Jones v. Trans World Airlines, Inc.

• Decision Date: 09 April 1974
• Docket Number: No. 388,Docket 73-2029.,388
• Citation: 495 F.2d 790
• Parties: Frederick L. JONES et al., Appellants, v. TRANS WORLD AIRLINES, INC., et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

495 F.2d 790 (1974)

Frederick L. JONES et al., Appellants, v. TRANS WORLD AIRLINES, INC., et al., Appellees.

No. 388, Docket 73-2029.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued January 24, 1974.

Decided April 9, 1974.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Rains, Pogrebin & Scher, Mineola, N. Y., on the brief; Bertrand B. Pogrebin, Frederick D. Braid, Mineola, N. Y., of counsel, for appellants.

Michael D. Gordon, Kansas City, Mo. (Jolley, Walsh, Gordon & Staab, Kansas City, Mo., on the brief), for appellee District 142.

Irving Gutin, Lotwin Goldman Gutin Rosen & Greene, New York City, for appellees Intern. Assn. of Machinists and Local Lodge 1056.

Harold L. Warner, Jr., New York City (Chadbourne, Parke, Whiteside & Wolff, New York City, on the brief; Bernard J. Rosenthal, New York City, of counsel), for appellee Trans World Airlines, Inc.

Before MOORE, HAYS and OAKES, Circuit Judges.

HAYS, Circuit Judge:

The appellants are employees of Trans World Airlines, Inc. TWA, currently working in the guard job classification at TWA's passenger teriminal at John F. Kennedy Airport. TWA is a "common carrier by air engaged in interstate or foreign commerce" as those terms are used in section 201 of the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 181 (1970), and as such is subject to the provisions of the Act.

Appellants brought this action against their employer, their collective bargaining agent, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and District 142 and Local Lodge 1056 of that International. The gravamen of their complaint is that the International and its subdivisions violated their duty to represent them fairly during the negotiations leading to the signing of a contract between the International and TWA in January of 1970, a period during which the appellants were not members of the union. They complain that under the contract, union members were given job seniority over non-members. They pray for a permanent injunction of discrimination, an order directing TWA to give them job seniority from their date of hire, and money damages for salary differentials and salary and benefits lost during periods in which four of the appellants were laid off.

The District Court for the Southern District of New York held for the appellees. It found that the union did not negotiate the adjustment in seniority out of hostility toward the appellants, and that the appellants were employees at will since they were not in the collective bargaining unit represented by the union. Accordingly, it held that the union had no duty to protect the appellants' interests.

We reverse and remand for a hearing on the issue of damages.

Facts

In 1946 pursuant to an order of the National Mediation Board, TWA recognized the International as the exclusive bargaining representative for three collective bargaining units of TWA employees. One of these units, at least until 1970, consisted of "guards," employees responsible, among other things, for directing and controlling traffic, mainly in the hangar areas.¹

District 142 is the subordinate body of the International with nation-wide responsibility for bargaining with TWA and Ozark Airlines. Local 1056 is the subordinate body of District 142 representing TWA employees in the New York City area, including those at the John F. Kennedy terminal. Since the International and its subdivisions each played a role in negotiating or implementing the 1970 contract, we will refer to them jointly as the "IAM."

At various times during the period from May 1964 to April 1969 the appellant employees were hired by TWA to work at the Kennedy terminal as "passenger relations agent-traffic coordinators." Their primary duty was to control pedestrian and vehicular traffic in and around the terminal, but at times they answered passenger inquiries. The appellants were not members of the IAM when they were hired. Prior to 1970, they were not asked to join the union, and they were not informed that they must join the union as a condition of continued employment under the union security clauses of the TWA-IAM contracts in effect during that period.

The present controversy emerged from the negotiation and implementation of the 1970 collective bargaining contract between the IAM and TWA. The bargaining leading up to the contract began late in 1968, when District 142 served a notice of intended changes under section 6 of the Railway Labor Act. 45 U.S.C. § 156 (1970). After protracted negotiations between District 142 and TWA, on January 28, 1970, the International and TWA entered into a new agreement, which was ratified by a vote of the majority of the members of Local 1056.

One of District 142's demands in its notice of intended changes was that the work of passenger relations agents be included in the IAM jurisdiction. The union's objective was to cure what it perceived to be an erosion of its jurisdiction, to recoup a work function being performed by non-union employees in violation of its jurisdiction as originally defined by the National Mediation Board. During the negotiations, TWA conceded that the passenger relations agent jobs were subsumed in the guard unit. This concession was consistent with the appellants' testimony at trial that they had continuously performed guard work while working in the passenger relations agent job classification.

As a result of TWA's acquiescence, the following language was included as Article II (a) of the 1970 agreement:

"Whenever the Company TWA deems it necessary to assign personnel to alleviate congestion of pedestrian or vehicular traffic, TWA-IAM guards will be used."

This clause embodies the IAM proposition that the work of alleviating traffic congestion, wherever it occurred, was guard work.

All agreements covering the guard unit as it existed before 1970 defined seniority as follows:

"Seniority will be by work classification and shall be defined as length of continuous service with the Company as a Guard, including the ability to perform required work in a satisfactory manner."²

The January 1970 contract assimilated all guards into the larger unit that had previously covered only mechanics and food service employees. The objective in eliminating the separate guard unit was to prevent a strike by the 60 union guards from forcing the 14,000 other TWA-IAM employees out of work. When the guard unit was assimilated, the guards became subject to a seniority clause in the new contract similar to the clause previously applicable only to the mechanics and food service employees:

"Seniority shall be defined as the length of service for which an employee receives credit, regardless of location, in any of the classifications covered by this agreement with this Company or any of its predecessors. The definition of seniority shall include the ability to perform the required work of the job in a satisfactory manner, and except as hereinafter provided shall accrue from the date of entering a classification on a regular assignment." Emphasis added. Article IV(a), 1970 TWA-IAM Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The IAM and TWA also agreed, though not in writing, that the passenger relations agent jobs would be considered vacancies for the purpose of assigning union members to them, even though they were then occupied by non-IAM-member TWA employees.³ The airline and union in effect agreed that the persons occupying the passenger relations agent positions would be treated as "new hires" in the guard classification for the purpose of computing their seniority under the 1970 contract. The effect of this agreement and of the italicized language in Article IV(a) of the contract was to make IAM-member transferees senior to all of the non-IAM employees who had previously held the passenger relations agent jobs, this despite the fact that seniority under prior IAM contracts was fixed by the date of assignment to a given job classification.

In June of 1970, TWA announced that the passenger relations agent jobs were guard vacancies. Twelve of the twenty IAM members who had previously bid into the guard classification were accepted for the jobs by the airline. In July and August, eight of these union members were assigned to guard duty in and around the terminal. The remaining guard vacancies were filled by the appellants who had previously been doing the same work under the "passenger relations agent" label.⁴ The appellants testified that the nature of their duties did not change as a result of their change in classification.

In July and August of 1970, the appellant employees signed representation notices after they were informed of the union security clause in Article XXVI of the 1970 contract. They are currently IAM members.

In response to the appellants' inquiries about their seniority, TWA gave them a copy of a letter listing the John F. Kennedy terminal guards in order of classification seniority, showing that all eight IAM transferees had seniority dating from June 22, 1970,⁵ and that all of the former passenger relations agents had seniority dating from July 20 or later.⁶ A TWA system-wide guard roster circulated in January 1971 showed that the appellants had lower seniority than all IAM members hired before July 20, 1970. Appellants Jones and Dooley protested to TWA representatives, and Local 1056 and District 142 officials, all to no avail. In July, Dooley was demoted from his position of lead passenger relations agent, and two union-member transferees were designated in his place. In December, appellants Donahue and Hunter were laid off, and in April, 1971, appellants Morrisey and Reynolds were laid off. All of the IAM transferees continued to work.⁷

On July 20, 1971, this action was commenced in the District Court for the Southern District of New York. Plaintiffs claimed that the IAM had disregarded its duty to represent them fairly and that the IAM and TWA had discriminated against them on the basis of union membership in negotiating and implementing the 1970 ...