Southbridge Plastics Div., W.R. Grace & Co. v. Local 759, Intern. Union of United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum and Plastic Workers of America

• Decision Date: 09 January 1978
• Docket Number: No. 75-4416,75-4416
• Parties: 16 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 507, 15 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 8020, 83 Lab.Cas. P 10,293 SOUTHBRIDGE PLASTICS DIVISION, W. R. GRACE AND COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LOCAL 759, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF the UNITED RUBBER, CORK, LINOLEUM AND PLASTIC WORKERS OF AMERICA, et al., Defendants-Appellants, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 913

565 F.2d 913

16 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 507, 15 Empl. Prac.

Dec. P 8020,

83 Lab.Cas. P 10,293

SOUTHBRIDGE PLASTICS DIVISION, W. R. GRACE AND COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LOCAL 759, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF the UNITED RUBBER, CORK,

LINOLEUM AND PLASTIC WORKERS OF AMERICA, et al.,

Defendants-Appellants,

and

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 75-4416.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Jan. 9, 1978.

Harley M. Kastner, Chas. R. Armstrong, Akron, Ohio, Michael H. Gottesman, Robert M. Weinberg, Frank Petramalo, Jr., Julia P. Clark, Laurence Gold, Washington, D. C., for defendants-appellants.

Chas. E. Sykes, Lincoln, Neb., Abner W. Sibal, Gen. Counsel, Joseph T. Eddins, Jr., Associate Gen. Counsel, Beatrice Rosenberg, Chas. L. Reischel, Susan J. Johnson, Paul E. Mirengoff, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi.

Before AINSWORTH, SIMPSON and MORGAN, Circuit Judges.

MORGAN, Circuit Judge:

Southbridge Plastics Division of W. R. Grace Company, the employer, brought this action, pursuant to § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, ¹ seeking a declaratory judgment that a conciliation agreement that it had entered into with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) overrode any contradictory provisions contained in the collective bargaining agreement that it had negotiated with the union. ² The Union ³ counter-claimed seeking arbitration. Relevant facts are as follows: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) had been investigating Southbridge and concluded its investigation with a determination of "reasonable cause" to believe that the seniority provisions of the collective bargaining agreement between it and the Union perpetuated the effects of the employer's prior hiring discrimination against women. To settle this charge with the EEOC, the company signed a conciliation agreement in 1974 stating that certain seniority provisions of the collective bargaining agreement would be superseded by a quota system. Specifically, the conciliation agreement provided that the company would use a quota system to determine layoffs so that the percentage of women employed by the Company would never be reduced by a layoff. This quota system contradicted the standard seniority provision in the collective bargaining agreement that layoffs would be determined by an employee's seniority, not his or her sex. In addition, the conciliation agreement provided that no man could use his seniority to bump any female employee off her preferred shift. According to the collective bargaining agreement, an employee with more seniority could bump any other employee, male or female, with less seniority from his or her shift. The Union objected to this overriding of the provisions of its negotiated agreement and sought arbitration, pursuant to a standard arbitration clause that requires arbitration whenever provisions of the agreement are in conflict.

At the trial below, both the EEOC and the Union moved for summary judgments. Holding that the remedies embodied in the conciliation agreement were necessary to cure the effects of past hiring discrimination by the Company and to effectuate the goals of Title VII, the district court granted the EEOC's motion for summary judgment and denied the Union's motion. The court's order stated that the conciliation agreement was binding on all the parties to the action and controlled any conflicting provisions found in the collective bargaining agreement.

The Union contends that a recent Supreme Court decision, United States v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 431 U.S. 324, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 52 L.Ed.2d 396 (1977), compels this court to reverse the district court's order upholding the conciliation agreement. We agree. ⁴ In Teamsters, a Title VII case, the Court held that a "bona fide" seniority system, which is a system negotiated and maintained without a discriminatory purpose, is protected by § 703(h) ⁵ of Title VII, even though that system might perpetuate the effects of an employer's pre-act or post-act discrimination, 431 U.S. at 348 n. 30, 352, 97 S.Ct. at 1861 n. 30, 1863, 52 L.Ed. at 423 n. 30, 426. See also Myers v. Gilman Paper Co., 556 F.2d 758, 760 (5th Cir. 1977) (on petition for rehearing). Likewise, Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63, 97 S.Ct. 2264, 53 L.Ed.2d 113 (1977), echoed Teamsters in its holding that a discriminatory purpose must be shown before a seniority system can be exempted from § 703(h)'s protection. Id. 432 U.S. at 81, 97 S.Ct. at 2275, 53 L.Ed.2d at 130. Teamsters and Hardison, coupled with cases from this circuit limiting the extent to which a union's collective bargaining agreement can be modified, over its objection, to comply with Title VII, convince us that the conciliation agreement between the Company and the EEOC cannot stand. That is, in Stevenson v. International Paper Co., 516 F.2d 103 (5th Cir. 1975), we held that a seniority system should be enjoined only to the extent necessary to assure compliance with Title VII. Id. 516 F.2d at 118. Subsequently, in Myers v. Gilman Paper Corp., 544 F.2d 837 (5th Cir. 1977), amended and modified on other grounds, 556 F.2d 758 (5th Cir. 1977), we elaborated on the necessity for circumspection in replacing provisions of a collective bargaining agreement with provisions, not agreed to by the union, that are designed to insure the company's compliance with Title VII. Gilman was a Title VII case in which the company, over union objections, entered into a consent decree with minority employees that modified the seniority system agreed to by the company and union. The original opinion in Gilman, in accordance with pre-Teamsters case law in this Circuit, approved some of the seniority changes imposed by the consent decree; after Teamsters, the panel on rehearing vacated even this portion of the opinion. See Myers v. Gilman Paper Corp., 556 F.2d 758 (5th Cir. 1977) (on petition for rehearing).

In addition to the opinion on rehearing, the original Gilman opinion is significant for this case in its disapproval of certain portions of the consent decree that were not necessary to assure compliance with Title VII, even under pre-Teamsters standards. Specifically, Judge Gewin, author of that opinion, stated:

(R)egardless of past wrongs, a court in considering prospective relief is not automatically empowered to make wholesale changes in agreements negotiated by the employees' exclusive bargaining agents in an obviously serious attempt to comply with Title VII. Allowing such changes without findings of inadequacy in the . . . agreements would conflict with the policies reflected in the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. ('NLRA').

We are reminded that while Title VII expresses an important national policy, it does not exist in a vacuum. Important national policies also emanate from the NLRA, among them the principle that terms and conditions of employment are to be shaped by the employer and the exclusive bargaining representatives of its employers.

544 F.2d at 857.

In short, Teamsters taken together with Gilman and Stevenson indicate clearly that the conciliation...