Aleman v. Chugach Support Services, Inc.
| Decision Date | 03 May 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-1461.,06-1461. |
| Citation | 485 F.3d 206 |
| Parties | Jose ALEMAN; Cesar Basilis; James Blasic; Carlos Borrayo; Mario Rodas, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CHUGACH SUPPORT SERVICES, INCORPORATED; Chugach Alaska Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association; Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Amici Supporting Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Eric Kenneth Bachman, Wiggins, Childs, Quinn & Pantazis, P.L.L.C., Washington, D.C., for Appellants. Harvey Alan Levin, Thompson & Coburn, L.L.P., Washington, D.C., for Appellees.
ON BRIEF:
Ann C. Robertson, Wiggins, Childs, Quinn & Pantazis, P.L.L.C., Birmingham, Alabama, for Appellants. Richard T. Seymour, Washington, D.C.; S. Micah Salb, Lippman, Semsker & Salb, L.L.C., Bethesda, Maryland; Michael Foreman, Sarah Crawford, Monica Saxena, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington, D.C.; Susan E. Huhta, Carolyn P. Weiss, Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Washington, D.C., for Amici Supporting Appellants.
Before WILKINSON and KING, Circuit Judges, and T.S. ELLIS, III, Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded by published opinion. Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge KING and Judge ELLIS joined.
Plaintiffs brought claims against their employer, Chugach Support Services, Inc., and its parent company, Chugach Alaska Corporation, under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (2000), which prohibits racial discrimination in the making and enforcement of contracts, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2000e-17 (2000), which prohibits, among other things, employment discrimination based upon race and national origin. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants on the claims of one plaintiff because it held that Alaska Native Corporations and their subsidiaries were not subject to suit under either of the federal anti-discrimination laws. It dismissed the claims of two other plaintiffs because a collective bargaining agreement required that the claims be addressed through binding arbitration.
We reinstate the claims of the first plaintiff because the exemption for Alaska Native Corporations from suit under Title VII does not immunize the defendants from suit under the separate and independent cause of action established by Section 1981. However, we affirm the dismissal of the union members' claims, because any duty to explain the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement to employees with limited English skills belongs principally with the union which represents them.
The plaintiffs, carpenters Jose Aleman and Cesar Basilis and finance manager James Blasic, were employed by defendant Chugach Support Services, Inc. ("CSS") on construction projects that CSS contracted to perform for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") campus in Bethesda, Maryland.1 CSS performs general contractor services, typically for the federal government, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of defendant Chugach Alaska Corporation, an Alaska Native Corporation owned by Native Alaskans and their devisees.
Alaska Native Corporations play special roles in controlling lands and funds for Alaskan Natives, see Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Pub.L. No. 92-203, 85 Stat. 688 (1971) (), but Chugach Alaska Corporation also operates as a traditional business, employing about 5,000 people in construction, environmental services, information technology, telecommunications, and other areas. The defendants have not alleged that the plaintiffs' work touched in any way on the internal affairs or special functions of the Alaska Native Corporation.
Plaintiff Jose Aleman, who is Hispanic, performed carpentry and other tasks at the NIH site from March 10, 2003 until he was dismissed on September 9, 2003. Plaintiff Cesar Basilis, who is also Hispanic, worked at the NIH site from February 11, 2003, until he was dismissed on October 17, 2003. Plaintiff James Blasic, who describes himself as Caucasian and does not claim Hispanic ancestry, worked for CSS from December 2, 2002 until he was dismissed on October 22, 2003.
Aleman and Basilis were required to join the Washington D.C. Regional Council of Carpenters as a condition of their employment, and became members on August 15, 2003. The union's collective bargaining agreement states that it covers the period from May 1, 2001 until April 30, 2004 — a period that includes all of Aleman and Basilis' time as CSS employees. It includes mandatory dispute resolution procedures, including procedures for binding arbitration, with respect to any "grievance" between an employer and an employee represented by the union. It further states,
The parties expressly agree that a grievance shall include any claim by an employee that he has been subjected to discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and/or all other federal, state, and local anti-discrimination laws.
Blasic was not a union member, evidently because as a finance manager rather than a carpenter he was not required to join the union as a condition of employment. He was therefore not covered by the collective bargaining agreement's dispute resolution provisions.
Aleman and Basilis have apparently not sought to resolve their grievances through the procedures set forth in the collective bargaining agreement, but they allege that they should not be bound by the procedures because they were not provided with a translation of the collective bargaining agreement or its dispute resolution provisions into their native Spanish. Each stated in declarations made as part of this litigation that his ability to speak and write English is limited. Neither plaintiff claimed, however, that he did not or could not understand the arbitration provision in English.
Plaintiffs filed suit on December 27, 2004, claiming unlawful discrimination under Title VII and Section 1981 as well as Maryland law. Aleman and Basilis allege, in particular, that CSS terminated them on the basis of race. They also allege that when they were employed by CSS, they were paid less than non-Hispanic employees and were subjected to a hostile work environment and discriminatory terms and conditions of employment, including anti-Hispanic statements by managers and employees, segregated eating areas, and disparate disciplinary treatment. They further allege that an "English Only" rule at their workplace constituted unlawful discrimination. The two union members later filed a motion to amend their complaint in order to add their union as a defendant, asserting that the union discriminated against them under the same anti-discrimination statutes by failing to provide equal representation and by employing discriminatory terms and conditions, practices, and/or procedures. They cite, in particular, the union's failure to provide its members with a Spanish translation of the collective bargaining agreement or with the assistance of a translator in interpreting the agreement. The plaintiffs were not required to arbitrate claims against their union.
Blasic alleges that CSS violated the anti-discrimination statutes by terminating him in retaliation for reporting racial discrimination in the company's operations. He states that he was fired one week after reporting to the defendants that Aleman, Basilis, and two other Hispanic employees had been dismissed and that derogatory comments had been made to non-Caucasians at CSS' work site.
On November 7, 2005, the district court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the claims of Aleman and Basilis on the grounds that their collective bargaining agreement required binding arbitration of claims under Title VII "and/or all other federal, state, and local anti-discrimination laws." The court denied Aleman and Basilis' motion to add the union as a defendant in the same decision. On March 28, 2006, the district court granted summary judgment to the defendants regarding Blasic's Title VII and Section 1981 claims on the grounds that Alaska Native Corporations were exempt from suit under both anti-discrimination statutes. It declined supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims.
Aleman, Basilis, and Blasic do not now dispute that the defendants are immune from suit under Title VII, but they argue that the defendants are not immune from suit under Section 1981. They also argue that the district court erred in dismissing the claims of Aleman and Basilis based upon the dispute resolution provision in their collective bargaining agreement, and in declining to add the union as a defendant.
Title VII created a new cause of action for employment discrimination against unions, employment agencies, and any entity defined as an "employer." The statute provides, in relevant part,
It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer ... to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin....
42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a). The class of employers covered by Title VII is restricted to persons with fifteen or more employees, and it excludes bona fide private membership clubs, certain government entities, id. § 2000e(b), and — most relevantly — Alaska Native Corporations, 43 U.S.C. § 1626(g) (2000), and Indian tribes, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(b). The defendants argue that these exclusions not only bar suit...
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