Daniels v. Pipefitters' Ass'n Local Union No. 597, Nos. 90-3124
| Decision Date | 30 October 1991 |
| Docket Number | 90-3261,Nos. 90-3124 |
| Citation | 945 F.2d 906 |
| Parties | 138 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2576, 57 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 128, 57 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 41,034, 60 USLW 2315, 120 Lab.Cas. P 10,999 Frank DANIELS, Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. PIPEFITTERS' ASSOCIATION LOCAL UNION NO. 597, Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
John L. Stainthorp (argued), Peter Schmiedel, Peoples Law Office, Robin B. Potter, Mark S. Stein, Potter & Schaffner, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellee, cross-appellant.
Steven B. Varick (argued), McBride, Baker & Coles, A. Denison Weaver, Hugh J. McCarthy, Robert P. Lyons, Nancy J. Doyle, David M. Lefkow, Hugh J. McCarthy, Jr., McCarthy & Associates, Marvin Gittler, Asher, Gittler, Greenfield, Cohen & D'Alba, Chicago, Ill., Sally M. Armstrong, O'Donoghue & O'Donoghue, Washington, D.C., for defendant-appellant, cross-appellee.
Before CUMMINGS and POSNER, Circuit Judges, and NOLAND, Senior District Judge. *
The backdrop to this case of individual racial discrimination is the historic resistance within the building trades in the Chicago area to accepting racial and ethnic minorities into their ranks. The plaintiff, Frank Daniels, is black. He was able to get his start as a pipefitter and welder on account of the Chicago Plan, a government-sponsored directive designed to increase minority representation in the construction industry. 1 Daniels left the building trade fourteen years later when he was expelled from his trade union, Pipefitters' Association Local Union Number 597. His abrupt departure was also predicated on race, but this time the union used his race against him rather than in his favor.
After he was expelled from Local 597, Daniels filed suit against the union. He charged the union with race discrimination and retaliation causing him to be denied job referrals and to be expelled from Local 597. Daniels alleged multiple legal theories and claimed relief under Section 1981 of the 1866 Civil Rights Act (42 U.S.C. § 1981), Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (29 U.S.C. § 185), and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2). His § 1981 and § 301 claims were tried before a jury, which returned a general verdict in Daniels' favor and awarded him compensatory damages of $181,063.50 and punitive damages of $150,000.00. The district court held a bench trial on plaintiff's Title VII claim and entered judgment in favor of Daniels. Plaintiff then petitioned for attorneys' fees and the district court awarded fees of $265,777.00 and costs in the amount of $6,312.10. For the following reasons, we affirm.
A recitation of the racist slurs directed at the black members of Local 597 provides an introduction to the work environment that plaintiff protested against. When the federal government initiated the Chicago Plan and directed the union to accept additional blacks, the union's head complained that "big brother government came in and told us that we had to accept blacks and the rest of the minorities" (Tr. 1144). When a black pipefitter decided to run for a union position, the same union head complained that "this has been a white man's union * * * " (Tr. 810-812). Use of racial epithets by union officials pervaded the hiring hall. White members were told that they would not get jobs while they were "with those black people and with those niggers" (Tr. 1145-1146). Another official told a white member that (Tr. 1146-1147). Blacks were referred to as "baboon[s]," "porch monkeys," "spear-chuckers," "ghetto assholes," "nigger," "super nigger," "melanzanni" (Italian for eggplant), and "tutsune" (Italian for nigger) (Tr. 1149-1150, 1152, 1154-1155).
Daniels entered this work environment in 1970 after graduating from the Greer Technical Institute in Norridge, Illinois, where he was trained and certified as a welder. Upon his entry into the workforce, Local 597 issued him a work permit and admitted him to full membership in the union in January 1973. He remained a member of the union in good standing until he was expelled on February 1, 1984. Daniels' discrimination claims sought damages for the period beginning on October 7, 1980, and ending June 20, 1985.
During his tenure as a member of Local 597, the plaintiff was a persistent critic of his union's racial hiring practices. He filed numerous complaints with the National Labor Relations Board, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Illinois Department of Human Rights. All of these complaints concerned various incidents of racial discrimination and racial harassment. Dissatisfied with Local 597's discriminatory treatment of him, plaintiff paid his union dues under protest over a period of several years.
The union that Daniels joined, Local 597, is the exclusive bargaining agent for pipefitters and welders. It refers its members through a job referral service to the Mechanical Contractors' Association, an organization of contractors that employs welders and pipefitters. Local 597 operates the referral service out of the union hall ("information hall"). The arrangement whereby Local 597 refers its members to the contractors is governed by a contract--the Area Agreement. The Agreement specifically prohibits Local 597 from discriminating in referrals "because of race, color, national origin, creed, or sex" and requires the union to "advise applicants for work about available positions on a non-discriminatory basis" (Plaintiff's Exhibit 11, Article X, § 5).
Under the Area Agreement, contractors are under no obligation to hire exclusively through the job referral service operated out of the information hall. However, when the contractor hires a non-union employee, that person must become a union member within seven days and must maintain union membership throughout the term of employment.
Daniels challenged three aspects of this hiring apparatus in his lawsuit. He challenged the referral system in place at Local 597 as racially discriminatory, alleging that it deprived him of job referrals; interfered with his ability to obtain work; and failed to represent him adequately in the grievance process. Plaintiff's second claim--for expulsion--rested on his view that the union retaliated against him because he had previously filed charges of racial discrimination against Local 597. Third, plaintiff brought what he called a § 301 claim for breach of the duty of fair representation. Under this rubric, plaintiff identified the discrimination in job referrals, his expulsion from the union, and the union's violation of the non-discrimination clauses of the Area Agreement.
Plaintiff challenged the job referral service that Local 597 operated pursuant to the Area Agreement. A contractor in need of welders or pipefitters informed Local 597 that it was hiring. The union official on duty at the information hall, the Business Agent, recorded the inquiry on a request sheet, selected the appropriate number of union members to refer to the job, and then recorded the referral on a dispatch sheet. The Business Agent limited the number of referrals to the number of workers requested. Local 597 covered a large jurisdiction 2 and its job referral system was an important source of jobs. Some contractors, including Phillips and Getschow, the largest contractor in the area, made a practice of hiring only those workers referred from the information hall. In the period from 1972, Local 597 employed, on the average, 1,900 to 2,000 pipefitters and welders at any one time--at times fully one-third of Local 597's membership.
Despite the importance of the referral service to the hiring of pipefitters and welders, Local 597 had no written rules for the operation of the referral system. In theory, jobs through the referral service were given out on a first-come, first-serve basis to the union members on hand at the information hall, and then on a random basis to other members. In practice, the referral service operated much differently.
The Local 597 Business Agents responsible for doling out the work opportunities maintained a blacklist containing the names of those black union members and others who were not to receive referrals. Instead, those favored (and white) union members received their job assignments through the back door. The Business Agents circumvented the information hall by awarding job assignments in the union hall's back room and over the telephone. One white member of Local 597, Ron Chopp, characterized the referral system as "a union within a union" (Tr. 1129). When Chopp was a "favored" union member, he received job referrals by calling the union hall directly, or by receiving unsolicited offers from the Business Agents who telephoned him (Tr. 1124). After Chopp fell out of favor due to a dispute between him and the union, he described one instance where he was present in the hall and told by the Business Agent on duty that there was no work available. In truth, however, another union member was called into the back room on the very same day, given a referral for himself and two of his companions, and told: "don't say anything to Choppy" (Tr. 1134).
The experiences of Daniels and other black union members were no better. The evidence showed that Local 597 had a long history of discriminatory treatment of blacks. Despite the Chicago Plan, whose avowed goal was to increase black membership in the union, the black membership in Local 597 remained constant or declined. Documents submitted by Local 597 to the EEOC showed that in 1979 there were 7,561 members, 443 of whom were black. Seven years later, the overall figure increased slightly to 7,575, but the number of blacks had...
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