Muffley v. Voith Indus. Servs., Inc., 12-6628
| Decision Date | 13 January 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 12-6628,12-6628 |
| Parties | GARY W. MUFFLEY, Regional Director of the Ninth Region of the National Labor Relations Board, for and on Behalf of the National Labor Relations Board, Petitioner-Appellant, v. VOITH INDUSTRIAL SERVICES, INC.; UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AEROSPACE AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA, LOCAL UNION NO. 862, AFL-CIO; UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AEROSPACE AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO, Respondents-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 14a0012n.06
On Appeal from the United
States District Court for the
Western District of Kentucky
Before: BATCHELDER, Chief Judge; GUY and MOORE, Circuit Judges.
RALPH B. GUY, JR., Circuit Judge. Gary W. Muffley, Regional Director of the Ninth Region of the National Labor Relations Board (Board), petitioned for an order of interim injunctive relief pursuant to § 10(j) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U.S.C. § 160(j), pending the Board's resolution of its underlying administrative complaint. The administrative complaint alleged that various unfair labor practices were committed by Voith Industrial Services, Inc. (Voith), and both the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, Local 862, AFL-CIO, and its International Union (UAW), in connection with a contract for "yard work" to be performed at Ford Motor Company's Louisville Assembly Plant. The Board argues that the district court abused its discretion in denying injunctive relief by misapprehendingthe relevant status quo and otherwise failing to properly evaluate whether injunctive relief would be "just and proper." Voith responds in defense of the district court's judgment, but the UAW has not filed a brief on appeal. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
The underlying administrative proceedings arose out of a series of unfair labor practice charges brought between February and June 2012 by the General Drivers, Warehousemen & Helpers, Local 89, affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (Teamsters), which had historically represented yard workers at Ford's Louisville Assembly Plant (LAP). Voith was the successful bidder for a new contract to perform yard work at the LAP, which was awarded after a shutdown for retooling that lasted more than a year.
The Board's consolidated complaint—issued in June and amended in July 2012—alleged primarily: (1) that Voith discriminatorily refused to hire its predecessor's Teamsters-represented employees and unlawfully refused to recognize or bargain with the Teamsters regarding yard work at the LAP; (2) that Voith and the UAW unlawfully coerced employees to authorize the UAW as their exclusive bargaining representative; and (3) that Voith unlawfully provided, and the UAW unlawfully accepted, assistance and recognition as the exclusive bargaining representative for Voith's yard employees. The ALJ conducted an administrative hearing with respect to the Board's administrative complaint over a total of thirteen days during August, September, and October 2012.
In August 2012, the Director commenced this ancillary § 10(j) proceeding by filing a petition and an amended petition in federal district court seeking temporary injunctive relief against Voith and the UAW pending resolution of the administrative proceedings. Arguing for an expedited decision based on a portion of the administrative record, the Director submitted memoranda insupport of the petition and a proposed show cause order. The district court found no need for further briefing or a show cause hearing, and denied the petition for the reasons stated in its opinion and order entered October 30, 2012. See Muffley v. Voith Indus. Servs., Inc., 906 F. Supp. 2d 667 (W.D. Ky. 2012).
The Board filed this timely appeal, but not until December 26, 2012—just after the ALJ issued his decision finding that most of the alleged unfair labor practices had been proven and recommending broad remedial and injunctive relief. See Voith Indus. Servs., Inc., No. 9-CA-75496, 2012 WL 6755112 (NLRB Div. of Judges Dec. 21, 2012). To date, however, the underlying administrative proceedings remain pending as cross-exceptions to the ALJ's decision have been filed and a final Board decision has yet to be issued.
Section 10(j) authorizes the Board, upon issuance of an administrative complaint alleging any unfair labor practice, to petition the appropriate district court to grant "such temporary relief or restraining order as it deems just and proper." 29 U.S.C. § 160(j); see also Gottfried v. Frankel, 818 F.2d 485, 492-93 (6th Cir. 1987). To grant such relief, the district court is required to find both (1) "reasonable cause" to believe an unfair labor practice has occurred; and (2) that injunctive relief with respect to such practices would be "just and proper." Ahearn v. Jackson Hosp. Corp., 351 F.3d 226, 234 (6th Cir. 2003) (); Schaub v. W. Mich. Plumbing & Heating, Inc., 250 F.3d 962, 969 (6th Cir. 2001) (citing Fleischut v. Nixon Detroit Diesel, Inc., 859 F.2d 26, 29 (6th Cir. 1988)). Since unfair labor practice charges are to be adjudicated by the Board, subject to judicial review, courts must be mindful not to adjudicate the merits of such charges in deciding whether to grant relief in the ancillary § 10(j) proceedings. Gottfried, 818 F.2d at 492; Schaub, 250F.3d at 969.1
The essence of this matter is a conflict over which union—the Teamsters or the UAW—would represent the hourly yard workers employed by Voith at the LAP. Production employees at the LAP, as well as Voith's janitorial employees, are and have been represented by the UAW. Yard workers, on the other hand, had been represented by the Teamsters since the early 1950s, as successive employers—until Voith—agreed to hire their predecessor's Teamsters-represented yard employees. Yard work, or vehicle processing and inventory management, includes tasks such as receiving vehicles as they leave the production line, scanning them into inventory, and moving them to a staging area for eventual transportation by rail or car hauler.
From February 2009 until December 2010, yard work at the LAP was performed by the Teamsters-represented employees of Auto Handling, Inc. (AHI), which is a subsidiary of Cooper Transport Company, Inc. (Cooper). Cooper had other contracts with Ford, including contracts for car hauling and related services at the LAP, and was a signatory to the Teamsters' National Master Automobile Transport Agreement. In December 2010, Ford shut down all production at the LAP in order to retool the facility before switching production from the Explorer to the new model Escape. Production did not resume again until April 2012.
AHI's contract ended with the shutdown in December 2010. As a result, AHI ceasedoperations at the LAP; terminated its 17 full-time employees; placed 195 on-call employees on indefinite layoff; and left 166 hourly yard workers on its seniority list. AHI provided notices required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 2101-2102, advising that 195 union and non-union employees were being laid off indefinitely. AHI's yard workers have been on indefinite layoff since December 2010 (with rights to bid into other bargaining unit work).
Voith is in the business of providing janitorial, yard management, and other logistics services to customers in the automobile industry, and is a signatory to a national collective bargaining agreement with the UAW. Since 2008, Voith has had a contract to provide cleaning and janitorial services at the LAP. A small cleaning crew was maintained during the shutdown, but Voith's annual bid in the fall of 2011 projected that it would need to hire many more janitorial employees to meet the requirements of the contract once production resumed.
In October 2011, Ford solicited bids for the yard work from selected contractors and indicated that the contract would be implemented in March 2012. Ford's Request for Quote (RFQ) asked each bidder—including both Cooper and Voith—to specify its projected workforce and the basis for its proposed labor costs. Cooper's bid identified its labor agreements with the Teamsters. Voith's bid relied on its labor agreements with the UAW, which it represented would cover all work it performed at Ford-related sites. A separate submission by the UAW asserted that all Ford yard work should be performed by UAW-represented employees.2
Ford delayed awarding the contract past the projected date in December 2011. At that time, the UAW had begun assisting Voith in recruiting applicants for new janitorial positions at the LAP(some of whom claimed to have been told to apply for a janitorial position in order to be eligible for yard work). On February 1, 2012, Ford solicited additional bids for temporary yard work to be performed during the vehicle launch under a separate "batch and hold" contract. On February 6, Voith conditionally hired a number of janitorial employees. The Teamsters claimed to have been told on February 10 both that Voith would get the contract and that Voith's yard employees would be represented by the UAW.
In fact, Voith was awarded the "batch and hold" contract on February 13, 2012, and the long-term contract for yard work on March 1, 2012. On February 14, the Teamsters made a written demand for recognition and urged Voith to hire its yard workers from AHI's seniority list. The Teamsters also solicited and forwarded applications from former AHI yard employees (32 applications were forwarded between February 14 and 17 and another 52 were forwarded before March 7). Voith did not contact these former AHI employees, however, and later insisted that there was not enough time to complete the hiring process to be ready to perform by the March 12 implementation date.
On February 20, 2012, Voith awarded 11 yard positions to senior janitorial employees who bid...
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