## Facts

- Three World War II veterans were employed at a Lockheed-related facility, left for military service, and were honorably discharged and timely reemployed under § 8 of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940.
- While the veterans were in service, the employer and the union renegotiated their collective bargaining agreement (1945) to provide that union chairmen who had acquired seniority would have “top seniority” while serving as chairmen.
- After the veterans returned, the employer implemented layoffs in the veterans’ unit within one year of reemployment.
- Layoffs generally followed seniority (including credit for military service), but the “top seniority” clause caused union chairmen to be retained over employees (including veterans) with greater plant and credited service seniority.
- The veterans were laid off temporarily and sought compensation for the layoff periods, claiming the layoff order violated their statutory reemployment rights.

## Issues

1. Whether § 8 of the Selective Training and Service Act requires that returning veterans have absolute priority in layoffs over nonveterans during the one-year protected period.
2. Whether a collectively bargained clause granting union chairmen “top seniority” is invalid as applied to returning veterans when it results in veterans being laid off ahead of less-senior chairmen.
3. Whether applying such a seniority modification unlawfully denies veterans the “seniority, status, and pay” they would have had absent military service.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the judgment awarding compensation to the veterans.
- The Court held that § 8 did not give veterans layoff “super-seniority” over all other employees.
- The veterans’ rights were satisfied because they were restored with full seniority credit, and the layoff order reflected a good-faith seniority system in effect at the time of layoff, including the chairmen clause.
- The Court found no showing that the chairmen clause was adopted as a device to evade the statute or discriminate against veterans.

## Legal Principles

- Section 8 restores the returning veteran to the position and seniority the veteran would have attained through continuous employment, not to a preferred position.
- Under the “escalator” concept, the veteran receives the benefits and burdens of workplace changes occurring during military service, including bona fide collectively bargained seniority revisions.
- The statute does not freeze employment terms as of induction and does not compel the employer to maintain any particular seniority system.
- Seniority modifications may lawfully reorder relative layoff priorities if applied generally and not used as a subterfuge to defeat veterans’ statutory rights.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the Selective Training and Service Act protects a returning veteran’s ordinary seniority progression but does not confer absolute layoff priority; a good-faith collective bargaining provision granting union chairmen “top seniority” could be applied even if it caused veterans to be laid off before less-senior chairmen.


Aeronautical Indus. Dist. Lodge 727 v. Campbell, 337 U.S. 521 (1949)