Bechtel Const., Inc. v. United Broth. of Carpenters & Joiners of America
| Decision Date | 14 April 1987 |
| Docket Number | 86-6070,Nos. 86-6064,s. 86-6064 |
| Citation | 812 F.2d 1220 |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
| Parties | 124 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3076, 27 Wage & Hour Cas. (BN 1722, 106 Lab.Cas. P 12,270 BECHTEL CONSTRUCTION, INC., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS & JOINERS OF AMERICA and San Diego District Council of Carpenters Local 1278, Unincorporated Association, et al., Defendant, and United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry and Local 230, Unincorporated Association, Defendant- Appellant. BECHTEL CONSTRUCTION, INC., a Nevada Corporation, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS OF AMERICA and San Diego District Council of Carpenters Local 2078, unincorporated associations, Defendant, and The San Diego Pipe Trades Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee, an unincorporated association, Defendant-Appellant. |
Christopher J. Rillo, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiff-appellee.
Jeffrey P. Fuchsman, San Diego, Cal., for defendants-appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.
Before SNEED, FARRIS and NOONAN, Circuit Judges.
We consider whether a bargained-for wage reduction, approved by all parties to a collective bargaining agreement, must yield to the law of California, which authorizes a state Division of Apprenticeship Standards to establish a schedule of wages to be paid to indentured apprentices, and provides that that wage schedule can only be changed, modified, or amended by the Division.
Bechtel is a construction and engineering firm that has contracted to provide construction maintenance at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Bechtel entered into the General Presidents Project Maintenance Agreement by Contract, a national agreement between the General Presidents Committee and various contractors. The General Presidents Project Maintenance Agreement operates on a project by project basis. In 1981, Bechtel agreed with the General Presidents Committee to have the GPPM Agreement apply at San Onofre.
The GPPM Agreement makes no mention of wages and other terms of employment for apprentices. On the San Onofre project, apprentices in the plumbing and pipefitting trade are employed and trained by the contractor pursuant to an Agreement to Train Pipe Trades Apprentices. The Agreement to Train Apprentices was signed by Bechtel and the San Diego County Pipe Trades Joint Apprenticeship Committee, which is composed of labor and management representatives, and charged with the administration of the San Diego County Pipe Trades Apprenticeship Program. The Apprenticeship Agreement was approved by the Division of Apprenticeship Standards and incorporates all Approved Apprenticeship Standards of the Division, including wage rates.
In July, 1984, Bechtel announced that it would seek an across-the-board 15% decrease in wages at San Onofre, and petitioned the General Presidents Committee for approval. Bechtel received approval from the General Presidents Committee and put the wage reduction into effect in January, 1985, without seeking to modify the Apprenticeship Agreement.
Following the institution of the wage cut, fifteen plumbing and pipefitting apprentices filed complaints with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement to recover due and unpaid wages from Soon thereafter, Bechtel filed an action in the district court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief.
Bechtel. A hearing was scheduled for February, 1986. Bechtel notified the Division of its view that any dispute over the payment of wages to apprentices is preempted by federal law, and that California law prohibited the Division from hearing the apprentices' complaints. The Division removed the February hearing from its calendar pending a complete investigation of the jurisdictional issue.
The district court found that under California law, state minimum wage standards for apprentices do not apply where there is a collective bargaining agreement, and that interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement is a matter of federal law which cannot be adjudicated by a state agency.
Only the Joint Apprenticeship Committee and the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 230 appeal the district court's decision.
Underlying this dispute is the fact that a union representing all tradespersons at the jobsite is the bargaining agent for apprentices, but there are no provisions specifically relating to apprentices in the bargaining agreement. The wage rate schedule for apprentices has historically been fixed by a separate Apprenticeship Agreement. The wage rate schedule in the Apprenticeship Agreement has been set by the California Division of Apprenticeship Standards under California law.
The Plumbers and Pipefitters Union argues that the bargained-for wage reduction cannot alter the terms of the separate Apprenticeship Agreement. The schedule, the Union argues, represents California's legal minimum wage requirements for apprentices. The Union relies on Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U.S. 724, 105 S.Ct. 2380, 85 L.Ed.2d 728 (1986), in which the Supreme Court held that state attempts to establish minimum labor requirements are not preempted by federal labor law if those minimum requirements are not inimical to the purposes of the National Labor Relations Act.
We hold first that California law cannot reasonably be interpreted to place its apprenticeship wage standards above the collective bargaining process. We then conclude that those standards are not minimum labor requirements such as are protected in Metropolitan Life, and that any attempt to enforce them against a collectively-bargained lower wage rate is preempted by federal law.
The first question is whether the California standards for apprentices' wages are intended to be state minimum wage requirements. If the state standards are not legal minimum requirements, apprentices at the jobsite have no state right to wages at or above those standards, and no state agency can hear their claims. If they are minimum requirements, Metropolitan Life may require that federal labor law defer to them in conflicts such as this.
California regulations and statutes suggest that the state's wage schedules should give way to wage rates established in collective bargaining.
Section 212(c)(7)(A) & (B) of the California Apprenticeship Council regulations provides that any
wage progression schedule shall be in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement, if contained therein; ... where the program is not subject to collective bargaining, the wage progression schedule shall be determined by the program sponsor in consultation with the Division of Apprenticeship Standards....
The regulatory scheme thus assumes that the wage scales of the state agency are secondary to the collective bargaining process, and only come into play where there is no collective bargaining agreement. The Union contends that the collective bargaining agreement here makes no provisions regarding apprentices, and therefore In addition, California Labor Code Section 229 provides that actions for the collection of due and unpaid wages cannot be maintained in cases "involving any dispute concerning the interpretation or application of any collective bargaining agreement containing ... an arbitration agreement." This provision has been interpreted in the California courts as a prohibition against the Labor Commissioner's assumption of jurisdiction over claims for unpaid wages arising under collective bargaining agreements. See Plumbing, Heating & Piping Employers Council of Northern California v. Howard, 53 Cal.App.3d 828, 126 Cal.Rptr. 406, 411 (1975). The provision demonstrates that the California legislature also considered that the bargaining process was fundamental, taking precedence over any standards that might otherwise govern labor relations.
cannot preempt the agency's minimum standards. This view does not account for the fact that the General Presidents Committee is empowered to bargain for apprentices, and the GPPM Agreement is intended to cover apprentices. The 15% wage reduction was negotiated for apprentices as well as other tradespeople at San Onofre.
The Union argues that the collective bargaining agreement at issue is not the kind contemplated by the California statute, as it does not contain an arbitration clause expressly covering the dispute in this case. However, the Agreement does include a general mandatory arbitration clause, which presumably applies to disputes over the terms of employment of apprentices.
The Union acknowledges that there may be "ambiguity" in California's law on apprenticeship, but it contends that the Division of Apprenticeship Standards has adopted the interpretation that the Union puts forth. The Union argues that the state agency's view of the statutory and regulatory provisions it is to administer should prevail. The agency's interpretation, the Union suggests, "must be accorded great respect by the courts and be followed unless such an interpretation is clearly erroneous." It cites Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 409 U.S. 205, 210, 93 S.Ct. 364, 367, 34 L.Ed.2d 415 (1972), and California Hospital Ass'n v. Henning, 770 F.2d 856, 859 (9th Cir.1985).
Neither of these cases suggests a clearly erroneous standard. Trafficante holds only that a consistent administrative construction of an act is entitled to great weight. 409 U.S. at 210, 93 S.Ct. at 367. Henning states that "[w]here ... an agency has interpreted legislation it administers with respect to an issue as to which the legislation is silent or ambiguous, 'the question for the court is whether the agency's answer is...
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