Associated General Contractors of America, Evansville Chapter, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board
Associated General Contractors of America, Evansville Chapter, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board
Opinion of the Court
The first of these cases arises on the petition of Associated General Contractors of America, Evansville Chapter, Inc. (“Association”) to review the Board’s order reported in 190 NLRB No. 145. The other case comes here upon the Board’s petition to enforce the order. In the Labor Board proceedings, the Association was the charging party. It is a corporation comprised of employers engaged in the building and construction industry, and it represents them in collective bargaining with labor organizations, including the Iron Workers’ Union.
Over the years, the Association has negotiated collective bargaining contracts with the Union, and these contracts have been adopted by its employer-members as well as non-member contractors employing iron workers in the Evansville, Indiana, area. The most recent contract between the Association and Union was in effect from April 1, 1967, to March 31, 1970, and Article VIII thereof carried forward a previous contractual provision requiring the submission of jurisdictional disputes to the National Joint Board for the Settlement of Jurisdictional Disputes (“National Joint Board”). The National Joint Board was comprised of an equal number of employer and union designates under the chairmanship of an impartial member. The Association and the Union were then represented on the National Joint Board through their parent organizations.
The National Joint Board was dissolved in September 1969. The Association then advised Charles Tremper, the Union's Business Agent, that the Association and its parent would not be parties to any agreement establishing a new joint board, nor did they agree to participate in the Interim Joint Board which was formed in late 1969 to replace the National Joint Board. On the ground that its parent would not permit the Local to be a party to an area board, the Union refused to discuss an Evansville facility to settle jurisdictional disputes, as suggested by the Association.
In February 1970, the Association and Union began to negotiate a new contract. They discussed Article VIII of the previous contract. That article, dealing with craft jurisdiction, provided :
“It is agreed that the jurisdiction of work covered by this Agreement is that provided for in the Charter Grant issued by the American Federa*330 tion of Labor to the International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers, it being understood that the claims are subject to Trade Agreements and final decisions of the AFL-CIO, as well as the decisions rendered by the National Joint Board for the Settlement of Jurisdictional Disputes.
“The parties to this Agreement are subject to and agree to be bound by all decisions and awards made by the National Joint Board for Settlement, of Jurisdictional Disputes with respect to all jurisdictional disputes which may arise under this Agreement.”
The Association informed the Union that it would not agree to such an article in the new contract because the National Joint Board had been dissolved and the Association’s parent was not a party to the Interim Joint Board. In turn, the Union told the Association that the contract would have to provide for the resolution of jurisdictional disputes by the Interim Joint Board or its successor.
After the strikes had occurred, various meetings were held by the parties, but they again could not agree on the jurisdictional dispute issue. At one of these meetings, the Union offered a “substitute” for the former provision providing for the settlement of jurisdictional disputes by the National Joint Board, but the substitute was substantially identical to Article VIII.
On April 29, 1970, the local Building and Construction Trades Council, chaired by Union Business Agent Trem-per, passed a resolution insisting that its affiliates and all contractors must abide by the decisions of the new National Joint Board that had been formed that month without Association representation. The resolution was adopted to cause the Association to agree to the National Joint Board method of resolving jurisdictional disputes. On May 14, 1970, Tremper told the press that the issue of the National Joint Board for the settlement of jurisdictional disputes was more important than money, and that the iron workers had not yet discussed wage issues with the Association. Wages were eventually discussed at the final negotiating meeting on June 29, 1970, but the Association’s offer of a wage increase was rejected by the Union.
The Trial Examiner concluded that the Union’s bargaining to the point of impasse and then striking to compel the Association “to agree that any jurisdictional disputes be resolved by a board on which the [Association] * * * had no representation” contravened Section
Sections 8(b) (1) (B) Violation
As shown, the Trial Examiner found that the Union had restrained or coerced an employer in the selection of his representatives for the purpose of collective bargaining or the adjustment of grievances in violation of Section 8(b) (1) (B) by “bargaining to the point of impasse and then striking to compel it [Association] * * * to agree that any jurisdictional disputes be resolved by a board” on which none of the management representatives was chosen or designated by the Association. In agreement with the Trial Examiner and with the two dissenting members of the Labor Board, we hold that Section 8(b) (1) (B) was violated by this demand.
The statutory phrase “adjustment of grievances” is clearly broad enough to include adjusting jurisdictional disputes.
The Board principally argues that Section 8(b) (1) (B) was not violated because the Association was not coerced in the selection of its “representatives” within the meaning of the statute. Here the Association was unwilling to submit to a tripartite Joint Board on which neither the Association nor its parent was represented. For the reasons which will follow, we cannot accept the Board’s position that the management members of a tripartite arbitration panel are not “representatives” of the employer within the scope of Section 8(b) (1) (B).
The Labor Board’s claim that the employer and union members of the Joint Board are not “representatives” of the party designating them is belied by the very nomenclature of the plan in question. Article II, Section 2, paragraph 2 provides for “four regular and four alternate employer members, who shall be representatives of and selected by the Participating Contractors' Employers’ Associations.”
Surely the parties to the Joint Board plan cannot be supposed to have endowed “representative” with a meaning other than its natural intendment. As the New York Court of Appeals has succinctly put it, “In fact, the very reason each of the parties contracts for the choice of his own arbitrator is to make certain that his ‘side’ will, in a sense, be represented on the tribunal.” Astoria Medical Group v. Health Ins. Plan of Greater New York, 11 N.Y.2d 128, 227 N.Y.S.2d 401, 405, 182 N.E.2d 85 (1962). This is as true for the employers signatory to the Joint Board Plan as for the unions participating in it. The Supreme Court’s recent opinion in National Labor Relations Board v. Plasterers’ Union, 404 U.S. 116, 125, 92 S.Ct. 360, 30 L.Ed.2d 312, emphasized the intense concern and substantial stakes employers may have in the resolution of work jurisdiction disputes. Because of their justifiable interest, the employers must have intended that the board members they designate as their representatives actually advocate their viewpoints in resolving particular jurisdictional disputes.
The Labor Board characterized the tripartite Joint Board as “more in the nature of an umpire or knowledgeable arbitration panel” and thus concluded that its members should not be considered representatives. Whatever validity that blanket characterization might have as applied to the collective Joint Board, only the Chairman is truly
Finally, as the dissenting Board members persuasively stated:
“[I]t is fundamental that the party to any dispute or grievance be accorded the right to appoint his own representative if the voluntary settlement procedures they may agree upon are to maintain their efficacy. Therefore, in our view, it is irrelevant whether the designees being forced upon the employer are fair and impartial, for Section 8(b) (1) (B) protects the employer’s right to select his own representatives for such purposes.”
In summary then, in our judgment, Section 8(b) (1) (B) prohibits a union from compelling a group of employers to accept a new tripartite tribunal to adjust jurisdictional grievances where, as here, they have no representative on the tribunal and did not participate in its formation. See Federated Employers of Nevada, Inc., 135 NLRB 462 (1962);
Section 8(b) (3) Violation
Since the Union’s insistence that the Association agree to jurisdictional dispute settlement by the Interim and new National Joint Boards violated Section 8(b) (1) (B), there is no need to make a threshold determination that this provision was a non-mandatory bargaining subject in order to make out a Section 8(b) (3) violation,
On the assumption that there was no violation of Section 8(b) (1) (B) and that the Union’s Joint Board proposal was a mandatory bargaining subject, the Labor Board concluded that the Union, nevertheless violated Section 8(b) (3) because it had assumed “a fixed, inflexible position and was rigidly unwilling to consider seriously any possible alternatives to its proposal that such disputes be submitted to the National Joint Board.” 190 NLRB No. 145 at pp. 6-7. This posture it found to be inconsistent with the Union’s statutory obligation to bargain in good faith.
As Judge Swygert pointed out in National Labor Relations Board v. Generac Corporation, 354 F.2d 625, 628 (7th Cir. 1965), the obligation imposed by Section 8(b) (3) upon the Union to bargain in good faith with the Association necessitates “a willingness to negotiate toward the possibility of effecting compromises.”
In No. 71-1480, the Board’s decision with respect to Section 8(b) (1) (B) is set aside and the cause is remanded to the Labor Board for the entry of an order restraining the violation of that Section. In No. 71-1575, the Board’s petition for enforcement is granted, but the cause is remanded to the Labor Board to modify its order so as to restrain also the violation of Section 8(b) (3) inherent in the Union’s insistence that the Association agree to the resolution of jurisdictional disputes by a tripartite board on which the Association is unrepresented.
. Local Union 103, International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers, AFL-CIO.
. Associated General Contractors of America, Inc. and the International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers.
. Effective April 3, 1970, the Interim Joint Board was replaced by a new National Joint Board. On this board, another employers’ organization signatory succeeded to the position formerly held by the Association’s parent on the old National Joint Board.
. See note 19, infra.
. Although the Board interpreted the Trial Examiner’s decision as holding that the entire subject of the mechanism for the resolution of jurisdictional disputes was non-mandatory (190 NLR.B No. 145 at p. 4), it appears that the Trial Examiner merely decided that by insisting on the proposal that jurisdictional disputes be settled by a tripartite board on which the Association had no representation, conduct he had found violative of Section 8(b) (1) (B), the Union was insisting on a non-mandatory bargaining subject.
. Section 8(b) (1) (B) provides:
“It shall be unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—
“(1) to restrain or coerce * * * (B) an employer in the selection of his representatives for the purposes of collective bargaining or the adjustment of grievances.” (29 U.S.C. § 158(b) (1) (B))
. Quoted in the amicus brief of the parent Association at p. 9; emphasis supplied.
. Id.
. The Joint Board Plan itself refers to the Chairman as the “impartial” chairman (Art II, Sec. 1), and to the “impartial umpire” on the Appeals Board (Art. II, Sec. 5). Quoted in the amicus brief of the parent Association at p. 10.
. “Standards of Conduct for Labor Arbitrators,” The Profession of Labor Arbitration, Selected Proceedings of the First Seven Annual Meetings, National Academy of Arbitrators, 143-44 (J. McKelvey ed. 1957). See Federated Employers of Nevada, Inc., 135 NLRB 462, 470 (1962); United Ass’n of Journeymen, and Apprentices of Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of United States and Canada, Local Union No. 525, Las Vegas v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Ct. of Nevada, 82 Nev. 103, 412 P.2d 352, 354 (1966); Astoria Medical Group v. Health Ins. Plan of Greater New York, 11 N.Y.2d 128, 227 N.Y.S.2d 401, 404-405, 182 N.E.2d 85 (1962); West Towns Bus Co. v. Division 241 Amalgamated Ass’n of Street Elect. Ry. & Motor Coach Employees, 26 Ill.App.2d 398, 408-409, 168 N.E.2d 473 (1960); Note, The Use of Tripartite Boards in Labor, Commercial, and International Arbitration, 68 Harv.L.Rev. 293, 296-297 (1954).
. AAA Case No. 31-13 at 31 AAA Arb. Awards Summary 4.
. See Phillips, A Lawyer’s Approach to Commercial Arbitration, 44 Yale L.J. 31, 48 (1934); Note, The Function of Arbitration in the Settlement of Industrial Disputes, 33 Colum.L.Rev. 1366, 1372-1373 (1933).
. The Board majority seeks to distinguish Federated Employers of Nevada, Inc. because the trial examiner there did not decide whether “coercion to compel an employer to select or agree to an ‘umpire’ * * * is within the reach of Section 8(b) (1) (B).” But the present case, like that one, involves manage
. See also United Slate, Tile and Composition Roofers (Jones & Jones, Inc.), 172 NLRB No 249 (1968); Southern Calif. Pipe Trades (Aero Plumbing Co.), 167 NLRB 1004 (1967); Painters Dist. Council No. 36, 155 NLRB 1013 (1965); Metropolitan Dist. Council of Phila. (McCloskey & Co.), 137 NLRB 1583 (1962)
. Section 8(b) (3) provides:
“It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—
“(3) to refuse to bargain collectively with an employer * * (29 U.S.C. § 158(b) (3))
. Section 8(d) provides in pertinent part: “For the purposes of this section, to bargain collectively is the performance of the mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the employees to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment, or the negotiation of an agreement * * (29 U.S.C. § 158(d))
. See also National Labor Relations Board v. Insurance Agents International Union, 361 U.S. 477, 485, 486, 80 S.Ct. 419, 4 L.Ed.2d 454; Cox, The Duty to Bargain in Good Faith, 71 Harv.L.Rev. 1401, 1411-1412 (1958); Note, Union Refusal to Bargain, Section 8(b) (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 71 Harv.L.Rev. 502 (1958).
. This proposal offered by the Union as an “alternative” Jo Article VIII included the adoption of a section of the International Union’s “General Working Rules” defining the craft jurisdiction of the iron workers. The last sentence of that section provided: “The above claims are subject to trade agreements and decisions of the National Joint Board for the Settlement of Jurisdictional Disputes.” Because of the proposal’s actual identity with Article VIII and because the work claims contained in the section were “at odds with some of the jurisdictional claims of other craft unions,” thus inviting jurisdictional disputes, the Association rejected the proposal.
Reference
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- ASSOCIATED GENERAL CONTRACTORS OF AMERICA, EVANSVILLE CHAPTER, INC. v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD v. LOCAL UNION NO. 103, INT'L ASS'N OF BRIDGE, STRUCTURAL AND ORNAMENTAL IRON WORKERS, etc.
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