferential right to be selected more often to work the ships and thus to work more hours and earn more money.

The purpose of the 1,200 hour rule is obvious. It is to induce regular career longshoremen, those who rely primarily on longshore work as a means of making a living, to work more hours per year and thus to minimize the number of participating casual workers. The casuals whose attendance at the docks is much more sporadic than that of the career longshoremen have been afflicted to a much greater degree with problems of inefficiency, inexperience, injuries and instability in the work force. The general feeling is that if a man does not average three days of work per week, he is not a regularly employed longshoreman and, therefore, should be discouraged from longshore work. As a matter of interest, the impetus for this rule came not from the union or the stevedore companies, but from the United States Department of Labor which apparently took the view that decasualization of the industry was a necessity if chronic labor problems in the shipping industry were to be properly solved. Thus it was stated by the Department of Labor that the 1,200 hour rule "goes far toward establishing a stable work force in the port."² Further, this governmental agency has stated that "in this regard, the union has done well with the responsibility it carries for administering the hiring procedures."³ As would be anticipated, the hiring hall rules dictate that an allowance for time spent in the military including that for advancement in seniority, is permissible only if the longshoreman in question has worked 1,200 hours in the year prior to induction.

Certain of the other casual longshoremen working through Local 1273 and accumulating comparable hours to plaintiffs during the period October 1, 1965, to September 30, 1967, were able to obtain the necessary 1,200 hours required for advancement to D-1 classification.⁴ In 1968 plaintiffs Cox and Palmer were classified D-1 after having worked the required 1,200 hours, and in the same year 117 other men similarly worked the necessary hours to be so classified. However, of the 3,807 men who worked through Local 1273 that year, the vast majority or approximately 2,700 were class D or casuals. Their work patterns fell short of any consistent regular employment, ranging from four hours to 1,199 hours per...