Employment Law for Business 6th Edition by Dawn Bennett Alexander ,Laura Hartman

تمرين 18

A power company began employing women as meter readers, and the job classification went from all-male to all-female within a few years. The labor union that represented bargaining unit employees negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement that froze wages in the meter reader classification and lowered the wage for new hires. There was evidence that the company president made comments concerning the desirability of housewives to read meters and that he admitted that the contract was unfavorable to women. A number of women in the meter reader category filed a state court lawsuit against the employer and union for gender discrimination on the basis of state law and wage discrimination under federal law. The employer argued that the federal labor law preempted the state law gender discrimination complaint, therefore the gender complaint should be dismissed. Is this correct? ( Donajkowski v. Alpena Power Co., 556 N.W.2d 876 (Mich. App. 1996)).