Supreme Court Asked to Review Steel Industry Back Pay Case
Press Release
January 16, 1976

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Press Releases, Volume 6. Supreme Court Asked to Review Steel Industry Back Pay Case, 1976. 71c8ab32-bb92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/fc346e94-1468-4c92-82e9-8a3e833cf040/supreme-court-asked-to-review-steel-industry-back-pay-case. Accessed July 10, 2025.
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From: Norman Bloomfield NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 10 Columbus Circle New York, New York 10019 Telephone (212) 586-8397 Contact: Eric Schnapper Barry Goldstein FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEW YORK, N.Y., Jan. 16 - The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has asked the U. S. Supreme Court to review and clarify an appellate court ruling which would permit the steel industry to offer a lump sum payment to minority workers for which they will waive their right to sue for back pay compensation or injunctive relief even though in the future they may suffer from the continuing effects of past discrimination, it was announced today by the Fund's director-counsel, Jack Greenberg. in accordance with provisions of the nationwide government-steel industry agreement entered into on April 12, 1974, questions the permissible scope of the releases which minority employees in several hundred plants will The petition, challenging issuance of the waivers executed be asked to sign. Referring to the seniority system as a critical problem in the steel industry, Legal Defense Fund lawyers declared: "The parties propose that, as a condition of receiving a lump sum in 1976, more than 40,000 minority employees sign a waiver which provides that, to the extent that the government is unable or unwilling to negotiate reform of the seniority system under the consent decrees, (more) 279 those employees will be locked into their predominantly black departments for the rest of their lives, unable to seek any federal or state court injunctive relief to reform that system or monetary compensation for the loss they may suffer in years to come. ..." "The signatories insist that, even if a court should at some future date hold a seniority system illegal because it perpetuates the effect of pre-decree discrimination, the employer would be free to apply that illegal system to any employee who had signed an injunctive waiver." "Such a release," Legal Defense Fund lawyers assert, "is not a compromise of accrued claims; it is a license to break the law." The Fund's lawyers additionally noted,in the case designated as Harris v. Allegheny-Ludlum Industries, Inc. and United States of America, that the negotiators for companies and unions are attempting to turn government-industry agreements into "devices to impede or thwart private litigation." "The thrust of such efforts," they contend, "is to defeat the intent of Congress that the remedies provided to employees and to the government remain independent and complementary. ...The government has gone too far in acceding to employer and union demands that a consent decree be used in this manner." Commenting on the waiver of back pay rights accruing after entry of the steel agreement in 1974, the Legal Defense Fund stated: "Back pay is mandated in Title VII cases, not merely to make an employee whole for any violation of his rights, but also to deter an employer or (more) union from failing to correct employment practices which discriminate or continue the effects of past discrimination." NOTE TO EDITOR: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is a completely separate organization, even though established by the NAACP in 1939, It has not been affiliated with the founding Association for more than 20 years. The correct designation is NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., frequently shortened to Legal Defense Fund. The organization has a national staff and headquarters in New York City and works with 400 cooperating attorneys throughout the country.