Crenshaw v. Allied Chemical Corp.

• Decision Date: 16 January 1975
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 74-0060-R.
• Citation: 387 F. Supp. 594
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia
• Parties: Joseph A. CRENSHAW et al. v. ALLIED CHEMICAL CORP. et al.

387 F. Supp. 594

Joseph A. CRENSHAW et al. v. ALLIED CHEMICAL CORP. et al.

Civ. A. No. 74-0060-R.

United States District Court, E. D. Virginia, Richmond Division.

January 16, 1975.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

JeRoyd X. Greene, Richmond, Va., for plaintiffs.

Hill B. Wellford, Jr., Richmond, Va., Jay J. Levit, Richmond, Va., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM

MERHIGE, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, former employees of Allied Chemical Corporation ("Allied"), bring this purported class action against Allied and Local 101, Industrial and Allied Workers ("Local 101"), alleging (1) that they were wrongly discharged by Allied for participating in a work stoppage at Allied's Chesterfield, Virginia plant located within this Judicial District, and (2) that Local 101 breached its duty of fair representation by conspiring with Allied to let their "discharges stand", and, then, only lackadaisically pressing their claims through the contract grievance procedure, and, finally, refusing to arbitrate their dispute with Allied. Plaintiffs now seek reinstatement and monetary relief. Jurisdiction over plaintiffs' wrongful discharge action against Allied is conferred by § 301 of the Labor-Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185. Plaintiffs' breach of fair representation action arises under § 9(a) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 159(a) and jurisdiction is conferred by 28 U.S. C. §§ 1331(a) and 1337. This matter comes before the Court on defendant Local 101's motion to dismiss, accompanied by exhibits, and defendant Allied's motion to dismiss, accompanied by an affidavit; both motions are addressed by the Court as ones for summary judgment.

I. STATEMENT OF FACTS

The Court has culled the following facts from the pleadings, affidavits, and other papers: Allied, a New York corporation, operates a plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia, where it manufactures chemicals which move in interstate commerce. Local 101, which is affiliated with the Teamsters Union, represents a bargaining unit comprised of hourly paid production and maintenance workers located at Allied's Chesterfield plant. In March, 1972, Allied and Local 101 entered into a collective bargaining agreement covering employees in Local 101's bargaining unit, which provided for wage increases in March 1972, March 1973, and March 1974. The agreement also permitted Allied to unilaterally change wage rates where a new job was created or where the responsibilities in an existing job were changed substantially.

Despite the terms of the agreement, Local 101 in August, 1973, requested a wage increase for all employees which Allied refused to grant. Contemporaneously with its decision to deny the wage increase, Allied notified Local 101 of its intention to establish a new maintenance worker classification at a higher rate of pay and subsequently increased the wages of certain maintenance craftsmen. Plaintiffs contend that this wage increase violated terms of the contract because no reclassification or substantial job change had occurred.

Plaintiffs allege that on or about September 6, 1973, Local 101 informed its membership of Allied's dual decision to reject a general wage increase and increase the wages of certain maintenance craftsmen. Local 101's secretary-treasurer, plaintiffs assert, informed certain employees that the selective wage increases breached the collective bargaining agreement and exhorted them to form a picket line. Certain employees then set up such a line and a work stoppage ensued. Two days later the Circuit Court of Chesterfield County, Virginia, granted Allied a temporary restraining order which forbade the plaintiffs and other hourly employees from further violating the bargaining agreement's no-strike provision and proscribed further picketing, or other action which would have the effect of preventing employees from working.

Local 101 disputes that it sought to induce its membership to engage in a work stoppage. It contends that it informed its membership by bulletin that it was filing an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board to challenge the selective pay increase and that they were to stay on the job while the issue was being litigated. During the work stoppage, Local 101 provided neither financial assistance to striking employees nor legal assistance to defendants in the action before the Circuit Court of Chesterfield County.

On or about September 18, 1973, Allied indefinitely suspended plaintiffs from employment for participating in the work stoppage. In October, 1973, Local 101 filed an unfair labor practice charge alleging that Allied had given selective wage increases to the maintenance craftsmen in order to discourage other employees from engaging in legitimate union activity.¹ On the 25th of October, the Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board notified Local 101 that no complaint would be issued against Allied as a result of Local 101's selective discrimination charge. Local 101 appealed to the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board who, in turn, denied the appeal on November 13, 1973.

At the same time that the union was filing its unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB, the plaintiffs, attacking their discharges and seeking reinstatement, filed grievances with Allied. When Allied refused to grant the requested relief at Step 3 of the grievance procedure, plaintiffs requested their union to submit the discharge issue to arbitration. Although, as plaintiffs allege, the union's attorney was reluctant to initiate arbitration, Local 101, nevertheless, requested a date for arbitration. An arbitration hearing at which plaintiffs were represented by union counsel² was held on February 25, 1974. The arbitrator found that Allied had acted well within its legitimate managerial prerogatives in selectively reclassifying certain employees, and had neither committed an unfair labor practice nor acted in a manner calculated to discourage unionism. The arbitrator concluded that the plaintiffs had participated in an illegal walkout in violation of Article 31 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement; that the Union, contra to plaintiffs' assertions, had "advised, urged, and pleaded with the employees to stay on the job;"³ and that Allied had acted legally in terminating the plaintiffs' employment.⁴

II. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

A. Plaintiffs' Standing to Institute a § 301 Action.

Plaintiffs have brought an action against Allied alleging that they were wrongfully discharged and seeking reinstatement with back pay. A preliminary question is that of plaintiffs' standing to bring this § 301 action in federal court. Section 301 of the Labor-Management Relations Act, 29 U.S. C. § 185(a), reads:

Suits for violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization representing employees in an industry affecting commerce as defined in this Act, or between any such labor organizations, may be brought in any district court of the United States having jurisdiction of the parties, without respect to the amount in controversy or without regard to the citizenship of the parties.

The parties to the collective bargaining agreement, which is a set of rules defining and regulating the work relationship, are the union and the employer. Generally, then, only the union and the employer, as parties to the agreement, have standing to seek its enforcement and remedy its breach. Although courts have usually not troubled to enunciate a theory upon which employees may be permitted to institute § 301 suits, it seems clear that standing should be premised upon a third party beneficiary theory. The union concludes the contract for the benefit of the employees that it represents so that when the union fails in its duty to provide representation, the represented should be able to appeal to the courts for relief. See Cox, Rights Under a Labor Agreement, 69 Harv.L.Rev. 601, 645-46 (1956). Therefore, the employee may acquire standing to launch a § 301 suit against the employer when he or she alleges that the union has breached its duty of fair representation by refusing to fairly, impartially, or honestly represent an employee's interests in a collective bargaining agreement dispute resolution proceeding. See Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U.S. 335, 342-345, 84 S.Ct. 363, 11 L. Ed.2d 370 (1964); see also Feller, A General Theory of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, 61 Cal.L.Rev. 663, 695 (1973) (". . . The significant holding of Humphrey v. Moore was that an individual could maintain an action to enforce its rights under a collective bargaining agreement.")

B. The Union's Duty of Fair Representation

Before reviewing at defendants' behest the procedural adequacy of plaintiffs' claims, the Court deems it appropriate to first sketch the content of the union's duty of fair representation.

Congress has given unions wide authority and great discretion to reconcile the competing interests of the employees whom they represent so that they might speak with one voice when they confront management at the bargaining table. The congressional policy favoring collective action through the union over piecemeal action by individuals represents a calculation that in a business world populated by powerful corporations the individual employee lacks the economic power to strike an advantageous employment bargain, and that the individual's economic interest is, therefore, best served by collective action. NLRB v. Allis-Chalmers, 388 U.S. 175, 180, 87 S.Ct. 2001, 18 L.Ed.2d 1123 (1967). Congressional validation of collective action, however, necessarily involves extinguishing many of the contract and economic rights belonging to union members and, instead, vesting the power to act in their behalf with their chosen representative, the union. This new relationship between union and employee has been succinctly described by the Fifth Circuit:

The employee has gained bargaining strength through representation by his union but has

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