EEOC v. EI duPont de Nemours & Co.
| Decision Date | 25 January 1978 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 4515. |
| Citation | 445 F. Supp. 223 |
| Parties | EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff, v. E. I. duPONT de NEMOURS AND COMPANY, CHESTNUT RUN AND AFFILIATED FACILITIES, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Delaware |
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J. Lincoln Woodard, Vincent A. Fuller, and Carlton L. Preston, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.
James M. Tunnell, Jr., William H. Sudell, Jr., Thomas R. Hunt, Jr., and George Pazuniak, of Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell, Wilmington, Del., R. Lawrence Ashe, Jr., of Kilpatrick, Cody, Rogers, McClatchey & Regenstein, Atlanta, Ga., John F. Lawless, Washington, D. C., E. I. duPont de Nemours & Co., for defendant.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("the Government") brought this action against E. I. duPont de Nemours & Company ("DuPont"), pursuant to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., to secure relief against allegedly discriminatory employment practices occurring at DuPont's Chestnut Run and Christina Laboratory sites. After four and one-half years of litigation and a trial of five weeks duration, the case is now ripe for a decision on the merits. This Opinion constitutes the Court's findings of fact and conclusions of law.
DuPont is engaged in research, development, manufacture and marketing of chemicals and chemical related products which it ships across state lines. Since July 2, 1965, the effective date of Title VII, DuPont has continuously been an employer engaged in an industry affecting commerce within the meaning of Section 701(b), (g) and (h) of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(b), (g) and (h), and has employed more than twenty-five persons. Accordingly, this Court has jurisdiction of the controversy pursuant to Section 706(f)(1) of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1).
A detailed account of the administrative proceedings leading up to the filing of this action on November 12, 1972 is set forth in this Court's prior Opinion1 and that account need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that, based upon the facts there recorded, I have concluded that the prerequisites to suit by the Government under Title VII have been satisfied.
While many of the facts are more appropriately discussed in the context of the various contentions of the parties, an overview of the character of the two sites, certain of DuPont's personnel practices, and the history of black participation in the work force are helpful at the outset.
Chestnut Run began operations in 1954 when the Textile Research Laboratory (TRL) of DuPont's Textile Fibers Department was transferred to the site. Over the next fourteen years, seven other laboratories were established at that location.2 Each of these laboratories is an arm of a particular operating department within the DuPont Company and works with a given product line or group of products of the parent department. Their purpose is to provide testing facilities and product expertise to existing or potential customers for DuPont products. These laboratories assist customers in overcoming processing difficulties and also engage in the development of new products and new end-uses for existing products.
In order to be able to assist customers, each laboratory must be capable of duplicating the manufacturing processes of each customer in a particular line of industry. Thus, these laboratories contain hundreds of pieces of equipment like those used by industrial customers. At any given moment, however, relatively few of those pieces of equipment will be in use.
The Christina Laboratory was developed by the Textile Fibers Department in 1965 as a small lot manufacturing plant engaged in the development of new methods and processes for manufacturing new products. As a result, Christina Laboratory is in some respects a research facility engaged in refining the characteristics of products and developing new processing techniques and standards of manufacture. In the course of a product's development, processing procedures and techniques are modified on an almost daily basis.
Pending full development of the facility, all administrative services were to be provided by Chestnut Run personnel on assignment to Christina Laboratory. It was originally intended, however, that, in time, Christina Laboratory would become totally independent of Chestnut Run. Due to unfavorable economic turns, the separation of Christina Laboratory from Chestnut Run never occurred.
Because the Textile Fibers Department (i. e., its Textile Research Laboratory) was the first to arrive at the Chestnut Run location, it was assigned the "landlord function", which included the responsibility to provide all administrative services for itself and the other departmental laboratories that followed. Landlord responsibilities include such general services as safety, protection, transportation, maintenance, power, design and product engineering, purchasing, accounting, medical services, cafeteria, shipping and receiving of materials, plus clerical and secretarial services for the entire site. Another important landlord responsibility, especially in the context of this suit, is the maintenance of a personnel office to oversee recruitment, hiring, training and other personnel services relating to non-exempt employees attached to the departmental laboratories.3 In addition, the Textile Fibers Department has responsibility for securing, by transfer, promotion or hire, exempt employees to administer the landlord function.
All employees at the two sites are assigned to particular "work units", i. e. functional groupings of related jobs or products. Each departmental laboratory, including Christina Laboratory, is a separate work unit. In addition, there are a number of administrative work units, including the Accounting, Protection, Service, Engineering, Control, Mechanical, Power and Personnel work units.
As of August 31, 1976, there were 1,234 non-exempt employees at Chestnut Run and Christina and 98 exempt employees engaged in the landlord function. The non-exempt work force falls into four broad occupational categories.
Category Employees % of Total
Technical/Operations 766 62.0%
Secretarial/Clerical 237 19.2%
Craftsmen/Maintenance 186 15.1%
Service/Protection 45 3.6%
Out of this total non-exempt work force, only approximately 100 employees are in what can be categorized as low-skilled positions, i. e. mail clerk, driver, etc. The remaining jobs all require various types and levels of skills.
Combined peak employment at the two sites was reached in 1969, although Christina Laboratory continued to develop until 1974. Since that time, however, economic circumstances have required curtailment of operations, with concurrent reductions of force.
Non-exempt jobs on the sites are classified by compensation level. These jobs are also classified as being at, below or above "career level". A career level job is the highest level job within a particular job family or "progression" that most employees are reasonably expected to reach during their working careers. In the laboratory work units, for example, the laboratory technician job, which was a level 8, was considered the career level job. On the discovery cut-off date, August 31, 1976, the average laboratory technician received approximately $13,000 per year. (PX-56). Testing technicians were level 6, and thus below career level. Technical assistants were level 10, and thus above career level.
Throughout the period from 1955 to the present, the passing of a test has been required as a prerequisite to employment in laboratory technician and testing technician jobs, as well as all clerical and office jobs.4 These positions constituted the bulk of non-exempt jobs available at the sites.
Prior to 1969, no testing was required as a prerequisite to being hired into the relatively few processing technician jobs. During this period, people were hired into these jobs on the basis of prior experience in the performance of various textile operations. In 1969, a processing technician's test was instituted and a substantial number of processing technicians were hired on the Christina site in the period from 1972 to 1974.
From the opening of Chestnut Run until 1964, there was no testing of applicants for craftsman positions. During that period, DuPont hired only journeyman craftsmen who had completed an apprenticeship in their respective crafts. In 1964 a test was instituted in order to permit people with prior industrial training and experience to demonstrate that they had knowledge and skills equivalent to those of a journeyman craftsman, but defendant continued to hire only skilled people as craftsmen until 1972. In that year a mechanic's training program was instituted, admission to which required the passing of an aptitude test but no prior training or skills.
The last substantial job category, that of the Service work unit, has never had an entry test.
From the beginning, there have been job transfer and seniority systems on the sites. Between 1960 and 1972, under the job transfer system, any non-exempt employee in the Service or Administration work units could file a job transfer request indicating a desire to transfer to a specified type of job, at or below career level, in the laboratory work units. Non-exempts in a lab unit could request transfer to Service and Administrative work units, but not to another lab unit. After 1972, any non-exempt could apply for transfer to a job at or below career level in any other work unit on the site including the lab units. If a non-exempt passed whatever qualifying test was required for the job he sought, he would be placed on the job...
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