Martin v. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.

• Citation: 911 F.2d 1239
• Decision Date: 10 August 1990
• Docket Number: No. 86-1287,86-1287
• Parties: 135 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2217, 116 Lab.Cas. P 10,234 Kevin L. MARTIN, Richard M. Goodwin, John Hutchinson, Charles Kohler, Kenneth Kruhaj, Bill E. Nordyke, Richard Nusbaum, Harold S. Sancya, Joseph J. Shingle, Jerome G. Tucker, and Donald D. Briney, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. YOUNGSTOWN SHEET & TUBE COMPANY, Jones & Laughlin Steel, Incorporated, LTV Steel Company, United Steelworkers of America Local Union 1011, Loren D. Hanson, Phil Krivickas, Dennis Henry, Warren F. Koonce, Henry Rowsey, and Louis A. Crane, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Page 1239

911 F.2d 1239

135 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2217, 116 Lab.Cas. P 10,234

Kevin L. MARTIN, Richard M. Goodwin, John Hutchinson Charles Kohler, Kenneth Kruhaj, Bill E. Nordyke, Richard Nusbaum, Harold S. Sancya, Joseph J. Shingle, Jerome G Tucker, and Donald D. Briney, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. YOUNGSTOWN SHEET & TUBE COMPANY, Jones & Laughlin Steel Incorporated, LTV Steel Company, United Steelworkers of America Local Union 1011, Loren D. Hanson, Phil Krivickas Dennis Henry, Warren F. Koonce, Henry Rowsey, and Louis A. Crane, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 86-1287.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 29, 1990.

Decided Aug. 10, 1990.

Michael L. Muenich, Hand, Muenich & Wilk, Highland, Ind., for Kevin L. Martin.

Lawrence L. Summers, Vedder, Price, Kaufman & Kammholz, William H. Schmelling, Chicago, Ill., Angelo A. Buoscio, Whitted & Buoscio, Merrillville, Ind., Carl B. Frankel, Pittsburgh, Pa., for defendants-appellees.

Before BAUER, Chief Judge, FLAUM, Circuit Judge, and ESCHBACH, Senior Circuit Judge.

ESCHBACH, Senior Circuit Judge.

Appellants, eleven members of the United Steelworkers of America, Local 1011 (Union), appeal from the dismissal of their suit against their employer, LTV Steel Company (Company), ¹ their Union, and various Union officials. The district court dismissed the suit because Appellants' complaint failed to state a claim that was not barred by the statute of limitations. We affirm.

I.

This appeal centers on the district court's grant of the Appellees' motions to dismiss the Appellants' complaint. In cases such as this, we will accept as true all of the complaint's well pleaded factual allegations and the inferences reasonably drawn therefrom. Yeksigian v. Nappi, 900 F.2d 101, 101-03 (7th Cir.1990). Although the complaint in this case is not particularly well pleaded, a story can be gleaned from it (and the appendices integral to it) without undue effort. That story is as follows:

The Appellants were employees of the Company, working in an Indiana plant. Around May 1, 1980, the Company represented to the Appellants that jobs as field motor inspectors, along with improved pay grades and seniority, waited for all who successfully completed a motor inspector apprenticeship training program (ATP), that the only way to become a field motor inspector was through the ATP, that ATP enrollees would be protected from layoffs during their tenure as apprentice motor inspectors, and that the Appellants were a select group uniquely qualified by virtue of their past experience to enter the ATP. Upon hearing this, the Appellants enrolled in the ATP. In so doing they waived their opportunities for enrolling in other apprenticeship training programs.

At about the time the Appellants were enrolling in the ATP, the Company was shutting down parts of the plant and laying off employees, among whom were eight apprentice instrument repairmen and six apprentice electronic repairmen. These employees had the Union's sympathies: it tried to find other jobs for them somewhere in the plant. The Union, wanting jobs, and the Company, wanting motor inspectors, worked out an arrangement around January 12, 1981, whereby the Company created an eight week accelerated motor inspector training program (AMITP I) into which the laid-off employees, without posting or bidding, were matriculated. The employees trained, graduated, and obtained jobs as field motor inspectors before the Appellants completed their training in the ATP. AMITP I was such a success, and the Company's need for motor inspectors was still so acute, that around July 13, 1981 the Company instituted AMITP II. Matriculated therein, with assent and encouragement of the Union, and again, without posting or bidding, were 16 electrical shop unit employees. These employees, like their counterparts in AMITP I, trained, graduated, and obtained jobs as field motor inspectors before the Appellants completed their training in the ATP. ²

At all times during which the training slots of AMITP I and AMITP II were being filled, the Appellants, by virtue of their seniority, training, and work experience, were the most qualified persons for enrollment into the programs. Because the AMITP I and AMITP II training opportunities were not posted and because the Appellants were not allowed to bid for entry into the programs, the Appellants, on July 7, 1981, filed complaints of grievance with the Union alleging that the selection of employees into AMITP I and AMITP II breached the Union/Company collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and the terms of a consent decree earlier entered into by the Company and the United States (Consent Decree I). The Union found the complaints meritorious, at least in part, ³ and proceeded to process them as a grievance through the grievance mechanism established by the CBA. ⁴ The grievance ultimately made it to arbitration. In a decision issued April 25, 1984, the arbitrator, construing the scope of the grievance as encompassing claims for all plant employees, ⁵ found that the Company violated CBA section XIII-K, para. 13.26 ⁶ because it did not post vacancies for AMITP II trainees, thereby preventing most employees from bidding on the AMITP II positions. In an award issued the same day the arbitrator held that the opportunities for 17 positions in the AMITP II programs should be "posted in accordance with Section XIII-K of the Labor Agreement," that "successful bidders shall be chosen on the basis of their qualifications as of late June or early July, 1981," and that "successful bidders who had originally been bypassed" had coming to them "the pay they lost as a result [of being originally bypassed], including the pay they lost if they successfully complete the training program."

Apparently the award left some issues between the Company and the Union unresolved, including the issue of whether CBA section XIII-K required unit or plant-wide posting. The issues were submitted by the two parties for the arbitrator's resolution at a meeting held on August 27, 1984. On that day he promulgated his resolution, determining, among other things, that the accelerated motor inspector training program opportunities were to be "posted on a plant-wide basis."

Around September 26, 1984, and pursuant to the arbitrator's statement of August 27, the Company posted on a plant-wide basis about 30 opportunities for entry into the new accelerated training program, AMITP III. Among the employees bidding for entry into the program were the Appellants who, by virtue of the qualification standard announced by the arbitrator in his award of April 25, were the most qualified of all those bidding. Around November 1, 1984, the Company selected the winning bidders, among whom were certain "phantom bidders" later removed after the selection, but none of the Appellants. The Company's selection occurred after Union attempts to influence the Company's choice of the successful bidders. Those attempts continued even after the AMITP III selection: the Union tried to influence the makeup of the AMITP III trainees by attempting to induce successful bidders to quit the program. For the Appellants, these attempts led to naught. The Company did not select them for training in AMITP III.

Apparently, the motive behind the Company's selection behavior was to reduce the Company's potential liability for back pay. ⁷ When the Appellants inquired of the Company about why they had not been selected this motive was concealed, the Company explaining to the Appellants--nine of whom are white, two of whom are black--that its particular selection was required by Consent Decree I.

This explanation failed to satisfy the Appellants. Between January 30, 1985 and March 20, 1985, the Appellants filed with the Union complaints of grievance. The complaints alleged, among other things, that the AMITP III posting and selection process violated the CBA and the arbitrator's award of April 25, 1984 because (1) the posting and notice of the bid for AMITP III was posted plant-wide, instead of FM unit-wide, (2) the successful bidders were not chosen on the basis of qualifications as of June or July, 1981, and (3) the Appellants were not chosen. The Union did not see any merit in the complaints. It refused to process them through the CBA's grievance mechanism.

The Appellants then filed their complaint.

II.

Filed April 23, 1985, the Appellants' complaint reads in six counts. In Count I the Appellants allege that contrary to the CBA and the arbitrator's award of April 25, the Company posted AMITP III openings plant-wide, rather than unit-wide, and it neglected to select the Appellants as AMITP trainees, despite their qualifications. Pursuant to 9 U.S.C. Sec. 9, the Appellants seek to have confirmed the arbitrator's award of April 25. They also seek an order requiring the Company to enroll them in AMITP III and pay them back pay totalling $2,000,000. In Count II the Appellants allege that the Company and Union "prompted" the arbitrator "to tamper" with his decision of April 25, resulting in his issuance of the statement of August 27, and causing 9 U.S.C. Secs. 9, 10 & 11 and 29 U.S.C. Sec. 173(d) to be violated. Further, the Appellants allege that the Company's posting and selection process violated CBA section XIII-K and the April 25 award. Apparently pursuant to 29 U.S.C. Sec. 185 and provisions of 9 U.S.C. Sec. 1, et seq., the Appellants seek injunctive relief and damages, including punitive damages, totalling $5,000,000. In Count III the Appellants allege that the Company violated CBA section XIII-K and the April 25 award in posting plant-wide the AMITP III openings and in failing to award them a position in AMITP III. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Secs. 2201 & 2202, the Appellants seek a declaration that they were the most qualified bidders and, apparently pursuant to 29 U.S.C. Sec. 185, they seek damages totalling $5,000,000. In Count IV the Appellants allege that the Union and the Company "...