Monroe v. Standard Oil Co.
| Decision Date | 22 February 1978 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. C 76-71. |
| Citation | 446 F. Supp. 616 |
| Parties | Roger D. MONROE, Plaintiff, v. The STANDARD OIL COMPANY, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio |
Patrick J. Foley, Asst. U. S. Atty., Toledo, Ohio, Gregory B. Taylor, U. S. Dept. of Labor, Cleveland, Ohio, for plaintiff.
John Garland, Cleveland, Ohio, for defendant.
This cause came to be heard upon the motion of defendant for summary judgment and upon cross-motion of plaintiff for summary judgment. This Court is presented with an issue of apparent near first impression regarding the relationship of a member of the Army Reserve to his civilian employer. The parties have aided the determination of this cause by stipulating a series of facts.
At all times herein, plaintiff is a member of a unit of the Army Reserve. Plaintiff is required to train with his unit one weekend per month, and must spend two weeks per year training, usually in the summer. Stipulation of Fact ¶ 22. In addition to his military service, plaintiff is a full time employee at the defendant's refinery in Lima, Ohio. Customarily, plaintiff works a full forty hour week except when he is absent from his civilian employment for personal reasons, vacation, sick leave, or military leave. Stipulation of Fact ¶¶ 3-5.
The refinery at Lima operates on a twenty-four hour per day schedule seven days per week. Each day is divided into three working shifts. Scheduling of employees is done in such a way that an employee such as plaintiff works various days of the week, although generally for five days in succession. On a given week, an employee might work Monday through Friday, while at other times he might work Tuesday through Saturday, Wednesday through Sunday, and so on. Thus, the impact of such a scheduling system is to give the employee forty hours of regularly scheduled work while at the same time requiring him to work certain weekends and correspondingly to take his days off during the week.
At all times herein, employment at the Lima refinery has been governed by a collective bargaining agreement between the defendant and the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union. Stipulation of Fact 6. Article V, ¶ 23 of that agreement provides:
Employees on shift may, by mutual consent and with the consent of their foreman, change shifts provided such change does not require the payment of overtime or premium pay. Where such changes require the payment of overtime or premium pay, such changes may be made only where there exists a critical need of such changes proven to the satisfaction of the Plant Manager. Stipulation of Fact ¶ 7.
It is further stipulated between the parties that plaintiff was treated no differently in terms of work scheduling than other employees. Stipulation of Fact ¶ 11. Plaintiff, thus, had the right to change shifts if he found another employee willing to change. Stipulation of Fact ¶ 11. In the event a particular employee is absent from his work assignment, defendant's practice is to bring in a replacement, and during 1975 and 1976, there were occasions when such extra employees were needed. Stipulation of Fact ¶¶ 20-21.
On four different occasions in 1975 and 1976, when plaintiff was scheduled to work at the same time as he was required to attend military reserve training, he was able to exchange shifts with other employees so that he retained a full forty hour work-week. Stipulation of Fact ¶ 12. On the following days, however, plaintiff was required to attend military reserve training and was not able to exchange shifts and for that reason was absent from his assigned refinery position:
1975: May 10, 11
June 14, 15
August 1
September 6
October 3, 4
November 7
December 7
1976: January 9, 10, 11, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25
February 7, 8
March 6
June 6
July 17, 18
Stipulation of Fact ¶ 13. Thus, by missing 24 days of work over the two year period, plaintiff has missed a total of 192 hours of work for which he was not compensated. Stipulation of Fact ¶ 15. Plaintiff here is seeking damages from the defendant in the amount of wages which would have been earned on the missed days. Plaintiff's hourly wage rate for the time missed was $5.66. Stipulation of Fact ¶ 16.
Defendant's position is that it is not required to schedule the plaintiff for additional hours of work or to pay him for hours not worked. In other words, defendant claims that if it owed any obligation to plaintiff, that obligation was satisfied when the defendant scheduled plaintiff to work and when plaintiff was able to exchange shifts pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement.
Title 38, U.S.C. § 2021(b)(3)1 provides:
Any person who holds a position in Clause (A) or (B) of subsection (a) of this section (including a person in the employ of a private employer) shall not be denied retention in employment or any promotion or other incident or advantage of employment because of any obligation as a member of a Reserve component of the Armed Forces.
The defendant here is an employer within the meaning of the statute. The issue presented to the Court is whether plaintiff was denied an incident or advantage of employment when he was unable to exchange shifts with another employee and therefore was unable to work a full forty hour week as employees without military obligations would.
The legislative history of the statute was examined by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, when it was called upon to decide a similar issue. See, Lott v. Goodyear Aerospace Corporation, 395 F.Supp. 866, 868 (N.D. Ohio 1975). The intent and purpose of the bill is "to prevent Reservists and National Guardsmen not on active duty who must attend weekly drills or summer training from being discriminated against in employment because of their Reserve membership . . .." S.Rep.No.1477, 90th Cong., 2d Sess. at 1-2, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News, p. 3421 (1968). The Senate Report states:
It (the bill) provides that these reservists will be entitled to the same treatment afforded their coworkers not having such military obligations by requiring that employees with Reserve obligations "shall not be denied retention in employment or other incident or advantage of employment because of any obligation as a member of a Reserve component of the Armed Forces of the United States." S.Rep.No. 1477, 90th Cong., 2d Sess. at 2, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News, p. 3421 (1968).
Lott v. Goodyear Aerospace Corporation, supra, is one of the few authorities cited by the parties. In Lott, a reservist brought an action against his employer which sought to challenge the employer's practice of "marking up" an employee for overtime because the employee could not take advantage of the overtime due to military obligations. Although overtime was voluntary, the overtime scheduling system was designed in such a way that overtime would be equalized as nearly as possible between employees. 395 F.Supp. at 867. On several occasions military reserve obligations prevented plaintiff from working overtime as he had been scheduled. By "marking up" plaintiff for overtime, the company counted plaintiff as having worked those hours for scheduling purposes although he was not paid for them. 395 F.Supp. at 868. Further overtime apparently was scheduled for the plaintiff as if he had worked the originally scheduled overtime hours. The District Court in Lott held that the employer's practices violated the act.
Plaintiff has also directed this Court to the unreported case of Hanning v. Kaiser Aluminum, No. 76-547 (E.D.La. June 29, 1977). There, plaintiffs, in addition to belonging to a reserve Coast Guard unit, worked as...
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Kidder v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc.
...overtime work because of his military duty, to be equated with a person who is able to work overtime.7 So also in Monroe v. Standard Oil Co., 446 F.Supp. 616 (N.D.Ohio 1978), another case involving an "incident or advantage of employment," i. e., the right to work a full 40-hour week in tho......
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...or advantage of employment," the District Court for the Northern District of Ohio granted summary judgment to the petitioner. 446 F.Supp. 616, 618, 619. The court awarded petitioner $1,086.72 for wages lost on those "work dates when an accommodation should have been made." Id., at The Court......
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Boyle v. BD. OF POLICE COM'RS OF CITY OF PORTSMOUTH, C-88-230-L.
...requires only that reservists be treated the same as employees furloughed for non-military reasons); see also Monroe v. Standard Oil Co., 446 F.Supp. 616, 620 (N.D.Ohio 1978), and Kidder v. Eastern Airlines, Inc., 469 F.Supp. 1060, 1067 (S.D.Fla.1978) (rejecting the same argument). Defendan......
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