Davenport v. International Broth. of Teamsters, AFL-CIO
| Decision Date | 02 February 1999 |
| Docket Number | AFL-CIO,No. 97-7190,97-7190 |
| Citation | 166 F.3d 356 |
| Parties | 160 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2321, 334 U.S.App.D.C. 228 Billie DAVENPORT, et al., Appellants, v. INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS,, et al., Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 97cv01954).
Barbara Harvey argued the cause for appellants. With her on the briefs was Arthur L. Fox, II.
Daniel B. Edelman argued the cause for appellee International Brotherhood of Teamsters, AFL-CIO. With him on the brief was Earl V. Brown, Jr.
Neal D. Mollen argued the cause for appellee Northwest Airlines, Inc. With him on the brief was John J. Gallagher.
Edgar N. James and Marta Wagner were on the brief for appellee Teamsters Local 2000.
Before: HENDERSON, ROGERS and GARLAND, Circuit Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.
The plaintiffs in this case are individual members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, AFL-CIO ("IBT"), and of IBT Local 2000 ("Local 2000") which represents all flight attendants employed by Northwest Airlines ("Northwest"). The dispute concerns a temporary labor agreement known as the "Bridge Agreement." Plaintiffs sued the IBT, Local 2000 and Northwest, contending that the president of Local 2000 lacked authority to enter into the Bridge Agreement because he failed to submit it for ratification by the union's membership. The district court denied plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction against implementation of the Agreement. We affirm.
The employment relationship between Northwest and its flight attendants is governed by a collective bargaining agreement entered into on August 1, 1993. 1 Section 5.A of the agreement regulates the number of hours a flight attendant can be required to fly within a given period of time ("flight time"), the number of hours a flight attendant can be required to work in a shift ("duty time"), and rest periods. See Appendix ("App.") 78-80. Specifically, § 5.A.3.b prescribes what is known as the "8-in-24" rule, which states that a flight attendant cannot be scheduled for more than 8 hours of flight time within any 24-hour period unless certain interim rest conditions are met. Section 5.A.3.d states that attendants generally cannot be scheduled for more than 30 hours of flight time in any 7-day period. Section 5.A.4 provides the additional restriction that duty time may last no more than 12 to 14 hours.
In March 1993, while the collective bargaining agreement was under negotiation, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that for the first time it was considering including flight attendant duty time in its Federal Aviation Regulations ("FARs"). See 58 Fed.Reg. 17,024 (1993). Northwest and the IBT responded by including the following language in the final version of section 5.A.3:
Current Federal Air Regulations as described in paragraphs 3.a. through e. below, shall apply to all Flight Attendants for daily and weekly limitations. Any changes or modifications in the Federal Air Regulations shall also be applied to Flight Attendants.
App. 78. The new FARs were published on August 19, 1994 and became effective in early 1996. They regulate duty time and rest periods for flight attendants by permitting airlines to assign duty time of 14 to 20 hours, rather than the 12 to 14 hours prescribed by the collective bargaining agreement. The FARs do not limit flight time, whereas the collective bargaining agreement limits it to 8 hours in 24 and 30 hours in 7 days. See 59 Fed.Reg. 42,974 (1994); 14 C.F.R. § 121.467.
Northwest took the position that in light of the new FARs, section 5.A.3 of the collective bargaining agreement permitted it to implement changes in the flight time limits, as well as to override other limits previously set forth in section 5.A. At a meeting on October 31, 1994, the then-president of Local 2000, Mary Don Erskine, disagreed. Erskine's successor as president of Local 2000, Bruce Retrum, took office two months later, on January 1, 1995. Northwest continued to press its position and negotiations ensued.
In June 1996, Northwest sent Retrum a proposed letter of agreement and stated that if the dispute were not resolved shortly, Northwest would seek arbitration. App. 194. Northwest's proposal was known as the "Bridge Agreement," so-called because it was intended to remain effective only for a "bridge" period until a permanent agreement was reached under a new collective bargaining agreement. See supra note 1. Under the Bridge Agreement, Northwest would be allowed to override the 8-in-24 rule when scheduling "higher value turnarounds" ("HVTs"), flight sequences that begin and end at a flight attendant's home base and generally do not involve more than three separate flight segments. In return, Northwest would pay flight attendants higher, international flight rates in certain instances involving longer flight and duty time, and would refrain from implementing other modifications in flight and duty time it believed authorized by the new FARs.
On July 17, 1996, Retrum responded that he would prefer to continue negotiations rather than begin arbitration. Northwest agreed to postpone arbitration, and negotiations continued for the next several months without resolution. An arbitration date was set for January 29, 1997.
In late January 1997, just before the arbitration was scheduled to begin, Retrum held two conference calls to discuss the situation with base representatives and executive board members of Local 2000. Retrum said that he had reviewed the Bridge Agreement with the lawyers for Local 2000, who had advised him that the Local "could not hope to win an arbitration" on the matter. Id. at 39. Retrum took a vote of the base representatives and executive board to determine whether to arbitrate the issue, accept the Bridge Agreement, or do nothing. The majority voted to accept the proposal. Id. at 40.
Some Local 2000 representatives, however, objected to adopting the Agreement without ratification by the membership. During one of the conference calls, Retrum explained that since the Agreement "was a grievance settlement and not an amendment to the contract," ratification was unnecessary. Id. at 476. Thereafter, Retrum consulted with the IBT Legal Department regarding membership ratification, and was specifically advised that ratification was unnecessary. Id. at 477. Retrum signed the Bridge Agreement on February 11, 1997.
On March 11, 1997, five union members, two of whom are plaintiffs in this case, wrote to the then-General President of the IBT, Ron Carey, expressing their view that Retrum had no authority to enter into the Bridge Agreement without membership ratification. They asked Carey to review the matter and determine whether ratification was required. Id. at 363-64. On March 21, 1997, Carey wrote to Retrum. Carey stated that he had "completed [his] review of the flight duty time issue and the terms of the settlement signed by Local 2000." He recommended that the Local "immediately communicate the terms of the settlement to the membership," "encourage membership input regarding aspects of the settlement which they believe adversely impacts them," and then "use this member information to determine its bargaining proposal or position" in ongoing negotiations with Northwest for a new collective bargaining agreement. He did not, however, suggest that ratification was required. Id. at 62-63.
On August 8, 1997, the IBT wrote to Northwest. "Without taking a position as to whether the bridge agreement is subject to [the ratification] requirement," the IBT wrote, "there is a colorable issue as to the agreement's validity absent ratification." Id. at 10. The IBT advised Northwest that it would submit the matter to the membership for an advisory vote, and specifically reserved the right to arbitrate the issue. Id. at 10-11. Northwest responded on August 12, 1997 that, pursuant to the Bridge Agreement, it would implement HVTs in September and October 1997. Id. at 189.
On August 26, 1997, the plaintiffs sued to prevent implementation of the Agreement and moved for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. The complaint, which named the IBT, Local 2000, and Northwest as defendants, alleged three causes of action. Plaintiffs contended that by going ahead with the Bridge Agreement without membership ratification, Local 2000 and the IBT had: (1) violated plaintiffs' equal voting rights under section 101(a)(1) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act ("LMRDA"), 29 U.S.C. § 411(a)(1); 2 (2) breached plaintiffs' ratification rights under the IBT constitution in violation of section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act ("LMRA"), 29 U.S.C. § 185; 3 and (3) breached their duty of fair representation. App. 1-9. The complaint did not assert a cause of action against Northwest, although it did allege that Northwest "knew and understood that a supplemental agreement or agreement to modify or amend a collective bargaining agreement was required to be ratified by the affected membership before it may be implemented," and that Northwest could not "lawfully implement the Bridge Agreement with knowledge that it was not ratified in accordance with the IBT constitution." Id. at 5, 7.
On October 3, 1997, the district court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction, holding that plaintiffs could not establish a likelihood of success on the merits. Treating the counts leveled against the union defendants as if they also had been leveled against Northwest, the court held that the two statutory causes of action could not lie against Northwest. See Davenport v. International Bhd. of Teamsters, 981 F.Supp. 6, 8-9 (D.D.C.1997). LMRDA § 101, the court held, governs only the rights of union members against unions. LMRA § 301, it said, does not apply to employers like...
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