Waterfront Com'n of New York Harbor v. Sea Land Service, Inc.

• Decision Date: 13 June 1985
• Docket Number: No. 1--P,S,Nos. 84-5526,No. 84-5526,No. 84-5527,D,84-5527,AFL-CI,84-5526,1--P,s. 84-5526
• Citation: 764 F.2d 961
• Parties: 103 Lab.Cas. P 11,528 WATERFRONT COMMISSION OF NEW YORK HARBOR on behalf of itself and of the State of New Jersey v. SEA LAND SERVICE, INC., Appellant ineafarers International Union of North America, Atlantic Gulf, Lakes and Inland Waters Districtefendant-Intervenor and Appellant inistrictacific Coast District Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association,efendant Intervenor.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 961

764 F.2d 961

103 Lab.Cas. P 11,528

WATERFRONT COMMISSION OF NEW YORK HARBOR on behalf of itself and of the State of New Jersey v. SEA LAND SERVICE, INC., Appellant in No. 84-5526,

Seafarers International Union of North America, Atlantic

Gulf, Lakes and Inland Waters District AFL-CIO,

Defendant-Intervenor and Appellant in No. 84-5527,

District No. 1--Pacific Coast District Marine Engineers'

Beneficial Association, AFL-CIO, Defendant Intervenor.

Nos. 84-5526, 84-5527.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued Feb. 28, 1985.

Decided June 13, 1985.

Gerald P. Lally, New York City, Gen. Counsel & Atty., for Waterfront Com'n of New York Harbor; David B. Greenfield (argued), Asst. Counsel, of counsel and on the brief.

Robert J. Attaway (argued), Barlow & Attaway, Princeton, N.J., Jeffrey L. Reiner, Meyner & Landis, Newark, N.J., for Sea-Land Service, Inc., Ann E. Isaac, Sea-Land Service, Inc., Iselin, N.J., of counsel.

Stephen Burrow (argued), Schulman & Abarbanel, New York City, for Seafarers Inter-Nat. Union of North America, etc.

Before ADAMS, WEIS and WISDOM ^*, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

ADAMS, Circuit Judge.

This appeal involves an apparent conflict between the collective bargaining rights of waterfront employees and the registration and licensing requirements of the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor (Commission). The Commission sought and eventually obtained an injunction in district court compelling registration of certain waterfront workers. The workers' employer and union representatives, defendants in the law suit, opposed the injunction on the ground that it would interfere with their collective bargaining [agreements]. Because we conclude that the registration provisions by their terms require reconciliation with certain aspects of existing collective bargaining agreements, the case will be remanded to the district court for appropriate amendments to the injunctive order. With these amendments, we have endeavored to resolve the conflict by ensuring that the Commission is able to exercise its supervisory authority and that the union's collectively-bargained hiring procedures are maintained.

I

The Commission was created in 1953 by a New York-New Jersey bi-state compact entitled the Waterfront Commission Compact (Compact). See N.J.Stat.Ann. Sec. 32:23-1 et seq. (West 1963); N.Y.Unconsol.Laws Sec. 9801 et seq. (McKinney 1974). The Compact empowers the Commission to license, register and regulate a wide range of waterfront employees, including, inter alia, pier superintendents and longshoremen. It was designed to deal with widespread corruption and crime on the waterfront. The Compact established a regulatory scheme including the following provisions:

(1) Registration of Longshoremen. The Commission was required to set up a longshoremen's register, and only registered persons were allowed to be longshoremen. The right to register was to be absolute, unless an individual was convicted of a crime, engaged in subversive activity, or his employment would be likely to endanger the public safety. Senate Comm. on Interstate & Foreign Commerce, New Jersey-New York Waterfront Commission Compact, S.Rep. No. 583 at 3, 83d Cong., 1st Sess. (1953); House Comm. on the Judiciary, New Jersey-New York Waterfront Commission Compact, H.R.Rep. No. 997 at 7, 83d Cong., 1st Sess. (1953).

(b) Employment Information Centers. These were to be established to eliminate abusive hiring practices. They were intended to be a neutral conduit between employees and employers, and according to the legislative history, were not to interfere with collective bargaining agreements. H.R.Rep. No. 998 at 7; S.Rep. No. 583 at 3.

(c) Collective Bargaining Rights. Article XV of the Compact states that it "is not designed and shall not be construed to limit in any way" any rights to organize, strike, or bargain collectively. Specifically, it guarantees that hiring procedures will not be displaced where they comport with the Compact. ¹

In this action the Commission seeks to extend its regulatory jurisdiction to approximately twenty crane maintenance workers employed by defendant Sea-Land Service, Inc. (Sea-Land). The workers' unions--Seafarers International Union of North America, Atlantic, Gulf, Lake & Inland Water District, AFL-CIO (SIU), which represents Sea-Land's crane maintenance electricians; and District No. 1-Pacific Coast District, Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association, AFL-CIO (MEBA), which represents Sea-Land's port engineers--intervened as defendants in the case. ² The Commission's complaint alleged that under the terms of the Act, Sea-Land's crane maintenance electricians (CME's) were "longshoremen," and Sea-Land's port engineers constituted "pier superintendents." Accordingly, these employees were alleged to be subject to certain registration and licensing requirements.

After extensive discovery, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Commission. The district court first determined that the crane maintenance electricians and port engineers were covered by the terms of the Compact. Turning to Sea-Land's claim that registration and licensing would conflict with federal labor law, the court concluded that such conflicts were "factually unfounded," because the Commission had made several concessions in the course of litigation that, in the court's view, ensured the continuing validity of the existing unions. ³

The district court observed that the Commission had agreed to respect the present employer-union relationships in a number of ways: (1) it would "grandfather" in Sea-Land's present CMEs and port engineers (assuming nothing in their records was disqualifying), thereby allowing present employees to be registered and keep their jobs; (2) it would allow Sea-Land to require its new applicants to fill certain qualifications set out in the collective bargaining agreement, insofar as such qualifications were bona fide; (3) it would not oppose SIU or Sea-Land if either insisted that new employees hired from the closed register join SIU within 31 days after being hired as a condition of continued employment; and (4) it would not enforce against Sea-Land's SIU employees any ILA seniority provisions.

As an independent ground, the district court concluded that there was no preemption problem, inasmuch as the Waterfront Commission Compact was approved by Congress. It issued the requested injunction, directing the CMEs to register. ⁴

Sea-Land and SIU subsequently filed motions for reconsideration of the order. Arguing that the court had overlooked a conflict between the hiring procedures set forth in the collective bargaining agreement and those apparently required by the Commission's regulations, SIU sought to have the following paragraph added to the injunctive decree:

All unlicensed crane maintenance electricians now employed by Sea-Land shall, if they meet the requirements of the Waterfront Commission Compact and the rules and regulations promulgated by the Commission, and [ ] all unlicensed crane maintenance electricians hereafter to be hired by Sea-Land shall, if they meet the requirements of the Waterfront Commission Compact and the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder, be registered as longshoremen by the Commission and shall then be hired by Sea-Land in accordance with, and from a list of crane maintenance electricians maintained pursuant to, a collective bargaining agreement between Sea-Land and SIU, the collective bargaining representative of said unlicensed crane maintenance electricians. J.A. 669-70.

In an opinion filed June 29, 1984, the district court denied the motions for reconsideration. Both Sea-Land and SIU filed prompt appeals.

II

Central to the parties' disagreement on appeal are the hiring procedures utilized by the unions and Sea-Land. The collective bargaining agreements mandate that Sea-Land hire through the SIU and MEBA hiring halls. ⁵ The Commission regulations stipulate that the employer look first to the longshoremens' register for eligible applicants. In theory, there is no necessary conflict between these two provisions--if SIU were allowed to register their members who have been waiting for CME positions, the requirements of both the Commission and the union could be met. ⁶ In fact, however, there is a conflict, because the longshoremen's register is closed, and has been closed since 1968. ⁷ Thus, if the Commission's regulations are applied without exception, the SIU hiring hall procedure may be circumvented, and the rights and expectations of SIU members awaiting employment frustrated. ⁸

The employer and the union do not challenge the conclusion of the district court that Sea-Land's CME's and port engineers are covered by the Act. Rather, they maintain that the registration and licensing provisions are applied improperly in this situation because they conflict with existing collective bargaining agreements. The union suggests that the conflict can be resolved through adoption in the injunctive order of its proposed language, and contends that such steps are necessitated by the specific terms of the Compact. More broadly, Sea-Land urges that the Commission registration provisions are preempted by federal labor law, and that the registration provisions also raise a number of secondary issues. Because we believe that SIU's suggested amendment, with a minor change, resolves the primary conflict between the collective bargaining agreements and the registration requirements, we will address SIU's appeal first.

A.

SIU charges that the district court erred in directing that future hiring be accomplished through Commission procedures rather than through the SIU hiring halls as stipulated for in the collective bargaining agreement. The union argues that the Compact itself contains conditions that explicitly guide its interpretation where collective bargaining agreements are affected. These provisions, it contends, require an...