Topical ADA Archive

Collective Bargaining

• Aka v. Washington Hosp. Center, (CA DC), 8 AD Cases 1093, 10/9/1998
  
  Summary: It is impossible to determine from factual record whether collective bargaining contract, which includes section on "handicapped employees'' that specifically contemplates their reassignment whenever "feasible,'' would ever preclude employer from reassigning disabled employee to vacant position without complying with contract's provisions regarding seniority and posting of vacancies, but employer clearly has power to do so in at least some circumstances.

• Barnett v. U.S. AIR Inc., (CA 9), 8 AD Cases 1073, 10/6/1998
  
  ADA does not require employer to create exception within its seniority system as accommodation to disabled employee, even though seniority system was not product of collective bargaining. Employees rely on this decades-old seniority system to award equitably job assignments and shifts just as would employees subject to collectively bargained seniority system. Employer's seniority policy does not have exception that could encompass disabled employees, and there is no suggestion that seniority system is designed or used to discriminate against disabled employees.

• Wright v. Universal Maritime Service Corp., (US. Sup Ct.), 8 AD Cases 1429, 11/16/1998
  
  Summary: A general arbitration clause in a collective-bargaining agreement does not require an employee to use the arbitration procedure to remedy an alleged violation of the ADA.