Duane Terrell BURNS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOUTHERN PACIFIC TRANSPORTATION CO. Et Al., Defendants-Appellees

Burns brought this Title VII action seeking to enjoin his employer, Southern Pacific Transportation Company (“Company”) and the United Transportation Union and its local (“Union”)- from discharging him for his refusal to pay union dues and assessments in violation of his sincerely-held religious beliefs. The district court held that the Union and the Company had fulfilled their statutory duties of accommodation required by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended (42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., particularly § 2000e(j) (1970 Supp. 2)) when they offered to relieve Burns of his obligation to belong to the Union and that no further accommodation was required because payment of the dues-equivalent to a charity worked an undue hardship upon the Union and its members by relieving Burns of paying his fair share of union expenses. The district court also rejected Burns’ attack upon the constitutionality of the application to him of § 2, Eleventh of the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. § 152 , Eleventh (1970). We reverse in part, holding that the Company and the Union failed to carry their burden of proving good faith efforts reasonably to accommodate Burns’ religious beliefs and their further…