Read case 3 titled "Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison" on pages 568 - 570 in your textbook.Answer the case questions below as they are DIFFERENT from the textbook questions:1. Do you feel the alt
Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison 432 U.S. 63
(1977)
Employer was unable to accommodate employee’s religious conflict of working on the Sabbath, without
undue hardship. The Court set forth the guidelines for determining what constitutes undue hardship.
White, J.
***
Case3
The employee, Hardison, was employed by Trans World
Airlines (TWA), in a department that operated 24 hours a
day throughout the year in connection with an airplane
maintenance and overhaul base. Hardison was subject to
a seniority system in a collective bargaining agreement
between TWA and the International Association of Machinists
& Aerospace Workers (union), whereby the most
senior employees have first choice for job and shift assignments
as they become available, and the most junior
employees are required to work when enough employees
to work at a particular time or in a particular job to fill
TWA’s needs cannot be found.
Because Hardison’s religious beliefs prohibit him
from working on Saturdays, attempts were made to accommodate
him, and these were temporarily successful
mainly because on his job at the time he had sufficient
seniority regularly to observe Saturday as his Sabbath.
But when he sought, and was transferred to, another job
where he was asked to work Saturdays and where he had
low seniority, problems began to arise. TWA agreed to
permit the union to seek a change of work assignments,
but the union was not willing to violate the seniority system,
and Hardison had insufficient seniority to bid for a
shift having Saturdays off. After TWA rejected a proposal
that Hardison work only four days a week on the
ground that this would impair critical functions in the
airline operations, no accommodation could be reached,
and Hardison was discharged for refusing to work on
Saturdays.
We hold that TWA, which made reasonable efforts to
accommodate Hardison’s religious needs, did not violate
Title VII, and each of the Court of Appeals’ suggested
alternatives would have been an undue hardship within
the meaning of the statute as construed by the EEOC
guidelines. The employer’s statutory obligation to make
reasonable accommodation for the religious observances
of its employees, short of incurring an undue hardship, is
clear, but the reach of that obligation has never been
spelled out by Congress or by EEOC guidelines. With
this in mind, we turn to a consideration of whether TWA
has met its obligation under Title VII to accommodate
the religious observances of its employees.
The Court of Appeals held that TWA had not made
reasonable efforts to accommodate Hardison’s religious
needs. In its view, TWA had rejected three reasonable
alternatives, any one of which would have satisfied its
obligation without undue hardship. First, within the
framework of the seniority system, TWA could have
permitted Hardison to work a four-day week, utilizing
in his place a supervisor or another worker on duty
elsewhere. That this would have caused other shop
functions to suffer was insufficient to amount to undue
hardship in the opinion of the Court of Appeals. Second,
also within the bounds of the collective-bargaining
contract the company could have filled Hardison’s
Saturday shift from other available personnel competent
to do the job, of which the court said there were at least
200. That this would have involved premium overtime
pay was not deemed an undue hardship. Third, TWA
could have arranged a “swap between Hardison and
another employee either for another shift or for the Sabbath
days.” In response to the assertion that this would
have involved a breach of the seniority provisions of the
contract, the court noted that it had not been settled in
the courts whether the required statutory accommodation
to religious needs stopped short of transgressing
seniority rules, but found it unnecessary to decide the
issue because, as the Court of Appeals saw the record,
TWA had not sought, and the union had therefore not
declined to entertain, a possible variance from the
seniority provisions of the collective-bargaining agreement.
The company had simply left the entire matter to
the union steward who the Court of Appeals said “likewise
did nothing.”
We disagree with the Court of Appeals in all relevant
respects. It is our view that TWA made reasonable efforts
Chapter Eleven Religious Discrimination 529
to accommodate and that each of the suggested alternatives
would have been an undue hardship within the
meaning of the statute as construed by the EEOC
guidelines.
It might be inferred from the Court of Appeals’ opinion
and from the brief of the EEOC in this Court that
TWA’s efforts to accommodate were no more than negligible.
The findings of the District Court, supported by
the record, are to the contrary. In summarizing its more
detailed findings, the District Court observed:
“TWA established as a matter of fact that it did take
appropriate action to accommodate as required by
Title VII. It held several meetings with plaintiff at
which it attempted to find a solution to plaintiff’s
problems. It did accommodate plaintiff’s observance
of his special religious holidays. It authorized
the union steward to search for someone who
would swap shifts, which apparently was normal
procedure.”
It is also true that TWA itself attempted without success
to find Hardison another job. The District Court’s
view was that TWA had done all that could reasonably be
expected within the bounds of the seniority system.
We are also convinced, contrary to the Court of Appeals,
that TWA itself cannot be faulted for having failed
to work out a shift or job swap for Hardison. Both the
union and TWA had agreed to the seniority system; the
union was unwilling to entertain a variance over the objections
of men senior to Hardison; and for TWA to have
arranged unilaterally for a swap would have amounted to
a breach of the collective-bargaining agreement.
Hardison and the EEOC insist that the statutory
obligation to accommodate religious needs takes precedence
over both the collective-bargaining contract and
the seniority rights of TWA’s other employees. We agree
that neither a collective-bargaining contract nor a
seniority system may be employed to violate the statute,
but we do not believe that the duty to accommodate
requires TWA to take steps inconsistent with the otherwise
valid agreement. Collective bargaining, aimed at
effecting workable and enforceable agreements between
management and labor, lies at the core of our national
labor policy, and seniority provisions are universally
included in these contracts. Without a clear and express
indication from Congress, we cannot agree with
Hardison and the EEOC that an agreed-upon seniority
system must give way when necessary to accommodate
religious observances.
The Court of Appeals also suggested that TWA
could have permitted Hardison to work a four-day week
if necessary in order to avoid working on his Sabbath.
Recognizing that this might have left TWA shorthanded
on the one shift each week that Hardison did
not work, the court still concluded that TWA would
suffer no undue hardship if it were required to replace
Hardison either with supervisory personnel or with
qualified personnel from other departments. Alternatively,
the Court of Appeals suggested that TWA could
have replaced Hardison on his Saturday shift with other
available employees through the payment of premium
wages. Both of these alternatives would involve costs to
TWA, either in the form of lost efficiency in other jobs
or higher wages.
To require TWA to bear more than a de minimis cost
in order to give Hardison Saturdays off is an undue
hardship. Like abandonment of the seniority system, to
require TWA to bear additional costs when no such costs
are incurred to give other employees the days off that
they want would involve unequal treatment of employees
on the basis of their religion. By suggesting that TWA
should incur certain costs in order to give Hardison
Saturdays off the Court of Appeals would in effect require
TWA to finance an additional Saturday off and then
to choose the employee who will enjoy it on the basis of
his religious beliefs. While incurring extra costs to secure
a replacement for Hardison might remove the necessity
of compelling another employee to work involuntarily in
Hardison’s place, it would not change the fact that the
privilege of having Saturdays off would be allocated
according to religious beliefs. While the cost may seem
small for one employee compared to TWA’s resources,
TWA may have many employees who need such
accommodation.