Seniority, Rule of

Under the rule of seniority, employees are granted benefits and privileges based on length of service. The rule of seniority is derived from many sources, most significantly collective-bargaining agreements and state statutes.

In the field of public education, the most important benefit provided to senior employees is employment protection during periods of layoff or reduction in force. During times of layoff, an employee who has less seniority will be released before an employee with more seniority: in the common phrase, “Last hired, first fired.” Furthermore, laid-off teachers are often called back to work or rehired in order of their seniority.

In addition to increased protection from layoffs, senior employees typically receive higher salaries and greater benefits, such as increased vacation time. Other benefits associated with seniority include but are not limited to preference in assignments to particular buildings; assignments to particular class sections, such as honors sections; assignments to particular classrooms, such as larger classrooms or those with better lighting or temperature control; preferences in scheduling, such as preferred preparatory periods; and preferences in assignments to extracurricular activities. Often senior employees are given the responsibility of mentoring or supervising their junior colleagues.

Seniority-based systems reward longevity and loyalty, and this provides many benefits to both employers and employees. Employees who have attained the benefits of seniority are likely to remain with their employers, providing those employers with an experienced workforce and decreasing the costs associated with filling vacancies and training new employees. Junior employees, who aspire to attain the rewards offered by seniority, may choose to remain with their current employers. Seniority systems do have drawbacks, however. Most notably, many senior teachers exercise their seniority rights to avoid assignments to particularly difficult classrooms or schools, where their skills are most needed. In addition, some have argued rules of seniority may serve as a barrier to diversity in the workforce.

Sometimes, employees who change employers may be given credit for some (or all) seniority or time in service accumulated in their former employment. In addition, the rule of seniority often poses difficulties during mergers of organizations, such as consolidations of school districts. Organizational mergers present difficulties when employees lose seniority rights to their new coworkers.

Rules of seniority have been subject to two recent legal challenges. In the first, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the relationship between rules of seniority in collective-bargaining agreements and rights to reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In U.S. Airways, Inc., v. Barnett (2002), the Court stated seniority systems may not, with rare exceptions, be modified or ignored to provide an accommodation to an employee with a disability. Second, the No Child Left Behind Act, according to many administrators, requires abandoning or modifying seniority rules, especially in schools or districts that do not meet performance standards.