General Teamsters Local Union No. 174 v. N.L.R.B.

• Decision Date: 20 December 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-2401,82-2401
• Citation: 723 F.2d 966
• Parties: 115 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2065, 232 U.S.App.D.C. 440, 99 Lab.Cas. P 10,619 GENERAL TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 174, Affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent. Allied Employers, Inc., Intervenor.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 966

723 F.2d 966

115 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2065, 232 U.S.App.D.C. 440,

99 Lab.Cas. P 10,619

GENERAL TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 174, Affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent Allied Employers, Inc., Intervenor.

No. 82-2401.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued Sept. 16, 1983.

Decided Dec. 20, 1983.

Petition for Review and Cross-Application for Enforcement of an Order of the National Labor Relations Board.

Harold H. Green, Seattle, Wash., for petitioner.

Susan L. Williams, Atty., N.L.R.B., Washington, D.C., with whom Elliott Moore, Deputy Associate Gen. Council, N.L.R.B., Washington, D.C., was on brief, for respondent.

Warren C. Ogden, Mercer Island, Wash., with whom Mark S. Davidson, Seattle, Wash., and Josephine B. Vestal, Mercer Island, Wash., were on brief, for intervenor.

Before WRIGHT, MIKVA and GINSBURG, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge MIKVA.

MIKVA, Circuit Judge:

Petitioner is one of three Teamsters bargaining units that, for several years, has negotiated contracts with Allied Employers, Inc. (Allied), a multi-employer bargaining association in the State of Washington. Prior to 1977, the bargaining units (the unions) negotiated individually with Allied for three-year contracts in the wholesale grocery industry. In 1977, the unions decided to sit together and conduct one set of negotiations with Allied. Those negotiations proved successful, producing three separate contracts for each of the three unions. In 1980 the unions and Allied again decided to engage in coordinated bargaining. This time, however, petitioner's members voted overwhelmingly to reject the proposed contract. The only issue before the court is whether petitioner manifested an unequivocal intention to be bound by any agreement ratified by a majority of the unions. If so, its failure to execute the proposed contract in 1980 constituted a refusal to bargain with Allied in violation of section 8(b)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 158(b)(3) (1976). The National Labor Relations Board (the Board) concluded that the coordinated bargaining format contemplated a binding contract upon ratification by a majority of the unions. 265 NLRB No. 59, 111 LRRM 1636 (1982). Because the Board's determination is not supported by substantial evidence, we grant Local 174's petition for review and deny enforcement of the Board's order.

I. BACKGROUND

Intervenor Allied, the charging party in the proceedings below, is a multi-employer association which represents approximately 300 employers in collective bargaining negotiations in the greater Seattle area. For several years, Allied has represented wholesale grocers and soft drink bottlers in contract negotiations with the three Teamsters unions involved in this case. The negotiations have produced successive three year contracts in both industries.

Petitioner, General Teamsters Local Union No. 174 (Local 174), one of the largest Teamsters locals in the State of Washington, has represented drivers and loaders employed by wholesale grocers and soft drink bottlers in negotiations with Allied since at least 1968. Robert Cooper, a key witness in the proceedings below, has been secretary-treasurer and chief executive officer of Local 174 since January 1, 1977. He represented Local 174 at the bargaining table during the 1977 and 1980 negotiations with Allied.

Two other Teamsters bargaining units also represent employees of wholesale grocers and soft drink bottlers in contract negotiations with Allied. The smaller of the two is Local 313, which represents approximately 80 drivers. The other bargaining unit consists of five Teamsters locals (the Warehouse Locals) which represent warehouse employees in greater Seattle and Tacoma. Since 1968, the Warehouse Locals have adopted a single contract based on pooled voting. Under a pooled voting arrangement, a majority vote of the total number of affected employees binds all employees, regardless of the votes within each individual local. The largest Warehouse Local, Local 117, is run by Arnold Weinmeister, who is also president of Teamsters Joint Council No. 28 (covering most of the State of Washington and parts of Idaho), and a vice-president of the Teamsters International Union. Weinmeister and his executive assistant, William Grami, participated in the 1977 and 1980 grocery negotiations.

For many years, Allied's negotiations with the unions over the grocery contracts followed an established pattern. Local 174, whose contract expired first, would negotiate an agreement with Allied. The other two bargaining units would then negotiate separately with Allied, but would adopt the same general agreement achieved by Local 174. Although the terms of the three contracts varied in some respects, the overall economic settlements incorporated into the contracts were identical.

In 1974, the traditional pattern of negotiations unraveled. The Warehouse Locals rejected the economic settlement ratified by Local 174 and achieved a better settlement following further negotiations with Allied. Allied subsequently agreed to reopen Local 174's contract to incorporate the better terms. Local 313--the last bargaining unit to consider the 1974 contract--was offered and accepted the settlement negotiated by the Warehouse Locals.

A. The 1977 Negotiations

Before the 1977 round of grocery negotiations was scheduled to commence, Arnold Weinmeister, a leader of the Warehouse Locals, convened a meeting of Teamsters representatives to discuss a new "team" approach to negotiations. Weinmeister wanted representatives of all the major locals to sit in on the negotiations between Allied and Local 174 to avoid the problems that had occurred in 1974. William Roberts, an attorney in private practice, advised the unions that presentation of a team of representatives would be legal, but suggested an alternative approach. Instead of having a team of representatives negotiate with respect to Local 174's contract, Roberts recommended that the locals consider "coordinated bargaining" whereby they could negotiate the three contracts simultaneously rather than conduct three separate sessions. The union representatives agreed to present this proposal to Allied.

The day negotiations over Local 174's contract were scheduled to open, a team of union representatives arrived at Allied's offices. The team included Weinmeister, Roberts, Cooper, and representatives of Local 313 and one of the major Warehouse Locals, Local 599. The spokesman for Allied's bargaining team, Richard King, expressed surprise at seeing the other locals represented at the opening of negotiations on Local 174's contract. At that point, Weinmeister proposed that they engage in "coordinated bargaining" to avoid the problems that had occurred in 1974. Roberts cited a case, General Electric Co. v. NLRB, 412 F.2d 512 (2nd Cir.1969), as authority for conducting coordinated bargaining. King indicated that he wanted to read the case and caucus with the other members of Allied's bargaining team. Afterwards, at a private meeting with Weinmeister and Roberts in his office, King stated that he had "learned something about coordinated bargaining" and indicated that Allied was "agreeable to coordinated bargaining."

When the full group of union and employer representatives reconvened, the parties discussed the groundrules for the coordinated bargaining structure. The unions would have one spokesman with representatives of the other major locals present at the bargaining table. Although each bargaining unit would still have a separate contract, they agreed to submit the proposed contracts to their memberships for ratification on the same day. Someone on the union side may have said that there would be "one big strike or one big settlement."

At the outset of the 1977 grocery negotiations, Weinmeister was the primary union spokesman. He later was replaced by William Grami. Other union representatives, however, were present at the bargaining table and participated in discussions throughout the negotiations. The parties negotiated an agreement which all three unions voted to ratify.

The coordinated bargaining approach was also incorporated into the soft drink negotiations in 1977 following a similar opening day scenario. Representatives of all the locals showed up on the first day of bargaining for Local 117's contract--the first soft drink contract scheduled to expire. The parties agreed to engage in coordinated bargaining with one set of negotiations producing separate contracts for each local. Allied's spokesman understood that the failure of one local to ratify would be "an internal union problem."

In 1977, Local 174 voted to reject the soft drink agreement, but signed the contract anyway pursuant to an agreement among the unions to pool the votes of all affected employees. The Board relied heavily on Local 174's behavior in the 1977 soft drink negotiations to support its finding that Local 174 intended to be bound by the results of group bargaining in the 1980 grocery negotiations. Yet the soft drink negotiations differed from the grocery negotiations in several important respects. Allied represented a different set of employers and used a different negotiating team and a different spokesman in the soft drink negotiations. Moreover, because Local 174 represented only 65 of the 1200 employees covered by the soft drink agreements, it had not been a dominant force in those negotiations. Finally, unlike the situation in the grocery negotiations, Local 174 was not the first union to sit down with Allied to negotiate a soft drink contract.

B. The 1980 Negotiations

Before the grocery negotiations commenced in 1980, Weinmeister told the Allied representatives that there would be coordinated bargaining "just like the last time." When asked what would...