Caterpillar, Inc. v. Herman, 97-2055

• Decision Date: 09 December 1997
• Docket Number: No. 97-2055,97-2055
• Citation: 131 F.3d 666
• Parties: 18 O.S.H. Cas. (BNA) 1104 CATERPILLAR INC., Petitioner, v. Alexis M. HERMAN, Secretary of Labor, and International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, Local 145, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 666

131 F.3d 666

18 O.S.H. Cas. (BNA) 1104

CATERPILLAR INC., Petitioner, v. Alexis M. HERMAN, Secretary of Labor, and International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, Local 145, Respondents.

No. 97-2055.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Nov. 7, 1997.

Decided Dec. 9, 1997.

Robert E. Mann, Sally J. Sctoo (argued), Franczek, Sullivan, Mann, Crement, Hein & Relias, Chicago, IL, for Petitioner.

Bruce Justh (argued), Dept. of Labor Appellate Litigation, Washington, DC, John H. Secaras, Dept. of Labor, Chicago, IL, Ann Rosenthal, Thomas S. Williamson, Jr., Dept. of Labor, Office of the Solicitor, Washington, DC, Ray Darling, Jr., Occupational Safety & Health Review Com'n, Washington, DC, for Respondent.

Jerome Schur, Martha A. Garcia (argued), Katz, Friedman, Schur & Eagle, Chicago, IL, Jordan Rossen, Intern. Union, UAW, Detroit, MI, for United Auto Workers, Local 145, Intervenor.

Before POSNER, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.

During an acrimonious strike at Caterpillar's plant in Aurora, Illinois, Local 145 of the United Auto Workers asked for copies of Caterpillar's injury logs. These contain names and badge numbers of workers who crossed the picket lines, and Caterpillar feared that members of the Union might use this knowledge to harass or injure the strikebreakers. It furnished redacted versions of the logs, blacking out the employees' names and numbers. Chicago Tribune Co. v. NLRB, 79 F.3d 604 (7th Cir.1996), holds that if the Union had made the request under the National Labor Relations Act in its role as the workers' bargaining representative, Caterpillar would have been entitled to conceal the strikebreakers' names. But the Union instead made its request under 29 C.F.R. § 1904.7(b)(1), which reads:

The log and summary of all recordable occupational injuries and illnesses (OSHA No. 200) (the log) provided for in § 1904.2 shall, upon request, be made available by the employer to any employee, former employee, and to their representatives for examination and copying in a reasonable manner and at reasonable times.

The Department of Labor, which promulgated this regulation on the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, issued a citation accusing Caterpillar of wilfully violating a regulation. It sought a penalty of $20,000.

Caterpillar offered three defenses to the citation. First, it contended, § 1904.7(b)(1) creates a requirement that a union's request be "reasonable", which Caterpillar argued means that the request must be related to safety as opposed to a labor dispute. It sought to establish that Local 145's request was unrelated to any actual concern about the strikebreakers' safety. Second, Caterpillar presented a "greater hazard" argument--that revealing employees' names does not promote safety but may endanger the health of the strikebreakers. The administrative law judge rejected both defenses on the pleadings. The first submission was irrelevant, the ALJ wrote: "no statement of purpose is required by § 1904.7; no purpose, therefore, may be deemed 'improper.' " Caterpillar Inc., 1997 WL 123460, * 2 n. 1, 1997 OSAHRC LEXIS 20 at * 2 n. 1. The second defense failed, according to the ALJ, because Caterpillar had not sought a variance from administrative officials before redacting the logs. Finally, the ALJ disagreed with Caterpillar's submission that the violation was too trivial to support a fine. Although the ALJ determined that the violation was wilful because Caterpillar intentionally failed to carry out a legal duty (its good faith in believing that it had a defense was irrelevant, see Reich v. Sea Sprite Boat Co., 50 F.3d 413, 415-16 (7th Cir.1995)), he reduced the sanction from $20,000 to $5,000, writing: "The employee representative was provided with copies of the OSHA 200 logs, albeit with some names redacted, and there is no reason to believe that the redaction of ... names and badge numbers diminished the level of protection afforded to Caterpillar employees. I find that the proposed penalty is excessive." The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission declined to review the ALJ's order, making it the final agency decision.

We are no more impressed than was the ALJ by Caterpillar's argument that an employer's obligations are qualified by a requirement that a union's request be "reasonable." Although access occurs "in a reasonable manner and at reasonable times", these modifiers do not affect what is to be produced: the logs, not an extract from the logs. The regulation does not require a union to give (or have) a reason: it requires production on request. "Reasonable time" usually means business hours, with some advance notice. Perhaps an employer could argue that the midst of a short strike is not a "reasonable time" for disclosure given management's preoccupation with other issues, but that is not Caterpillar's position: it asserts a right to redact the logs no matter how long the strike lasts (this one continued a year and a half) and after the strike ends, as long as it believes that disclosure of names would create a risk to employees who crossed the picket lines. It wants a substantive limitation on access, not a reasonable-time-place-and-manner limitation. Obtaining names for an improper purpose may violate some other law, but proof of a union's "good" purpose is not a precondition to the employer's obligation under the rule. A reasonable-purpose requirement would complicate administration of a simple rule by creating a litigable issue in every case. The Secretary of Labor--the author of this rule, and the one whose interpretation matters, see Martin v. OSHRC, 499 U.S. 144, 111 S.Ct. 1171, 113 L.Ed.2d 117 (1991)--informs us that a person making a request under § 1904.7(b) need not state the purpose of the request or demonstrate its reasonableness. That reading, which is consistent with the regulation's text, is one we must respect.

Similarly we accept the Secretary's view that the Commission cannot label a violation de minimis and disregard it; that would transfer the Secretary's prosecutorial discretion, see Cuyahoga Valley Ry. v. United Transportation Union, 474 U.S. 3, 106 S.Ct. 286, 88 L.Ed.2d 2 (1985), to the Commission. If the Secretary issues a citation, the Commission must determine whether the violation occurred and set an appropriate penalty. Trivial violations deserve trivial fines, but the Secretary is entitled to insist on some exaction even for the equivalent of jaywalking.

The greater-hazard defense is a different matter. This defense, formulated in a common law manner by the Commission, appears to be acceptable to the Secretary as...