Schultz v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., OWENS-ILLINOI
| Decision Date | 20 September 1977 |
| Docket Number | I,INC,OWENS-ILLINOI,No. 77-1078,No. 9,9,77-1078 |
| Citation | 560 F.2d 849 |
| Parties | 96 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2115, 82 Lab.Cas. P 10,073 John SCHULTZ et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v., and Districtnternational Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Frank E. Wallemann, St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiffs-appellants.
C. E. Heiligenstein, Belleville, Ill., Thomas M. Hanna, St. Louis, Mo., for defendants-appellees.
Before SWYGERT and CUMMINGS, Circuit Judges, and MARKEY, Chief Judge of U. S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals. *
Plaintiffs are 25 employees at the Godfrey, Illinois, machine manufacturing shop operated by defendant Owens-Illinois, Inc., an Ohio corporation. They are members of co-defendant union. 1 Plaintiffs filed this complaint under Section 301 of the Labor-Management Relations Act (29 U.S.C. § 185).
According to the complaint, the Union represents plaintiffs and other employees at the Godfrey plant. On December 16, 1974, Owens-Illinois and the Union entered into a collective bargaining agreement expiring on March 31, 1977. Plaintiffs charge that this agreement was entered into by defendants for the benefit of the employee union members, so that each plaintiff is "entitled to the benefit of said agreement and to enforce the provisions thereof" (Complaint P 5).
Article 20 of the agreement provided:
Supposedly in breach of Article 20, no employee of defendant Company has been classified as an apprentice since May 22, 1975, nor allowed to enter the Apprentice Program well before then. This failure of defendant Company to place eligible employees into an apprenticeship program has allegedly deprived plaintiffs of an opportunity to increase their skills and training and improve their wages.
Plaintiff Schultz protested the absence of an apprentice program to his Union, and it filed a grievance on his behalf in April 1976. This grievance was processed pursuant to the grievance procedure of Section 1 of Article 21 of the contract and rejected by defendant Company. Defendant Union refused to submit the grievance to arbitration under Section 2 of that Article. According to plaintiffs, the defendants conspired to defeat plaintiff Schultz' grievance, for in 1971 they had secretly agreed to eliminate the apprenticeship program in breach of the Union's duty of fair representation under 29 U.S.C. § 141.
As a result of the Company's failure to carry out its Article 20 apprenticeship program and the Union's breach of its duty of fair representation, plaintiffs assertedly lost the earnings difference between their current rate of pay and the higher rate of pay that they would have earned as Master Machinists. Moreover, because of the maximum age limit for apprentices, some plaintiffs, including plaintiff John Schultz, were permanently deprived of the opportunity of becoming apprentices, thus depriving them of Master Machinists' wages for the remainder of their working lives.
Plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that defendant Company violated Apprenticeship Article 20 of the agreement and that the defendant Union breached its duty of fair representation of plaintiffs. They also sought compensatory damages of $500,000 and exemplary or punitive damages of $500,000, and an order compelling the Company to abide by Apprenticeship Article 20 of the collective bargaining agreement by reinstating the apprenticeship program.
On September 21, 1976, defendant Union filed a motion to dismiss, asserting that the collective bargaining agreement was governed by the "Standards of Apprenticeship" 2 which supposedly did not require defendant company to continue an apprentice program when it "did not have sufficient available work to continue said program or full employment with its present journeymen employees." The motion also stated that the grievance procedure in Article 21 of the collective bargaining agreement did not require the Union to arbitrate plaintiff Schultz' grievance because it was "totally without merit." The other ground of the motion to dismiss was that the complaint failed to state a cause of action under 29 U.S.C. § 414 et seq., the sections of Labor-Management Relations Act plaintiffs mistakenly had relied on with regard to the Union's alleged failure of fair representation before their September 24, 1976, amendment charging a breach of 29 U.S.C. § 141 et seq. The Company also filed a motion to dismiss, asserting that the complaint failed to state a claim.
In December 1976, the district court handed down a memorandum order dismissing the complaint for failure to state a claim. The court held that plaintiffs could not maintain a suit under Section 301 of the Labor-Management Relations Act because "the question of the duty of the company to maintain an apprenticeship program under the collective bargaining agreement is not 'uniquely personal' to plaintiffs."
A month later, the district court handed down another memorandum order refusing to modify its previous order. Plaintiffs maintained that even if the rights sought to be enforced were not uniquely personal, a § 301 action will lie because of the allegation of the breach by the Union of its duty of fair representation. The court reiterated that "before an individual may bring an(y) action pursuant to § 301, the rights asserted must be personal and vested in him at the time of the suit," citing Brown v. Sterling Aluminum Products Corp., 365 F.2d 651, 657 (8th Cir. 1966), certiorari denied, 386 U.S. 957, 87 S.Ct. 1023, 18 L.Ed.2d 105. We reverse.
Ever since Smith v. Evening News Ass'n, 371 U.S. 195, 198-200, 83 S.Ct. 267, 9 L.Ed.2d 246, it is clear that Section 301 permits suits by employees against their employer and union when they are seeking to vindicate uniquely personal rights granted them by the collective bargaining agreement. Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, 424 U.S. 554, 562, 96 S.Ct. 1048, 47 L.Ed.2d 231; Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 87 S.Ct. 903, 17 L.Ed.2d 842. 3 Both defendants urge this Court to affirm on the ground that plaintiffs do not have any "uniquely personal" rights to be trained as apprentices, so that Section 301 of the Labor-Management Relations Act affords them no remedy. We disagree.
To determine whether the rights plaintiffs seek to vindicate are " uniquely personal" rather than rights possessed by the bargaining unit as a whole, it is necessary to refer to Article 20, supra, of the collective bargaining agreement that was in effect until March 31, 1977. All four sections of the Article are in mandatory terms. The key section here is Section 2 providing that the normal ratio of apprentices shall be one to every eight Master Machinists. Defendants seek comfort in the Standards of Apprenticeship referred to in Section 1 of Article 20. However, Article 18 of those Standards, entitled "Ratio of Apprentices to Journeymen", provides:
"Ratio of apprentices to journeymen shall be in conformity with present or subsequent bargaining agreements between the employer and District No. 9" (Sup.App. 40).
As seen, that mandatory ratio is one apprentice to eight Master Machinists. 4
Defendants also contend that a September 30, 1974, "Summary of Changes Between Owens-Illinois Administrative Division Machine Manufacturing Godfrey, Illinois and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District # 9" modified the apprenticeship program from a mandatory to a voluntary one. On the contrary, that Summary of Changes was referring to the changes that the December 16, 1974, collective bargaining agreement was making in the previous collective bargaining agreement, and Article 8 of the Summary, the only article of the Summary referring to apprentices, states that the provisions of the earlier collective bargaining agreement "Remain as written" (Sup.App. 49). The clause in the Summary upon which defendants rely states "The Company will provide training for present employees when it deems it necessary." But this clause only governs changes in job classifications reflected in the new Appendix "A" to the December 16, 1974, collective bargaining agreement (Sup.App. 22-23, 62) and in no way concerns Article 20. ...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Lewis v. Local Union No. 100 of Laborers' Intern. Union of North America, AFL-CIO
...427 F.2d 476, 490 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 911, 91 S.Ct. 137, 27 L.Ed.2d 911 (1970). See also Schultz v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 560 F.2d 849, 855 (7th Cir.1977) cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1011, 98 S.Ct. 723, 54 L.Ed.2d 754 (1978) (Vaca holds that in a section 301(a) claim against an em......
-
Schultz v. Owens-Illinois Inc., OWENS-ILLINOIS
...Inc. ("Owens"), based upon Owens' alleged breach of contract involving rights in an apprenticeship program. Schultz v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 560 F.2d 849 (7th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1035, 98 S.Ct. 770, 54 L.Ed.2d 783 (1978) ("Schultz I "). Upon the remand of Schultz I, there was ......
-
Havas v. Communications Workers of America, 75-CV-268.
...(1967); Smith v. Evening News Association, 371 U.S. 195, 198-200, 83 S.Ct. 267, 269-70, 9 L.Ed.2d 246 (1962); Schultz v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 560 F.2d 849, 852-55 (7th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1011, 98 S.Ct. 723, 54 L.Ed.2d 754 With respect to Count Four, under the collective bar......
-
Arif v. At&T Corp.
..."uniquely personal" rights is typically resolved by resorting to the specific section of the CBA at issue. Schultz v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 560 F.2d 849, 853 (7th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1011, 98 S.Ct. 723, 54 L.Ed.2d 754 (1978). See also, Woody v. Sterling Aluminum Prod., Inc., 2......