Intercity Maintenance v. Local 254 Serv. Employees

• Citation: 62 F.Supp.2d 483
• Decision Date: 29 July 1999
• Docket Number: No. 95-630.,95-630.
• Parties: INTERCITY MAINTENANCE CO., Plaintiff, v. LOCAL 254 SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION, Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, Victor Lima, and Donald Coleman, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

62 F.Supp.2d 483

INTERCITY MAINTENANCE CO., Plaintiff, v. LOCAL 254 SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION, Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, Victor Lima, and Donald Coleman, Defendants.

No. 95-630.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

July 29, 1999.

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Vincent F. Ragosta, Jr., Matthew Oliverio, Providence, RI, Christine M. Curley, N. Kingstown, RI, for plaintiff.

Daniel V. McKinnon, McKinnon & Harwood, Pawtucket, RI, Richard M. Peirce, Roberts, Carroll, Feldstein & Peirce, Inc., Providence, RI, Eunice Harris Washington, Service Employees Int'l Union, AFL-CIO, CLC, Washington, DC, Steven K. Hoffman, James & Hoffman, Washington, DC, for defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

LAGUEUX, Chief Judge.

This litigation embodies the classic struggle between employer and union. In this labor dispute, like in many others that escalate to such a dramatic level of contention, the former is committed to operating on a non-union basis while the latter is equally devoted to challenging that employer's labor policy. Economic philosophies clashed. An often personal battle of wills ensued, replete with threats, posturing, and collateral damage. Plaintiff Intercity Maintenance Co. ("Intercity") alleges that the union defendants crossed the bounds of acceptable behavior established by the labor laws that govern organizing campaigns. Most importantly, Intercity avers damage to its business from improper secondary boycotting orchestrated by defendants. Plaintiff also presses a variety of state tort claims, including tortious interference with its business relationships, defamation, and violation of its privacy rights. Plaintiff seeks to hold liable union actors all along the chain of command, from the Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO ("International" or "SEIU") and Local 254 Service Employees International Union ("Local 254") to individual union officials Victor Lima ("Lima") and Donald Coleman ("Coleman"). Defendants counter with a raft of defenses and move for summary judgment on all counts of the Amended Complaint. For the reasons stated below, defendants' Motions for Summary Judgment are granted in part and denied in part.

BACKGROUND

On a motion for summary judgment, the Court must view all evidence and related reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. See Springfield Terminal Ry. Co. v. Canadian Pac. Ltd., 133 F.3d 103, 106 (1st Cir.1997). The following factual recital is constructed with that instruction in mind.

Intercity, a small corporation based in Cumberland, Rhode Island, provides janitorial services to commercial buildings in the Providence, Rhode Island area. Michael Bouthillette ("Bouthillette"), president of Intercity, hoped to establish the company as an important provider of janitorial services to the health care sector in Providence. To this end, Intercity secured work at the Providence facilities of Women & Infants Hospital ("Women & Infants") and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Rhode Island ("Blue Cross"). As of late 1994, none of Intercity's employees were unionized. Local 254 wished to change that.

In December 1994, Lima, an employee of Local 254 assigned to the task of organizing janitorial workers in Providence, telephoned Bouthillette to announce that Local 254 planned to organize Intercity's employees working at the Blue Cross site. Lima requested that Intercity voluntarily recognize Local 254 as the workers' collective bargaining agent. Bouthillette refused the offer and explained that the decision would have to be made by the workers themselves. The two parties jousted over the telephone without resolution for some time. Lima approached Intercity employees at their Blue Cross job site and encouraged them to sign union affiliation cards. Some apparently did so. Bouthillette, learning of this intrusion into the employees' work day, ordered Lima to leave Intercity's employees alone when they were working. In January 1995, Lima and Bouthillette agreed to meet face to face.

At the meeting between Bouthillette and Lima, also attended by Robert Richard, Bouthillette's friend, Lima presented Bouthillette with signed affiliation cards from Intercity employees working at the Blue Cross site. Lima insisted that Local 254 was only interested in representing Intercity's employees working at that facility, and not those working at other buildings in the area. According to Bouthillette, Lima insisted that if Intercity did not comply with Local 254's request for voluntary recognition, the union would cause the company to lose the Blue Cross job, harass people associated with Intercity, and eventually drive Intercity out of business. Bouthillette recalls that Lima boasted that the union would use "Latino terrorist organizations," ex-convicts, and homeless people to accomplish its goals. To lend credence to these threats, Bouthillette maintains, Lima explained that Local 254 had severely damaged the business of another local janitorial services company, Aid Maintenance, for resisting the union's efforts to organize. Nonetheless, Bouthillettte remained steadfast in his refusal to knuckle under.

Undeterred, the persistent Lima and Local 254 pressed on with their organizing campaign. Attempts by Lima to speak to Intercity employees at the Blue Cross site were rebuffed by Intercity and Blue Cross security. Local 254 also renewed its efforts to convince Bouthillette to voluntarily recognize the union. Coleman, the director of organizing for the local, and Lima, Coleman's assistant, spoke to the company president on several occasions in January and February 1995. Unknown to the union representatives, Bouthillette recorded many of those conversations. Bouthillette now presents the transcripts of those audio recordings as evidence.

During these telephone discussions, Lima and Coleman first tried to cajole Bouthillette into coming around to their position. As Bouthillette stood firm, the two union officials eventually turned up the heat. During one conversation, Lima responded to Bouthillette's continued defiance with the following threat: "Well, then we're going to fight you all the way on this. We're going to call Blue Cross/Blue Shield and put a picket line up." Later in that same conversation, Lima offered the following: "Well, I'm just going to tell you what's going to happen now. I don't know how long you'll probably stay at Blue Cross, but I'm going to call them up right after I talk to you." Lima soon thereafter made his intentions express: "I guarantee you, Blue Cross ain't going to tolerate a picket line up there because we've picketed them in Boston before and all the other unions. We're going to put a nationwide boycott there, you think they're going to like that?" Bouthillette inferred a threat of violence from Lima's warning that he knew where Bouthillette lived and from Lima's boast that Local 254 could rely on the aid of "terrorists" to achieve their objectives. On February 21, 1995, Bouthillette obtained from Rhode Island Superior Court a restraining order against Lima and any agents acting on his behalf.

By early March, Blue Cross officials had become concerned. John Leite ("Leite"), the Director of Facilities Management for Blue Cross and the official responsible for selecting janitorial contractors, called Bouthillette to ask about Intercity's confrontations with Local 254 at the Blue Cross facility. Leite ordered Bouthillette to settle the dispute. Plaintiff alleges that several weeks later Leite explained to Bouthillette that Intercity would be dismissed unless they agreed to the union's demands. According to plaintiff, Leite was primarily concerned with putting a halt to the disruptions within the Blue Cross facility.

Lima continued to call Bouthillette in March. Bouthillette maintains that Lima threatened to put Intercity out of business unless he complied with the wishes of Local 254. There is also evidence that officials of the union directly threatened Blue Cross. In an affidavit filed in support of plaintiff's cause, Gary St. Peter ("St.Peter"), a labor relations attorney for Blue Cross, describes a telephone conversation he had with Coleman on March 28, 1995. St. Peter claims that Coleman identified himself as an agent of Local 254. Coleman explained that the union was engaged in an organizing campaign of Intercity employees. St. Peter states that Coleman then threatened retaliation. The affidavit explains that Coleman said "[t]hat if Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Rhode Island did not pressure Intercity into recognizing Local 254 as the exclusive bargaining representative for Intercity's employees, [Local 254] would throw up a picket line at [Blue Cross's] premises." St. Peter contends that he warned Coleman that such action would constitute prohibited secondary activity and that Coleman responded that the union would do it anyway.

Local 254 launched a new tactic against Intercity in late March 1995. In a March 20, 1995 letter to Bouthillette, copied to Leite, Coleman declared that "a health emergency exists at Blue Cross Blue Shield and Women and Infants Hospital." Coleman alleged that Intercity was in violation of federal and state health laws by failing to provide employees with safety books or federally-approved safety training for handling hazardous substances. The letter specifically noted that Intercity regularly violated the "Blood Born Pathogen Act in that its cleaners on a daily basis are being exposed to urine, excrement and vomit that could contain contaminated blood," Coleman asserted that the company had not provided employees with proper protective clothing and equipment. The letter concluded by asking a series of questions mainly related to a work site's ventilation system, though it is unclear from the letter to which site the questions relate.

That same day, Coleman wrote a letter to Leite explaining that Intercity had refused his request for information....