Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01613/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01613-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 720
Nature of Suit: Labor Management Relations Act
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 15-1613

WILLIAM CHARLES CONSTRUCTION

COMPANY, LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION 627,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Central District of Illinois.

No. 14-cv-01306 — James E. Shadid, Chief Judge.

____________________

ARGUED FEBRUARY 19, 2016 — DECIDED JUNE 29, 2016

____________________

Before MANION and ROVNER, Circuit Judges, and BLAKEY, 

District Judge.∗

MANION, Circuit Judge. William Charles Construction 

Company, LLC (“William Charles”) entered into a labor 

agreement with the Illinois Department of Transportation 

 ∗ Hon. John Robert Blakey, District Judge, Northern District of Illinois, 

sitting by designation.

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(“IDOT”) for a construction project to expand a section of a 

two-lane highway into four lanes. At the start of construction,

a jurisdictional dispute1 arose between two unions, each 

claiming the right for their member drivers to operate the 

large trucks involved in the excavation work. The dispute was 

eventually resolved by an arbitrator, but a subsequent award 

by a Joint Grievance Committee (“JGC”) under a subordinate 

collective bargaining agreement caused another problem.

That problem is the main subject of this case. William 

Charles and Teamsters Local Union 627 (“Teamsters”) dispute 

the validity of the JGC award. The award determined that 

William Charles owed the Teamsters back pay and fringe benefit contributions (amounting to approximately $1.4 million) 

for having assigned the operation of the heavy trucks to the 

International Union of Operating Engineers Local 649 (“Engineers”) rather than the Teamsters. The case also involves a second, much smaller, JGC award that determined that William 

Charles was liable for two days’ back pay for having assigned 

work to two Teamsters in violation of two other Teamsters’ 

seniority rights.

William Charles filed a declaratory action under § 301 of 

the Labor-Management Relations Act (“LMRA”), 29 U.S.C. 

§ 185, to establish that the arbitration award was the only enforceable award, which would have meant that the JGC

awards were invalid. The Teamsters filed a counterclaim seek-

 1 A jurisdictional dispute is a “dispute ‘between two or more groups 

of employees over which is entitled to do certain work.’” Miron Const. Co. 

v. Int’l Union of Operating Eng’rs, Local 139, 44 F.3d 558, 566 (7th Cir. 1995) 

(quoting N.L.R.B. v. Radio & Television Broad. Eng. Union, 364 U.S. 573, 579 

(1961)).

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No. 15-1613 3

ing enforcement of the JGC awards and a motion for summary judgment on the complaint and counterclaim. The district court granted the Teamsters’ motion for summary judgment after finding that William Charles filed its complaint 

outside the statute of limitations for challenging the awards. 

We reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment 

to the Teamsters, dismiss the Teamsters’ counterclaim for enforcement of one of the JGC awards, and remand for further 

proceedings. William Charles’s challenge to the JGC awards 

is not barred by the statute of limitations because William 

Charles did not receive notice of the awards’ final entry. Furthermore, the greater of the two JGC awards is void because 

William Charles did not agree to arbitration by the JGC.

I. Background

In January 2013, IDOT started the Biggsville Project. The 

project’s aim was to widen Route 34 from two lanes to four 

where it ran past Biggsville, Illinois, a very small town near 

the western border of central Illinois. IDOT required the various contractors and unions involved to sign a Project Labor 

Agreement (“PLA”). The PLA served as a master Collective 

Bargaining Agreement (“CBA”) for everyone working on the 

project. The PLA required that signatories abide by the pertinent CBAs then in force between the various contractors and 

unions, provided that the CBAs did not conflict with the PLA. 

In the event of a conflict, the PLA controlled. The PLA provided that labor disputes were to be resolved by the grievance 

procedures of the applicable CBA. However, and importantly, 

the PLA specifically excluded jurisdictional labor disputes 

from this provision. Instead, the PLA provided its own 

method for resolving jurisdictional disputes and provided 

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that such resolutions would be final. Both William Charles 

and the Teamsters were signatories to the PLA.

Work on the Biggsville project began in May 2013. William 

Charles’s work included the use of sixteen articulated-end 

dump trucks (“AED trucks”). AED trucks are big off-road 

dump trucks that bend in the middle like semi-trucks. Because they are a cross between a standard dump truck and a 

piece of heavy construction equipment, they are within the 

jurisdictions of both the Teamsters and the International Union of Operating Engineers. At a pre-job conference on May 

15, 2013, William Charles assigned the operation of its AED 

trucks to the Engineers, despite the Teamsters’ objection that 

the work should be assigned to them. Work commenced on 

the Biggsville project with the Engineers operating the AED 

trucks.

Work continued on the project for approximately four 

months and was approximately 90% complete when, in late 

September 2013, the Teamsters brought a jurisdictional grievance under the PLA against the Engineers over the operation

of the AED trucks. The dispute proceeded to arbitration on

October 30, 2013, before Glenn A. Zipp, one of the PLA’s predesignated, neutral arbitrators. Zipp recognized that William 

Charles’s past practice was to assign AED trucks to Engineers

in all but two counties. He also recognized that using the Engineers was likely more efficient since the drivers also had to 

operate scrapers, which was undisputedly the jurisdiction of 

the Engineers. Nevertheless, Zipp ruled that the PLA required 

him to apply a pre-existing jurisdiction agreement between 

the two unions, and that the agreement required the AED 

trucks to be assigned to the Teamsters. William Charles accepted the decision and reassigned the work to the Teamsters 

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the next day. (At this point, only six trucks remained in use 

because the project was nearly complete.) William Charles 

then signed a participation agreement with the Teamsters’ 

benefit fund, and began making benefit contribution payments. Zipp’s decision did not award the Teamsters any back 

pay or benefits.

On November 5, 2013, five days after Zipp’s ruling, the 

Teamsters filed a new grievance. This time the grievance was 

against William Charles instead of the Engineers. The grievance alleged the same conduct complained of in the Teamsters’ previous grievance against the Engineers, that is, that 

William Charles assigned the operation of sixteen AED trucks 

on the Biggsville project to the Engineers over the objection of 

the Teamsters. The Teamsters did not submit their grievance 

under the PLA. Instead, they submitted it under a CBA between the Associated General Contractors of Illinois (“AGCI”) 

and the Illinois Conference of Teamsters called the Articles of 

Construction Agreement (“ACA”). The grievance alleged that 

William Charles violated several articles of the ACA by assigning operation of the AED trucks to the Engineers. However, the sole rationale given for why the assignment was a 

violation of the ACA was Zipp’s ruling in the previous jurisdictional dispute that the operation of the trucks was the work 

of the Teamsters.

William Charles was not a signatory to the ACA. However, since the ACA was the applicable area-CBA for the 

Teamsters, the PLA required William Charles to abide by it, 

but, importantly, only so long as it did not conflict with the 

PLA. Under the ACA’s dispute resolution mechanisms, disputes were first referred to a JGC comprised of equal membership from the AGCI and the Teamsters. (William Charles 

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was not a member of the AGCI, though some of its competitors were.) Only if the JGC was deadlocked could the dispute

be referred to an outside arbitrator.

In a letter to the Teamsters dated November 20, 2013, William Charles’s general superintendent, James Kohlhorst, objected to the new grievance. Kohlhorst wrote that the grievance was really just the previous jurisdictional dispute between the two unions, not a misassignment by William 

Charles. Further, William Charles could not be responsible for 

back pay or benefits for the period during which the Engineers were operating the AED trucks because it did not sign a 

participation agreement with the Teamsters’ funds until after

it reassigned the operation of the trucks to the Teamsters. Finally, Kohlhorst reminded the Teamsters that Zipp’s decision 

did not include back pay or benefits and that the PLA did not 

provide for such remedies in jurisdictional disputes.

On December 2, 2013, the Teamsters filed another grievance with the JGC against William Charles. The grievance 

concerned a violation of seniority rights and was unrelated to 

any jurisdictional dispute. The grievance alleged that, on two 

occasions, William Charles assigned the operation of AED 

trucks to two Teamsters with less seniority than two other 

Teamsters. It sought lost wages and benefits for the drivers 

affected.

The JGC heard the Teamsters’ two grievances along with 

several others on March 26, 2014. Kohlhorst was present at the 

meeting. According to Kohlhorst, he objected at the hearing 

to the JGC’s authority to hear the grievances.2 He also alleges 

 2 Although William Charles argued in the district court that the Teamsters could not file a grievance outside of the PLA and that the JGC lacked 

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No. 15-1613 7

that no evidence was admitted, no witnesses were sworn, no 

cross-examination was allowed, and no transcript was made. 

The president of Teamsters Local 627, Jason Gleason, also attended the hearing. Gleason alleges that Kohlhorst never objected to the JGC’s ability to hear the grievances and only argued the merits. He also alleges that all parties were able to 

question witnesses, raise arguments, and present evidence. 

Gleason claims that immediately after the hearing the JGC 

voted unanimously in favor of the union on both grievances.

On April 3, 2014, the Director of Labor Relations for the 

AGCI, Frank Kazenske, sent Kohlhorst an email with a “written decision from the Teamsters.” The decision concerned 

only the AED truck grievance, the one based on Zipp’s decision. It found that William Charles violated the ACA by using 

the Engineers and directed William Charles to “cease and desist from such violation in the future and to make whole for 

all lost wages and all benefits to those persons ... who ... 

would have performed the work.” The decision did not award 

a specific dollar amount, nor did it provide a method for calculating the amount. The decision was not a separate document attached to the email. Rather, Kazenske had copied the 

text of the decision into the body of the email. The email informed Kohlhorst that the “written decision ha[d] been sent 

to the AGCI management committee members for their review and approval.” Three weeks later, on April 24, 2014, 

Kohlhorst wrote a letter to Kazenske disputing the JGC’s authority to hear disputes between it and the Teamsters.

 

authority to decide any grievance between the parties, it does not maintain 

that argument on appeal. William Charles concedes that the JGC could

hear the seniority grievance, but continues to maintain that the JGC could 

not hear the grievance based on Zipp’s decision.

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William Charles considered the emailed decision to be a 

non-final, proposed decision. William Charles alleges that it 

never received a final decision for either grievance, and that 

the first indication that there was a final decision came on July 

17, 2014 (104 days after William Charles received the email),

when the Teamsters’ attorney called William Charles and demanded $1.4 million in back pay and benefits. The Teamsters, 

on the other hand, contend that the final decision was made 

at the March 26 hearing, and that the written decision in Kazenske’s email was merely the final decision reduced to writing.

William Charles filed its declaratory action on July 31, 

2014, two weeks after the Teamsters demanded payment. The 

Teamsters answered with a counterclaim for enforcement of 

the JGC’s two awards. As an exhibit to their counterclaim, 

they included pages from a memorandum which contained 

the grievance decisions from the JGC’s March 26 meeting. The 

memorandum was on Teamster letterhead and dated April 3, 

2014. It included the same decision from the April 3 email. It 

also included the JGC’s decision on the seniority grievance, 

which was to award the two affected Teamsters one day’s pay 

of eight hours each. According to William Charles, this was 

the first time they had seen anything concerning the JGC’s decision on the seniority grievance.

The Teamsters filed a motion for summary judgment on 

the complaint and counterclaim, which the district court

granted. The district court concluded that Illinois’ 90-day statute of limitations for challenging arbitration awards was an 

absolute bar, even to William Charles’s claim that it had never 

agreed to allow the JGC to hear the grievances. It found that 

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No. 15-1613 9

both grievances, which the court characterized—without explanation—as non-jurisdictional grievances, were properly 

referred to the JGC in accordance with the ACA. Finally, the 

district court ruled that William Charles’s attempt to invalidate the JGC awards was barred by the limitations period, because William Charles received notice of the JGC awards from 

Kazenske’s April 3 email.

II. Analysis

We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing 

all facts, and drawing all reasonable inferences, in favor of the 

nonmoving party. Nat’l Wrecking Co. v. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 

Local 731, 990 F.2d 957, 960 (7th Cir. 1993). Summary judgment 

is proper if the record shows that there is no genuine dispute

of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. We construe the 

evidence in the light most favorable to William Charles, the 

nonmoving party, and draw all reasonable inferences in its favor. Tibbs v. City of Chicago, 469 F.3d 661, 664 (7th Cir. 2006).

A. William Charles’s challenge to the JGC awards is not 

barred by the statute of limitations because William 

Charles did not receive notice of the awards’ final entry.

William Charles argues that the district court committed 

error by finding that its challenge to the JGC awards was untimely. Specifically, William Charles argues that the district 

court should have found that the statute of limitations did not 

run because it did not receive notice of the JGC’s final decision 

on either the AED truck grievance or the seniority grievance.

Although a joint committee is not a genuine arbitration panel, 

we treat its awards as arbitration awards for most purposes. 

See Merryman Excavation, Inc. v. Int'l Union of Operating Eng’rs, 

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Local 150, 639 F.3d 286, 290 (7th Cir. 2011); Chauffeurs, Teamsters, Warehousemen & Helpers, Local Union No. 135 v. Jefferson 

Trucking Co., 628 F.2d 1023, 1026–27 (7th Cir. 1980). For actions 

challenging an arbitration award under § 301 of the LRMA, 

we look to the statute of limitations from a comparable action 

in the forum state. Teamsters Local No. 579 v. B & M Transit, Inc., 

882 F.2d 274, 276 (7th Cir. 1989). The Illinois Arbitration Act 

provides a 90-day statute of limitations for challenging an arbitration award. 710 ILCS 5/12(b). A failure to challenge an arbitration award within the applicable limitations period renders the award nearly impervious to attack. Int’l Union of Operating Eng’rs, Local 150, AFL–CIO v. Centor Contractors, Inc., 

831 F.2d 1309, 1311 (7th Cir. 1987). An arbitration award is final “if the arbitrator himself thinks he’s through with the 

case.” Smart v. Int'l Bhd. of Elec. Workers, Local 702, 315 F.3d 

721, 725 (7th Cir. 2002). The 90-day statute of limitations for 

challenging the arbitration award begins to run “after delivery of a copy of the award to the applicant [challenging the 

award].” 710 ILCS 5/12(b). 

The district court found that William Charles had sufficient notice of the decisions based on Kazenske’s April 3 email 

and Kohlhorst’s April 24 letter to Kazenske objecting to the 

JGC’s authority to hear the grievances. On the contrary, Kazenske’s email contained the text of the AED truck decision 

only, not both decisions as the district court had found. Doc. 

28-3 at 56–57. Furthermore, though the district court quoted 

the content of the Kazenske’s email, it made nothing of Kazenske’s statement that “[t]his written decision has been sent 

to the AGCI management committee members for their review and approval.” The import of this statement is clear: the

decision was not final; the JGC did not consider itself 

“through with the case” because it was awaiting the review 

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and approval of its contractor members. Smart, 315 F.3d at 725. 

In spite of Kazenske’s statement, the district court found that 

the JGC made its final decisions at the March 26 hearing and 

reduced those decisions to writing on April 3. To make this 

finding, the district court accepted the Teamsters’ version of 

the facts at summary judgment, a version that contradicts the 

record. “When opposing parties tell two different stories, one 

of which is blatantly contradicted by the record, so that no 

reasonable jury could believe it, a court should not adopt that 

version of the facts for purposes of ruling on a motion for 

summary judgment.” Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007).

On the contrary, Kazenske’s email contained, not a final decision on the AED truck grievance, but a proposed decision by 

the Teamsters which required the approval of the JGC’s contractor members. Furthermore, the record contains no communication that can be construed as notice to William Charles 

that the proposed AED truck decision was ever approved. 

Notice cannot be inferred from the April 24 letter from Kohlhorst to Kazenske. Viewed in the appropriate light, that letter 

is best construed as an attempt by William Charles to stave off 

a final decision by reminding the JGC that it had no authority 

to decide the matter. 

As for the seniority grievance, the record is completely devoid of any communication to William Charles of the substance of the JGC’s decision on that grievance. Kohlhorst was 

at the March 26 hearing, where the JGC may have announced 

its final decision on the grievance. But again, whether a final 

decision was made at that time is a disputed fact, and given 

the Teamsters’ proposed decision on the AED truck grievance, 

the proper inference for summary judgment is that the JGC 

did not make a final decision at the hearing on the seniority 

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grievance either. But more importantly, whether the JGC announced its final decision at the March 26 hearing is irrelevant 

to the issue of timeliness, because the statute of limitations 

does not start upon the announcement of a final decision, but 

“after delivery of a copy of the award.” 710 ILCS 5/12(b).

Viewing the record in the light most favorable to William 

Charles, the first time William Charles received any indication 

that the JGC considered its decisions on the two grievances to 

be final was on July 17, 2014, when the Teamsters’ attorney 

called William Charles to demand $1.4 million. Yet, the Teamsters’ demand still did not start the clock because it did not 

constitute “delivery of a copy of the award.” 710 ILCS 5/12(b). 

Viewing the record under any type of light, the first time William Charles received a copy of the JGC’s final decisions was 

when the Teamsters filed one as an exhibit to their counterclaim, on September 24, 2014. Unlike the Teamsters’ previous 

attempt at notice, where just one decision was cut and pasted 

into an email with a caveat that approval was pending, this 

time both decisions were issued in a formal memorandum on 

Teamsters letterhead. This is the copy the Teamsters should 

have delivered to William Charles from the beginning. Thus, 

William Charles’s challenge to the JGC awards was timely, 

and the district court’s finding otherwise was in error.

B. The JGC’s AED truck award is void because William 

Charles did not agree to arbitration by the JGC.

In AT&T Technologies, Inc. v. Communications Workers of 

America, 475 U.S. 643 (1986), the Supreme Court reiterated the 

principle that “‘arbitration is a matter of contract and a party 

cannot be required to submit to arbitration any dispute which 

he has not agreed so to submit.’” Id. at 648 (quoting Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 582 (1960)). 

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The Court explained that “[t]his axiom recognizes the fact that 

arbitrators derive their authority to resolve disputes only because the parties have agreed in advance to submit such 

grievances to arbitration.” Id. at 648–49. The Court continued:

The second rule, which follows inexorably from 

the first, is that the question of arbitrability—

whether a collective-bargaining agreement creates a duty for the parties to arbitrate the particular grievance—is undeniably an issue for judicial determination. Unless the parties clearly 

and unmistakably provide otherwise, the question of whether the parties agreed to arbitrate is 

to be decided by the court, not the arbitrator. 

Id. at 649 (citing Warrior & Gulf, 363 U.S. at 582–83). 

William Charles argues that the JGC’s AED truck award is 

void because the grievance was not arbitrable. According to 

William Charles, it did not agree to submit the grievance to 

the JGC because the grievance was jurisdictional and the PLA 

provided the exclusive remedy for jurisdictional disputes. 

The Teamsters agree that the PLA provided the exclusive remedy for jurisdictional disputes, but they disagree that the AED 

truck grievance was a jurisdictional dispute. They maintain

that the district court was correct to call the grievance a nonjurisdictional dispute. They point out that William Charles 

agreed to abide by the ACA when it signed the PLA, and that 

the AED truck grievance alleges that William Charles violated 

several articles of the ACA: “Article 5, Para[.] 2, Articles 10, 11, 

12, 13 & all other applicable Articles.” Doc. 28-2 at 166. But, as 

William Charles points out, the language of Article 5 upon 

which the Teamsters rely explicitly concerns jurisdiction: 

“The operation of all equipment shall be assigned to the 

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proper craft jurisdiction.” Id. at 140. (The remaining articles 

cited by the grievance concern the payment of wages and benefits and are therefore relevant only to damages. Id. at 142–

47.) 

Not only was the AED truck grievance jurisdictional in nature, for all intents and purposes, it was the previous jurisdictional grievance between the Teamsters and the Engineers

that was resolved by Zipp’s final award on October 31, 2013. 

The Teamsters admitted as much by stating on the form for 

the AED truck grievance that they made efforts to resolve the 

grievance at the local level on May 15 and 17, 2013. Id. at 166. 

That was when they objected to the assignment of the AED 

trucks to the Engineers at the pre-job conference. Appellant’s 

Br. at A32. Zipp’s decision against the Engineers did not 

award the Teamsters any back pay or benefits. Rather than 

seek recovery from the Engineers, who were the ones to receive the benefit of the five months of assigned work, the 

Teamsters sought recovery from William Charles. But William Charles had already paid once for that work and, because of the Teamsters’ overreach, risked the possibility of 

paying twice for the same work. 

It is true that, by signing the PLA, William Charles agreed 

to abide by the ACA and agreed that labor disputes with the 

Teamsters were to be resolved by the grievance procedures of 

the ACA. Yet, William Charles also agreed—as did the Teamsters—that “the terms and conditions of th[e] PLA shall supersede and control” the ACA. Appellant’s Br. at A16. One of 

those terms was that jurisdictional disputes could not be resolved by the grievance procedures of an applicable CBA. Instead, “[t]he PLA Jurisdictional Dispute Resolution Process ... 

set[] forth the procedures ... to resolve jurisdictional disputes 

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between and among Contractors, Subcontractors, and Unions 

engaged in the building and construction industry.” Id. at 

A21. William Charles did not agree to have jurisdictional disputes decided under anything but the PLA; clearly then, William Charles did not agree to have the Teamsters’ AED truck 

grievance decided by the JGC. 

Furthermore, even if the issue of damages for the jurisdictional dispute could be separated from the injury, William 

Charles did not agree to have any such severable issues decided by the JGC. Another term of the PLA agreed upon by 

the parties was that the “[PLA] Process [would] be followed 

for any grievance or dispute arising out of the interpretation 

or application of [the] PLA.” Id. The AED truck grievance before the JGC arose from Zipp’s decision that the operation of 

the AED trucks was the work of the Teamsters. Zipp’s decision 

was a result of “the interpretation or application of [the] 

PLA,” namely, that the PLA required him to apply a pre-existing jurisdiction agreement between the two unions. Id. 

Therefore, William Charles did not agree to have the issue of 

damages (back pay and benefits) for the jurisdictional dispute 

decided by the JGC either. Consequently, the district court’s 

finding that the AED truck grievance was properly before the 

JGC was error.

C. William Charles’s challenge to the AED truck grievance’s 

arbitrability is not waived.

This does not completely resolve William Charles’s challenge to the AED truck award, though. According to the 

Teamsters, William Charles waived its challenge to the grievance’s arbitrability by participating in the JGC hearing without properly preserving its objection. “If a party voluntarily 

and unreservedly submits an issue to arbitration, he cannot 

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later argue that the arbitrator had no authority to resolve it.” 

Jones Dairy Farm v. Local No. P-1236, United Food & Commercial 

Workers Int’l Union, AFL-CIO, 760 F.2d 173, 175 (7th Cir. 1985). 

To avoid waiver, a party must “clearly preserve[] the question 

of arbitrability for judicial determination.” Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, Lodge No. 1777 v. Fansteel, Inc., 900 

F.2d 1005, 1010 (7th Cir. 1990). It can do this by “carefully and 

explicitly, in unambiguous language, ma[king] known to the 

arbitrator and the union its clear intention that it [is] maintaining its objections to arbitrability even though it [is] agreeing to proceed with the arbitration hearing.” Id. at 1009.

To show that it did not waive its arbitrability objection, 

William Charles relies on the affidavit of Kohlhorst. He testified that he appeared at the hearing, advised the JGC that William Charles disputed the Teamsters’ ability to bring the 

grievance to the JGC, and did not otherwise participate in the 

hearing. The Teamsters attempt to dispute this testimony with 

the declaration of Gleason. He declared that prior to this lawsuit William Charles never claimed that the JGC lacked the 

authority to hear the grievances and that William Charles’s arguments at the hearing were directly related to the merits of 

the grievances, not to the JGC’s lack of the authority to decide 

them. Gleason’s statement, however, is directly contradicted 

by Kohlhorst’s November 20 letter, in which he referred to the 

AED truck grievance as a “so called grievance.” Kohlhorst 

wrote that the AED truck grievance was nothing more than 

the previous jurisdictional dispute decided by Zipp, that William Charles had not signed a participation agreement with 

the Union at the time of the dispute, and that the PLA did not 

provide for back pay in jurisdictional disputes. In other 

words, he asserted that the grievance was covered by the PLA, 

not the ACA.

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William Charles disputed the JGC’s authority before and 

after the March 26 hearing. Gleason’s declaration is insufficient to refute Kohlhorst’s sworn testimony that William 

Charles also disputed the JGC’s authority during the hearing.

Gleason admits in his declaration that William Charles essentially presented the same argument it raised in its November 

20 letter, that is, that the AED truck grievance was decided 

under the PLA by Zipp, which precluded the JGC from issuing an award. This was sufficient for William Charles to preserve its argument under Fansteel, for we do not apply the 

same strict waiver rule to joint committee dispute resolution 

as we do to genuine arbitration. See Merryman Excavation, 639 

F.3d at 290–91 n.1 (declining to apply a strict waiver because 

it would “undermine the purpose of joint committee awards”

where “[p]rocedural niceties are the very sort of formalities 

that the parties seek to avoid when they contract to substitute 

informal mechanisms for formal arbitration or judicial review 

... no one involved has any training or expertise in legal proceedings—lawyers for the parties are not even allowed to 

speak”).

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the statute of limitations does 

not bar William Charles from challenging the JGC awards and 

the JGC’s AED truck award is void because the grievance was 

not arbitrable. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court

is REVERSED, the Teamsters’ counterclaim for enforcement 

of the JGC’s AED truck award is DISMISSED, and the case is 

REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this 

opinion. 

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