Local Union 1253 v. S/L Const., Inc.
| Decision Date | 24 July 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 01-CV-66-B-S.,01-CV-66-B-S. |
| Parties | LOCAL UNION 1253, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, AFL-CIO, et al., Plaintiffs, v. S/L CONSTRUCTION, INC., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maine |
Jeffrey Neil Young, McTeague, Higbee, MacAdam, Case, Watson & Cohen, Topsham, ME, for plaintiffs.
Sean M. Farris, Farris, Heselton, Ladd & Bobrowiecki, P.A., Gardiner, ME, for S/L Construction Inc.
FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
A union local and associated benefits funds seek to enforce rulings of a joint labor-management committee, which found that an electrical contractor violated the union's collective bargaining agreement. Having conducted a bench trial February 25, 2002, the Court makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law and ORDERS the Defendant to abide by the committee's awards.
This dispute implicates the specialized areas of federal labor policy and federal arbitration law. A union local and an electrical contractor orally negotiated the employment of two union electricians, and then proceeded to execute a written "section 8(f)," or "prehire," agreement. When the union sought to enforce the written agreement, the company balked. It protested that it never knew of, understood, or agreed to the terms of the prehire agreement. It had assumed that the written document memorialized the oral agreement and, consequently, signed the document without reading it. The contractor's obligations under this agreement and the methods of resolving related disputes are at the core of the present lawsuit.
A prehire agreement is a specialized type of labor agreement that exists only in the construction industry. See 29 U.S.C. § 158(f); NLRB v. Goodless Elec. Co., 285 F.3d 102, 104-05 (1st Cir.2002) ( prehire agreements). In the typical prehire agreement, the union agrees to provide a constant and ready supply of trained workers by giving the employer access to the union hiring hall. In return, the employer agrees to obtain workers exclusively from the hiring hall and to pay union wages and benefits to all employees doing work covered by the agreement. John Deklewa & Sons, 282 N.L.R.B. 1375, 1380, 1387, 1987 WL 90249 (1987). These agreements frequently contain a "union security clause," which requires that within a certain amount of time, all existing employees will become members of the union. See Jim McNeff, Inc. v. Todd, 461 U.S. 260, 262-63, 103 S.Ct. 1753, 75 L.Ed.2d 830 (1983) (). In short, a prehire agreement can convert a construction-industry employer into a union shop within a short time after it takes effect.
The prehire agreement in this case also contained an arbitration clause. When the company refused to comply with the terms of the prehire agreement, the union brought its complaint to arbitration and prevailed before the arbitrator. The employer continued to resist, and the union filed this action to enforce the arbitration awards.
Federal labor policy strongly encourages arbitration as a way to settle labor disputes. United Paperworkers Int'l Union v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 37, 108 S.Ct. 364, 98 L.Ed.2d 286 (1987). As a result, when a dispute about an agreement containing an arbitration clause comes before a court, the court must be careful not to infringe on issues—legal or factual—that the parties have agreed to leave to an arbitrator. See generally Large v. Conseco Fin. Servicing Corp., 292 F.3d 49 (1st Cir.2002) (). With this legal background in mind, the Court makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law.
The employer in this dispute, Defendant S/L Construction, Inc., is an electrical contractor headquartered in Augusta, Maine, that performs work for paper mills, utilities and public projects. In the spring of 2000, the company was performing electrical work at a treatment plant in Livermore Falls, Maine ("the Livermore Falls project"). Sometime in late April or early May, owner Jerry Burton determined that the company had fallen behind on the project and would need extra electricians in order to finish on time.
Believing that the company might be able to obtain the extra electricians from the local union, Burton directed his assistant, Gail Mayo, to contact Plaintiff Local 1253, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ("Local 1253"). Local 1253 is a labor organization that represents workers who perform "inside electrical work," or work governed by the National Electrical Code. On May 3, 2000, Mayo telephoned Wayne Rancourt, the business manager of Local 1253, and asked whether the union would be willing to provide S/L Construction with additional electricians. Rancourt told her that Local 1253 was willing to work with S/L Construction but that he would require Burton, as the company's owner, to sign the necessary paperwork.
Burton contacted Rancourt directly that afternoon, and the two men arranged to meet the following day to sign the necessary papers. Later on May 3, Rancourt stopped by Burton's Augusta office and dropped off at least one copy of a fifty-three-page document titled "International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union # 1253 Inside Agreement" ("Inside Agreement").
The Inside Agreement is a collective bargaining agreement between the Electrical Contractors Association of Greater Boston and Local 1253. Among other provisions, it obligates signatory employers to pay certain wages, make contributions to Local 1253's benefits funds, and obtain employees exclusively through the union hiring hall. It also outlines a three-step process for resolving "[a]ll grievances or questions in dispute" among parties to the agreement. (See Inside Agt. at § 1.06 (Joint Ex. 2).)1 The first step is informal resolution between representatives of the parties.2 If this is unsuccessful, the second step is "adjustment" by a Labor-Management Committee comprising three union representatives and three representatives of the employers association ("the Committee").3 Finally, if necessary, the parties proceed to final and binding adjudication before the Council on Industrial Relations for the Electrical Contracting Industry.4 The version of the Inside Agreement that Rancourt delivered on May 3, 2000, was effective July 1, 1997, to May 31, 2000. A successor agreement took effect June 1, 2000, and is due to expire May 31, 2003 ("Second Inside Agreement").5
Although Burton was out of the office when Rancourt delivered the Inside Agreement on May 3, he did have the opportunity to review it the following morning before the two men met and, in fact, already possessed at least one other copy of the document. Nonetheless, Burton failed to read the Inside Agreement or become familiar with its terms.
Rancourt and Burton met on May 4. They discussed S/L Construction's needs for the Livermore Falls project: two electricians for a period of three to four weeks. Rancourt indicated that Local 1253 was willing to provide the two electricians. The two men also discussed, in a general sense, some of S/L Construction's other projects and the company's current and projected personnel needs.
At some point during the meeting, Rancourt asked Burton to sign a one-page document titled "Letter of Assent—A" ("Letter of Assent"). The Letter of Assent provides that by signing, an employer "agrees to comply with, and be bound by, all the provisions contained in [the Inside Agreement] and subsequent approved labor agreements." (See Letter of Assent (Joint Ex. 1).) Rancourt had already signed the document on behalf of Local 1253, and there was a place for Burton to sign on behalf of S/L Construction.
Rancourt believed that the Letter of Assent created a prehire agreement between S/L Construction and Local 1253 and that, by signing, Burton would bind S/L Construction to all the terms of the Inside Agreement. Rancourt also believed that the Inside Agreement applied to all of S/L Construction's employees, not just the two electricians for the Livermore Falls project. He did not explain his understanding of either the Letter of Assent or the Inside Agreement to Burton. Nor, however, did he say anything during the meeting to indicate that the documents pertained only to the two Livermore Falls electricians.
Burton did not read the Letter of Assent or ask Rancourt any questions about it or the Inside Agreement. He claims he assumed the Letter of Assent was an agreement that he would pay union wages and benefits to the two borrowed electricians and simply signed it. Within a few days, Local 1253 referred the two promised electricians to Livermore Falls.
In the days following the May 4 meeting, some of S/L Construction's employees learned that Local 1253 expected them to become members of the union. They were upset and protested to Burton, telling him that they had no interest in joining the union. After receiving these protests, Burton sent Rancourt a letter dated May 15, 2000, informing him that "the men are not interested in becoming unionized." (See Letter dated May 15, 2000 (Joint Ex. 4).) The letter also purported to confirm that their existing agreement pertained to "[t]wo (2) men, rates plus benefit," but indicated that the company was finding the agreement too costly. (See id.) Burton suggested that if S/L Construction were going to use Local 1253 electricians in the future, the two men would have to revise the terms of their arrangement. The letter concluded, (See id.)
Over the weeks that followed, Local 1253 continued to insist that all of S/L...
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