Request By:
Honorable W. David Denton
Corporation Counsel
The City of Paducah
Paducah, Kentucky 42001
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of May 3 in which you relate that the city of Paducah [a city of the second class] has elected to operate under the civil service provisions of KRS 90.300, et seq. Your question deals with the definition of the term "seniority" as used in subsection (6) of KRS 90.350. In connection with your question you present the following facts:
". . . KRS 90.350(6) speaks of 'seniority' but no definition of the term is given in either that section or in the definitions contained in KRS 90.300. The City has, with the approval of the Civil Service Commission, been interpreting the aforesaid provision to provide for municipal wide seniority. However, a question has now arisen as to whether it would be permissible under existing law to institute a program of departmental seniority. Such a procedure would allow the employees to accrue seniority only within their department. Of course, such a procedure would then be a controlling criteria for promotions under the provisions of KRS 90.350(6) and reinstatement under the provisions of KRS 90.380(4).
"As a matter of further information you might be interested in knowing that various departments within the City contain identical jobs. For instance, the positions of laborer, truck driver and equipment operator can be found in various different departments within the City government."
The only statute defining the term "seniority" that we have been able to find is under KRS 61.371(7), which reads as follows:
"(7) 'Seniority' means the increase in compensation, status, and responsibility resulting from promotion or step progression within a class of a classified service or promotion or increase in compensation, status and responsibility in the unclassified service." Emphasis added).
You will note the emphasized phrase in the definition which indicates that the term "seniority" refers to promotions within a class of the classified service which would appear to eliminate the possibility of creating a program of departmental seniority since as you indicate there are many positions of the same class such as laborer, truck driver and equipment operator that are found in the various departments of city government.
Referring to Words and Phrases, Vol. 38A, we also note the term "seniority" has been defined to consist of relative positions among all employes within a specified job group determined by the length of service with the employer.
Siaskiewicz v. General Electric Company, 166 F.2d 463.
By comparison we find the term "divisional seniority" which would be comparable to the term "departmental seniority, " defined in the case of
Hardcastle v. Western Greyhound Lines, 303 F.2d 162, to be a system of seniority whereby operations of the employer are divided into divisions and whereby an employe hired into a particular division has seniority within his division over all employes therein except those who were hired into his particular division before him. See Words and Phrases, Vol. 38A.
Thus, it would appear that in order for the city to institute a program of departmental seniority within the classified service, KRS 90.350(6) would have to be amended to include within the definition of "seniority" the term "divisional or departmental seniority. "