Sletten Const. Co. v. INTERNATIONAL U. OF OP. ENG., L. 400
| Decision Date | 18 November 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. CV 74-32-GF.,CV 74-32-GF. |
| Citation | 383 F. Supp. 853 |
| Parties | SLETTEN CONSTRUCTION CO., a Montana corporation, Plaintiff, v. INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, LOCAL 400, a Labor Organization, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Montana |
Poore, McKenzie, Roth, Robischon & Robinson, Butte, Mont., for plaintiff.
McKittrick & Duffy, Great Falls, Mont., for defendant.
This action in its present posture is brought to enforce the arbitration provisions of a collective bargaining agreement. The facts out of which the controversy arises are these:
On May 15, 1971, the Great Falls Contractors' Association, Inc., which is a bargaining agent for Sletten Construction Co. (plaintiff), and Local Union No. 400 of the International Union of Operating Engineers (defendant), entered into a collective bargaining agreement. The agreement covered the members of the local union "on work known as building construction." Plaintiff was bound by the contract, which expired May 15, 1974. This contract is known as the "Building Construction Contract."
On May 24, 1971, the Montana Contractors' Association, Inc., which is a bargaining agent for plaintiff, entered into a contract with defendant which expired May 1, 1974. It covered union members in "heavy construction, highway construction and railroad contracting and construction." These terms are elaborately defined in Article II, Section 3, of the agreement. This contract is referred to as the "Heavy Construction Contract."
Plaintiff on January 15, 1974, commenced work on a contract for the construction of some open settling basins to be used in connection with the City of Great Falls water system. Plaintiff paid the defendant's members under the Heavy Construction Contract until May 1, 1974.
When the Heavy Construction Contract expired on May 1, 1974, there was a work stoppage. On May 15, 1974, a contract between the same parties and describing the same union members as the Building Construction Contract of May 15, 1971, was executed. On June 14, 1974, an agreement effective retroactively to May 1, 1974, between the same parties and covering the same union members as the Heavy Construction Contract of May 24, 1971, was executed.
On June 17, 1974, plaintiff called its employees back to work and a picket appeared. Plaintiff proposed to hire under the Heavy Construction Contract. Defendant took the position that the employment should be under the Building Construction Contract. Plaintiff requested arbitration; defendant refused.
An order to arbitrate ... should not be denied unless it may be said with positive assurance that the arbitration clause is not susceptible of an interpretation that covers the asserted dispute. United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 582-583, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1353, 4 L.Ed. 2d 1409 (1960)
That cannot be said here.
The fact that there are two contracts does not alter the case. Both contain identical arbitration clauses. An interpretation of either contract in the light of what an arbitrator decides ought to be considered as to the whole relationship of the parties and the background of the contracts would of necessity involve the other contract. A decision that one contract is applicable would of necessity exclude the application of the other. It would be somewhat ironic if the fact that the parties had agreed to two arbitration clauses rather than one should result in a holding that a matter within the scope of both was not arbitrable.
The Administrator of the Labor Standards Division of the Montana Department of Labor and Industry wrote a letter dated June 23, 1974, to the effect that the Building Construction Contract was applicable to the Great Falls Water Project. R.C.M. 1947 § 41-701 requires that on contracts for public works contractors shall be required to pay prevailing wages and that the contract contain a clause to that effect. It authorizes the Commissioner of Labor to "keep and maintain copies of collective bargaining agreements and other information from which rates and...
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Wren v. Sletten Const. Co.
...the disputes arising under the collective bargaining agreements to arbitration". Sletten Construction Co. v. International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 400, 383 F.Supp. 853, 855 (D.Mont.1974). Thereupon, the parties submitted the dispute to Garth Magnum as arbitrator, who rendered an......
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Wren v. Sletten Const. Co.
...E. SMITH, Chief Judge. This case is a continuation of the controversy considered in Sletten Construction Co. v. International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 400, 383 F.Supp. 853 (D.Mont. 1974). In that case the court ordered that the parties submit to arbitration a dispute as to which ......