Justices Agree To Consider Question Of Shielding Minorities From Layoffs

Washington--In a move that could affect court orders in several
cities to preserve jobs for minority teachers at a time of widespread
layoffs, the U.S. Supreme Court last week agreed to decide whether a
state's "last hired, first fired" laws may be bypassed in order to
protect minorities' jobs.

At the request of Boston's police and firefighters' unions and the
Massachusetts Civil Service Commission, the Court decided to review an
appeal of a federal judge's 1981 order that the city lay off its
policemen and firefighters on the basis of race. Massachusetts'
civil-service law, however, requires that layoffs be based on
seniority.

"We are pleased that the Court has agreed to hear the case," said
Elizabeth A. McPike, director of field services for the American
Federation of Teachers (aft). "The two cases are very similar in their
salient features."

The aft had joined its Boston affiliate in arguing that the
constitutional and contractual rights of white teachers were violated
when the city was ordered by a federal judge last year to retain black
teachers when its school system furloughed over 1,000 classroom
instructors.

The aft has already filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking
it either to reverse its decision not to hear that case (Local 66,
Boston Teachers Union v. Boston School Committee) or to delay its
decision on whether to hear that case until it rules on the appeal by
the Boston police and firefighters' unions.

'Basic Issues'

"The firefighters' case is very important," said Robert H. Chanin,
general counsel to the National Education Association (nea). "The Court
is going to have to decide the same basic issue in both cases." The nea
has not yet decided whether it will involve itself in the case, Mr.
Chanin said.

Teachers' unions in three other cities--Kalamazoo, Mich., Buffalo,
N.Y., and Springfield, Ill.--are also appealing school-desegregation
orders requiring layoffs on the basis of race instead of seniority.
Union lawyers say a decision in the Boston municipal-workers case could
affect those appeals as well.

As a result of the 1980 passage of Proposition 2, which placed a
statewide limit on property taxes, Boston suffered a severe fiscal
crisis last year and was forced to lay off hundreds of policemen and
firefighters.

Minority members of the uniformed forces, frequently hired under
affirmative-action programs, often have less seniority than their white
colleagues.

In Boston, layoffs by seniority would have resulted in the
furloughing of roughly half of the black and Hispanic employees in both
departments, undermining a decade-long federal-court effort to
integrate the forces.

In 1972, blacks and Hispanics re-presented less than 1 percent of
the fire department and 2.3 percent of the police force; in 1981, they
represented 14.7 percent of the fire department and 11.7 percent of the
police force.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Caffrey ordered that race play a role in
layoff decisions in order to preserve those gains.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld Judge
Caffrey's order.

Lost Seniority

The senior white policemen and firefighters who were furloughed, but
have since been reinstated, are appealing to the Supreme Court for back
pay and lost seniority on the grounds that Judge Caffrey lacked the
authority to overturn the state's civil-service law requiring that
lay-offs be determined by seniority. If the Court overturns the
appellate court's ruling on the narrow grounds that Judge Caffrey's
order violates the state civil-service law, it may not apply to the
Boston teachers' case, in which a federal judge overruled the seniority
provision in a collective-bargaining agreement rather than a state
law.

However, Mr. Chanin of the nea said that the Court is more likely to
decide the case on the broader grounds of whether or not Judge
Caffrey's order violates the constitutional rights of white employees
by denying their equal-protection rights guaranteed under the 14th
Amendment.

If so, the Court's decision could be applied to the Boston,
Springfield, and Kalamazoo teacher cases, Mr. Chanin said.

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