Out Superseniority

To businessmen, one of the prickliest of personnel problems is superseniority. As defined by Selective Service, this means that World War II veterans must be given their old jobs for at least one year, even if it means laying off workers with greater seniority, including World War I veterans. Last week the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to superseniority.

In a 6-to-1 decision the court held: the Selective Service Act "guarantees the veteran against loss of position or loss of seniority by reason of his absence. . . . He steps back on the seniority escalator at the precise point he would have occupied had he kept his position continuously during the war. . . . But we would distort the language of these provisions if we read it as granting the veteran an increase in seniority over what he would have had if he had never entered the armed services."

The test case was an ex-serviceman and welder in Brooklyn, Abraham Fishgold. He had been laid off while nonveterans went on working (TIME, June 18, 1945). Fishgold won his superseniority suit for $86.40 damages in a lower court. But Fishgold's union carried the fight to the Supreme Court. Fishgold, no longer welding, is selling trinkets in Harlem.

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