The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Willis v. Pacific Maritime Association, 2001 WL 21294, held that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not require an employer to violate bona fide seniority provisions of a collective bargaining agreement to accommodate a disabled employee.
The Plaintiffs in Willis were longshore workers who belonged to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (Union). The Union is a party to a collective bargaining agreement with Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), an association of the area’s main employers of dockworkers. The union members report each day for work assignments, which are largely made based on the workers’ seniority as Class A workers (the most senior), Class B workers (the next most senior), or casual workers (the least senior). The jobs requiring the least exertion are assigned to Class A workers. Also, Class A workers who are either over 55 or disabled may request placement, based on seniority on the Dock Preference Board (DPB) and are given priority for light work assignments. The collective bargaining agreement also provides that transfers to Local 34, the marine clerks union (the work of marine clerks requires less physical effort) are based on seniority.
Plaintiffs are disabled but were denied placement on the DPB and/or transfer to Local 34 based on lack of seniority. They brought this action under the ADA seeking reasonable accommodation of their disabilities. The district court granted summary judgment to PMA and the Union and Plaintiffs appealed.
The ADA prohibits an employer from discriminating against a disabled worker by failing to make “reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations” of that worker. [42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)(A).] Adopting the position taken by eight other circuit courts of appeal, the 9th Circuit determined that section 12112(b)(5)(A) does not require an employer to provide an accommodation that would directly violate a bona fide seniority system maintained by an employer and a union under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement. The Court specifically held that “[a] plain reading of the ADA supports the conclusion that an accommodation that would compel an employer to violate a collective bargaining agreement is unreasonable.”
The Court next faced the issue of whether the seniority system in question was bona fide. A “bona fide seniority system,” according to the Court, is “one that was created for legitimate purposes, rather than for the purpose of discrimination.” Because Plaintiffs offered no evidence that the seniority system was incorporated into the collective bargaining agreement in order to discriminate against the disabled, the court determined that Plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that the seniority system is not bona fide. The Court further found that Plaintiffs had failed to sufficiently show that PMA and the Union had deviated from the seniority system in assigning work to other employees and in making transfers to the DPB and Local 34. Therefore, because the requested accommodations conflicted with a bona fide seniority system that has been consistently followed, the requested accommodations were per se unreasonable.
The Court limited its holding, however, by acknowledging that employers and unions are free to bargain for terms in a collective bargaining agreement that would be flexible enough to permit accommodation for a less senior disabled worker. The Court further limited its decision to those situations where a collective bargaining agreement has a bona fide seniority system.
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