Supreme Court Asked to Review Steel Industry Back Pay Case

    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.