Trnka v. Local Union No. 688, United Auto., Aerospace & Agriculture Implement Workers of America

• Decision Date: 07 September 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-3270,93-3270
• Citation: 30 F.3d 60
• Parties: 146 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2790, 128 Lab.Cas. P 11,129 Robert TRNKA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LOCAL UNION NO. 688, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AEROSPACE & AGRICULTURE IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA and International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agriculture Implement Workers of America, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 60

30 F.3d 60

146 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2790, 128 Lab.Cas. P 11,129

Robert TRNKA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LOCAL UNION NO. 688, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AEROSPACE &

AGRICULTURE IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA and International

Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agriculture Implement

Workers of America, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 93-3270.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 1, 1994.

Decided July 6, 1994.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 7, 1994.

Daniel F. Webb (argued), Chicago, IL, for plaintiff-appellant.

Michael B. Erp (argued), Harold A. Katz, Katz, Friedman, Schur & Eagle, Chicago, IL, for defendants-appellees.

Before BAUER, FLAUM and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

FLAUM, Circuit Judge.

Robert Trnka sued his union, alleging that it violated the duty of fair representation owed to him when it declined to continue to pursue his objection to being laid off by his employer, Dresser Industries. Trnka asserts that the union abbreviated its support for his grievance in retaliation for criticisms of the union and its local leadership that he had previously voiced. The district court dismissed the suit because Trnka failed to provide any evidence in support of his allegation of bad faith or arbitrariness on the union's part. Because it concluded that the union's decision to drop the grievance was supported by a reasonable reading of the labor contract in question, the court found Trnka's unsupported assertion that the union was motivated by his criticisms from long before insufficient to fend off summary judgment. We agree with the district court and affirm its judgment.

Trnka was laid off by Dresser in 1987 when he lost his "superseniority" status which, under the collective bargaining agreement, had protected him from layoff by overriding his normal seniority level, ordinarily determinative for layoff order. Superseniority is afforded to employees who hold certain union positions--Trnka was Night Shift Committeeman from 1985 until 1987 when his term ended and he lost a union election. Trnka was replaced at Dresser by a previously laid off worker of greater natural seniority. Trnka then filed a number of grievances with Dresser, in each asserting that his layoff violated various terms of the collective bargaining agreements between the union and Dresser. The union pursued his complaints through several stages of the grievance process but eventually withdrew them because, it claimed, they lacked merit.

To prevail on a claim that his union violated its duty of representation by dropping a grievance, a plaintiff-member must show that the union's decision was arbitrary or based on discriminatory or bad faith motives. See Ooley v. Schwitzer Div., Household Mfg. Inc., 961 F.2d 1293, 1302 (7th Cir.), cert. denied --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 208, 121 L.Ed.2d 148 (1992) (citing Air Line Pilots Ass'n, Int'l v. O'Neill, 499 U.S. 65, 70-78, 111 S.Ct. 1127, 1132-35, 113 L.Ed.2d 51 (1991)). To avoid summary judgment on the claim he must proffer evidence sufficient to support such a showing. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2552, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). The district court concluded that Trnka did not satisfy this burden. We evaluate the matter afresh. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

Trnka first asserts that there is sufficient evidence to support a conclusion that the union's decision to abandon his grievance was arbitrary. We have noted that the test for arbitrariness in fair representation claims is quite forgiving:

This wide degree of deference is warranted because Congress did not intend courts to interfere with the decisions of the employee's chosen bargaining representative. As such, a union only violates the arbitrary prong of the analysis when the union's actions are so far outside a wide range of reasonableness that the actions rise to the level of irrational or arbitrary conduct. Under this extremely deferential standard, courts should not substitute their judgment for that of the union, even if, with the benefit of hindsight, it appears that union could have made a better call.

Ooley, 961 F.2d at 1302 (internal quotations and citations omitted). Obviously then, so long as a colorable argument could be made at the time of the union's decision to drop its support that the grievance is meritless (and the union did not then treat substantively similar grievances differently from the plaintiff's), the decision cannot be regarded as arbitrary. Therefore, (as he did not attempt to establish comparative arbitrariness) Trnka's burden on summary judgment is not merely to demonstrate that his favored reading of the labor contract is as plausible as the union's, thus creating an issue of material fact regarding the correct interpretation, but rather to show that the union's reading could eventually be deemed not even colorable thus creating an issue of material fact regarding arbitrariness.

Trnka claims his layoff was wrongful because under the Central Agreement (i.e. the overarching agreement between Dresser, the international union and several locals) layoffs are only contemplated during periods of "reduced manpower requirements" and Dresser was not going through such a period when he was laid off, as some previously laid off workers were in fact being recalled at the time. The union responds that it would be anomalous, to say the least, to interpret "reduced manpower requirements" and "reductions in force" (the latter phrase is from the Local Agreement--between Dresser, the International and Local 688--in which layoff procedures are set out in detail) as referring only to those occasions on which the company was actively laying off workers. First, we agree that these phrases, on their own terms, naturally can encompass periods in which some workers remain laid off from earlier cuts but the company is not carrying out additional layoffs. Moreover, to ascribe to them the narrower, moment-to-moment sense that Trnka suggests--that is, to read "reduced" as "reducing"--(and then to conclude that as a result the agreements implicitly limit seniority-based adjustments of the layoff rolls) would mean that so long as the company is currently recalling even just a few workers, even if a substantial portion of its workforce is still laid off, someone who avoided those layoffs because he held superseniority status at the time but who had since returned to normal seniority would nonetheless continue on the job while more senior employees would remain on layoff. Trnka did not show the district court either how this odd result could be consonant with the strong seniority themes of the labor agreements in question (or the limited appropriateness of superseniority...