In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688

BROCK INDUSTRIAL SERVICES, LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellant/

Cross-Appellee,

v.

LABORERS’ INTERNATIONAL UNION

OF NORTH AMERICA CONSTRUCTION

& GENERAL LABORERS LOCAL 100,

Defendant-Appellee/

Cross-Appellant.

____________________

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Illinois.

No. 16-CV-780-NJR-DGW — Nancy J. Rosenstengel, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED APRIL 11, 2018 — DECIDED APRIL 8, 2019

____________________

Before BAUER, SYKES, and BARRETT, Circuit Judges.

SYKES, Circuit Judge. Brock Industrial Services, LLC, is an 

Illinois-based provider of industrial services, including 

scaffolding, painting, insulation, and shoring. In January
2 Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688

2016 it entered into a labor agreement with Local 100 of the 

Laborers’ International Union1 (“the Laborers Union” or 

“the Laborers”). The agreement requires arbitration of

grievances and establishes a bipartite arbitration procedure 

for resolving most disputes. But work-jurisdiction disputes—disputes over whether the Laborers or another union

is entitled to perform work—are instead subject to a tripartite arbitration procedure involving the company and the 

contending unions. 

Sometime prior to signing the agreement, Brock hired the 

Laborers to perform scaffolding work at a chemical plant. 

On the day after the agreement became effective, Brock 

informed the Laborers Union that it was reassigning the 

work to the International Brotherhood of Carpenters (“the 

Carpenters Union” or “the Carpenters”). Invoking the 

bipartite arbitration procedure, the Laborers Union filed a 

grievance with the Grievance Review Subcommittee of the 

National Maintenance Agreement Policy Committee (“the 

Subcommittee”). Brock responded that the grievance involved a work-jurisdiction dispute subject to tripartite 

arbitration and therefore the Subcommittee lacked authority 

to arbitrate the matter. The Subcommittee disagreed and 

sustained the grievance. 

Brock filed suit under section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185, seeking to vacate the 

Subcommittee’s decision. The Laborers Union responded 

with a request to enforce the decision. After a flurry of 

motions on both sides, the district judge determined that the 

 1 Formally, the Laborers’ International Union of North America 

Construction & General Laborers Local 100.
Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688 3

Subcommittee had authority to resolve the dispute and 

issued an order enforcing its decision. Brock appealed. 

Under the mistaken impression that the judge had denied 

the motion to enforce, the Laborers Union also appealed.

We reverse. At bottom, this grievance concerns which of 

two unions was entitled to perform the scaffolding work at 

the chemical plant. That’s a jurisdictional dispute, and the 

labor agreement calls for tripartite arbitration of jurisdictional disputes. Accordingly, the Subcommittee had no authority 

over the matter and its decision must be vacated.

I. Background

Brock and the Laborers Union entered into a labor 

agreement effective January 7, 2016. The agreement provides: “Except for jurisdictional disputes and those involving general wage rates, all disputes and grievances arising 

out of work performed under this [a]greement ... shall be 

resolved” through the procedures outlined in Article VI. 

Article VI requires Brock and the Laborers to submit unresolved grievances to the Subcommittee for arbitration. We

refer to this grievance process as bipartite arbitration.

Article I of the agreement provides a separate procedure 

for resolving work-jurisdiction disputes. A work-jurisdiction 

dispute is “a dispute between two or more groups of employees over which is entitled to do certain work for an 

employer.” Hutter Constr. Co. v. Int’l Union of Operating 

Eng’rs, Local 139, 862 F.2d 641, 644 (7th Cir. 1988) (quotation 

marks omitted). Under Article I of the labor contract, unresolved work-jurisdiction disputes must be submitted to a 

Permanent Umpire. Because this process typically involves 
4 Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688

three parties—the employer plus the two competing unions—we refer to it as tripartite arbitration.

Prior to signing the agreement, Brock assigned several 

Laborers to construct scaffolding at the Afton Chemical 

Plant. On January 8, 2016—the day after the operative labor 

agreement became effective—Brock notified the Laborers

Union that its services were no longer required because the 

project was assigned to the Carpenters Union. On January 11 

the Laborers Union sent a letter to the National Maintenance 

Agreement Policy Committee claiming that Brock violated 

the agreement when it reassigned the work to the Carpenters. On January 21 the Laborers notified the Carpenters

Union of a work-jurisdiction dispute between the unions 

over the project.

Invoking the bipartite arbitration procedure specified in 

Article VI, the Laborers filed a grievance with the Subcommittee complaining that Brock violated the agreement by

terminating the Laborers and assigning work to the Carpenters. The grievance requested reinstatement and backpay as 

a remedy. Brock responded that the Subcommittee had no 

arbitral authority over the grievance because it constituted a 

work-jurisdiction dispute and requested that the grievance 

be dismissed or denied.

The Subcommittee denied Brock’s request and sustained 

the grievance, finding that Brock violated Article I, Section 5 

of the labor contract. That provisions states: “During the 

existence of the [a]greement, there shall be no strikes, lockouts, work stoppages, or picketing arising out of any jurisdictional dispute. Work will continue as originally assigned, 

pending resolution of the dispute.” The Subcommittee 
Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688 5

determined that Brock violated this section by making “a 

change of assignment.”

Brock brought this suit under section 301 seeking to vacate the arbitral award as void because the grievance constituted a jurisdictional dispute and thus was outside the 

Subcommittee’s arbitral authority. A bevy of motions followed. The Laborers moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6)

of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; Brock moved to 

vacate the award; the Laborers moved to “dismiss” the 

motion to vacate on timeliness grounds; and the Laborers

moved to enforce the award. 

The judge denied all four motions. She acknowledged 

that the Subcommittee lacked arbitral authority if the grievance concerned a jurisdictional dispute. She concluded,

however, that if the grievance concerned both a jurisdictional 

dispute and a wrongful-termination claim, then the Subcommittee could properly adjudicate the latter dispute. But a 

material issue of fact—namely, whether the Laborers were 

ever assigned the project to begin with—prevented the judge 

from resolving the case at that time.

Brock sought reconsideration, and the Laborers moved 

for summary judgment. The judge denied reconsideration 

and entered summary judgment for the Laborers Union, 

ruling that Brock had indeed assigned the scaffolding work 

to the Laborers and the Subcommittee’s decision is enforceable. Both sides appealed.

II. Discussion

We review a summary judgment de novo. Hooper v. Proctor Health Care Inc., 804 F.3d 846, 849 (7th Cir. 2015). We 

begin by addressing the Laborers’ cross-appeal, which seeks 
6 Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688

review of the judge’s initial order denying the motion to 

enforce the arbitral award. The cross-appeal rests on the 

mistaken assumption that the judge never issued an order 

enforcing the award. But the summary-judgment order 

clearly states that the “award is enforceable as a matter of 

law.” Because the Laborers prevailed, we dismiss the crossappeal.

With that out of the way, we turn to the main event: 

Brock’s argument that the Subcommittee lacked the authority to arbitrate the grievance because it raised a workjurisdiction dispute. “[A]rbitration 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.” AT&T Techs., 

Inc. v. Commc’ns Workers of Am., 475 U.S. 643, 648 (1986) 

(quotation marks omitted). “[T]he 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.” Id. at 649.

By signing the agreement, Brock agreed to submit some 

disputes—but not all—to arbitration by the Subcommittee. 

Article VI of the agreement creates a bipartite arbitration 

procedure and vests the Subcommittee with arbitral authority. Subject to two exceptions, the bilateral procedure applies 

to “all disputes and grievances arising out of work performed under [the] [a]greement involving the meaning or 

interpretation of any provision in [the] [a]greement.” Jurisdictional disputes are one of the exceptions. Article I creates 

a separate, tripartite arbitration procedure to resolve workjurisdiction disputes and vests arbitral authority in the 

Permanent Umpire rather than the Subcommittee. Accord-
Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688 7

ingly, the Subcommittee exceeded its authority if the grievance raised a work-jurisdiction dispute.

The gravamen of the grievance is work jurisdiction. The 

grievance and its supporting documents all complain that 

Brock improperly assigned work to the Carpenters instead 

of the Laborers. The Grievance Form Fact Sheet demanded 

that Brock “make proper assignment of work to the Laborers’ Union,” “reinstate the Laborers,” and compensate

workers for “lost wages and benefits.” Indeed, the Subcommittee sustained the grievance because Brock “made a 

change of assignment.” In other words, the Laborers complained (and the Subcommittee found) that Brock assigned 

work to the wrong union. That’s the definition of a jurisdictional dispute. The Subcommittee therefore had no authority 

to arbitrate the grievance. The contract required tripartite 

arbitration in which the competing unions and the employer 

could be heard.

Our previous decisions amply support this conclusion. In 

Local 416, Sheet Metal Workers International Ass’n v. Helgesteel 

Corp., 507 F.2d 1053 (7th Cir. 1974), Helgesteel Corporation

(a contractor) and the Sheet Metal Workers were parties to a 

labor contract that provided for tripartite arbitration of

jurisdictional disputes in Article XI and bipartite arbitration

for almost all others in Article X. Id. at 1054–56. A dispute 

arose when Helgesteel reassigned work to an Ironworkers’ 

union. The Sheet Metal Workers filed a grievance under 

Article X complaining about this reassignment; the arbitrator 

sustained the grievance and awarded damages. When 

Helgesteel refused to pay, the Sheet Metal Workers filed suit

in federal court to enforce the award. Helgesteel told the 

Ironworkers it would likely need to give the work back to 
8 Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688

the Sheet Metal Workers, so the Ironworkers filed their own 

grievance, which the arbitrator sustained. Id. The Ironworkers then filed suit in federal court seeking to compel the 

Sheet Metal Workers and Helgesteel to submit the entire 

controversy to tripartite arbitration. Id. at 1055.

We held that the entire controversy constituted a jurisdictional dispute requiring tripartite arbitration. Id. at 1057. The 

Sheet Metal Workers insisted that the agreement permitted 

them to seek damages under the bipartite process of 

Article X even if tripartite arbitration was also required 

under Article XI. Id. at 1058. We rejected that argument, 

explaining that such an interpretation of the contract “would 

allow inconsistent final arbitration awards; the national joint 

board may say that the work should be assigned to the 

ironworkers while the local joint board has awarded damages to the sheet metal workers.” Id.

Likewise, in William Charles Construction Co. v Teamsters

Local Union 627, 827 F.3d 672 (7th Cir. 2016), we confronted a 

similar agreement featuring bifurcated arbitration procedures. The William Charles Construction Company performed work on a highway expansion for the State of 

Illinois. Id. at 674. During construction, a dispute broke out 

between the Teamsters and the International Union of 

Operating Engineers Local 649 over who was entitled to 

operate the trucks required for the excavation work. The 

Teamsters initiated tripartite arbitration, arguing that the 

work had been improperly assigned to the engineers. The 

arbitrator ruled in the Teamsters’ favor but awarded no 

backpay or damages. Id. The Teamsters then filed a second 

grievance under bipartite arbitration, complaining again of 

the improper assignment but this time seeking damages. Id. 
Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688 9

at 676. The second arbitrator also sided with the Teamsters 

and awarded lost wages and benefits. Id. at 677. The company filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment that the second 

award was void. Id. We agreed that the second grievance 

was not arbitrable because it was jurisdictional in nature and 

therefore not subject to bipartite arbitration. Id.

So too here. The Laborers Union complains that Brock

improperly reassigned the project to another union, so the 

grievance must be resolved in tripartite arbitration. Allowing the Laborers to seek damages through bipartite arbitration could produce “inconsistent final arbitration awards,” 

Helgesteel, 507 F.2d at 1058, so the Subcommittee lacked 

authority and its award must be vacated.

This conclusion accords with the reasoning of cases in 

which we declined to find a jurisdictional dispute reserved 

for tripartite arbitration. For instance, in Hutter v. Local 139, 

862 F.2d 641, Hutter (a general contractor) had a labor

agreement with the International Union of Operating Engineers (“the Operators” or “the Operators Union”). Id. at 642. 

The agreement gave the Operators exclusive jurisdiction 

over most forklift jobs in Wisconsin; it also provided that 

work could be subcontracted only to signatories to the 

agreement. When Hutter was awarded work on a prison 

contract in Oshkosh, it subcontracted the masonry work to 

BDI, which was not a signatory to the agreement. BDI 

thereafter assigned forklift duties to the Wisconsin Laborers 

District Council and Laborers Local Union No. 1086 rather 

than the Operators. The Operators Union submitted a grievance to bipartite arbitration, complaining that Hutter had 

improperly subcontracted the work to a nonsignatory. Id. 
10 Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688

The arbitrator agreed and ordered backpay, and the Operators filed suit in federal court to enforce the award. Id. at 643.

Hutter argued that the Operators’ grievance was really a 

“disguised jurisdictional dispute” subject to tripartite arbitration and that the bipartite arbitration award should be 

vacated. Id. We disagreed, concluding that the subcontracting

grievance “was a distinct non-jurisdictional claim” because it

did not turn on who was ultimately assigned the work. Id. at 

644. For example, BDI could have assigned the work to the 

Operators, and in that case there would have been no jurisdictional dispute even though Hutter violated the subcontracting provision. Id. Because the subcontracting dispute 

was nonjurisdictional, the arbitrator had the authority to 

resolve the grievance under the bipartite procedure. Id. at 

645.

Although Hutter held that the dispute in question was 

nonjurisdictional, its reasoning supports the opposite conclusion here. We emphasized in Hutter that the subcontracting grievance “arose independently” of the work 

assignment; its validity was “not dependent upon the identity of the party that ultimately performed the forklift work.” 

Id. at 644. In contrast, here the Laborers’ grievance is entirely 

dependent on the work assignment. Under the reasoning in 

Hutter, the Laborers’ grievance is really just a “disguised 

jurisdictional dispute.” Id. at 643.

Our conclusion finds additional support in Miron Construction Co. v. International Union of Operating Engineers, 

Local 139, 44 F.3d 558 (7th Cir. 1995). The facts there are 

strikingly similar to those in Hutter. Miron (a general contractor) signed a labor agreement granting the Operators

Union exclusive jurisdiction over forklift jobs in Wisconsin 
Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688 11

and stipulated that work could be subcontracted only to 

signatories to the agreement. Id. A dispute arose when 

Miron twice subcontracted work to nonsignatories, each of 

which assigned forklifting work to the Wisconsin Laborers 

District Council. Id. at 561. The Operators filed grievances 

under the bipartite procedure complaining that Miron had 

violated the subcontracting provision. The Laborers District 

Council filed its own grievances to resolve the proper work 

assignment and threatened to strike. This threat got the 

NLRB involved, which held a § 10(k) hearing to resolve the 

jurisdictional dispute. The Board eventually awarded the 

first project to the Laborers District Council. Id.

Miron filed a complaint in federal court seeking tripartite 

arbitration. Id. at 561–62. We affirmed the district court’s 

denial of that relief. While the Laborers’ grievance concerned 

work jurisdiction, the Operators’ grievance alleged only a 

subcontracting violation. And under Hutter a subcontracting 

dispute is distinct and independent of a jurisdictional dispute. Id. In a subcontracting grievance, “[t]he identity of the 

employees who ultimately perform the work is irrelevant.” 

Id. at 566 (citing Hutter, 862 F.2d at 644). A subcontracting 

grievance does not conflict with a work-jurisdiction award 

so long as there is no “demand that the subcontractor reassign the work ... . Since the subcontractor has complete 

control over which union actually performs the work, 

maintenance of an action against the general contractor 

cannot be viewed as a veiled attempt to force a reassignment 

of the work.” Id. 

Miron too is factually distinguishable from this case, 

though like Hutter its reasoning supports our conclusion. In 

Miron we focused on whether the bipartite proceeding could 
12 Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688

generate an award that conflicts with the resolution of a 

jurisdictional dispute. A bipartite arbitration award is valid 

so long as the grievance “cannot be viewed as a veiled 

attempt to force a reassignment of the work.” Id. Here the 

Laborers explicitly attempted to force reassignment—the 

union demanded that Brock “make [a] proper assignment of 

work [back] to the Laborers’ Union.”

One case cuts in the opposite direction. In Alberici–Eby v. 

Local 520, International Union of Operating Engineers, 992 F.2d 

727 (7th Cir. 1993), we affirmed awards entered in bipartite 

arbitration for improper work assignment. Alberici–Eby (a 

general contractor) hired six unions to construct a lock on 

the Mississippi River in Illinois. Id. at 728. The unions made 

competing claims to each part of the work, and Alberici–Eby

did its best to divide the work fairly. Id. at 729. After the 

project was completed, two unions—the Engineers and the

Laborers—filed separate grievances under their respective 

collective-bargaining agreements alleging that Alberici–Eby

had improperly assigned their work to other unions. 

Alberici–Eby responded that the grievances raised jurisdictional disputes, so the arbitrators had no authority to hear 

them. Id. One arbitrator heard the Engineers’ grievance and 

decided in their favor, and a second arbitrator heard the 

Laborers’ grievance and refused to stay the proceeding. 

Alberici–Eby then filed suit in federal court asking that the 

judge set aside the first arbitrator’s award, stay the proceeding before the second arbitrator, and require any unions 

seeking relief to submit to multiparty arbitration to settle the 

jurisdictional dispute. Id.

We denied Alberici–Eby’s request. We first noted that 

Alberici–Eby failed to timely invoke the multiparty arbitra-
Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688 13

tion mechanism even though it “was on notice that it faced 

the strong possibility of conflicting arbitral awards.” Id. at 

730. We then determined that the first arbitrator had authority to resolve the Engineers’ grievance. Id. at 733. The relevant 

labor agreement created a separate arbitration process for 

jurisdictional disputes, but we noted that the agreement 

“[did] not tell us whether the subject of the grievance ... was 

or was not a jurisdictional dispute.” Id. However, the agreement provided that “any difference or dispute arising out of 

the interpretation or application of any of the provisions 

contained in th[e] [a]greement” was to be decided by an 

arbitrator. Id. The agreement further provided that the 

Engineers had exclusive jurisdiction over the relevant work, 

so we concluded that the dispute “ar[ose] out of the interpretation or application of the [agreement].” Id. We also refused 

to stay the proceedings before the second arbitrator, again 

emphasizing that Alberici–Eby failed to timely invoke 

multiparty arbitration, so it “would be manifestly unjust to 

deny the Laborers an opportunity to be heard by way of 

bipartite arbitration.” Id. at 734.

Alberici–Eby is hard to reconcile with Helgesteel, Hutter,

Miron, and William Charles. The grievances concerned workassignment disputes, but we permitted bipartite arbitration 

to proceed. We based our decision in part on the language in 

the agreement between Alberici–Eby and the Engineers, but 

that language cannot be meaningfully distinguished from 

virtually identical language in Helgesteel. Compare Alberici–

Eby, 992 F.2d at 733 (providing for bipartite arbitration over 

“any difference or dispute arising out of the interpretation or 

application of any of the provisions contained in th[e]

[a]greement”) with Helgesteel, 507 F.2d at 1055 (providing for 

bipartite arbitration over any “[g]rievance of the [e]mployer 
14 Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688

or the [u]nion[] arising out of interpretation or enforcement 

of th[e] [a]greement”). 

Because Alberici–Eby is an obvious outlier, we limit the 

case to its peculiar facts. We emphasized there that the 

contractor waited too long to request multiparty arbitration. 

That defeated the purpose of the multiparty arbitration 

process, “which was carefully designed to produce a speedy 

resolution of jurisdictional disputes in order to permit work 

to be properly allocated before that work is performed.”

Alberici–Eby, 992 F.2d at 731. The mistake was inexcusable in 

light of “the strong possibility of conflicting arbitral awards” 

when the unions filed their separate grievances. Id. at 730. 

Moreover, the project had already been completed. As a 

consequence the multiparty arbitration would have done 

little good: “[T]he work ha[d] already been performed,” and 

the multiparty procedure had “no authority to award damages for misassigned work.” Id. at 730 n.2. We specifically 

highlighted these facts when we refused to stay arbitration 

of the Laborers’ grievance. Id. at 734 (“In ... light of Alberici–

Eby’s failure to move in a timely fashion to achieve multiparty arbitration (assuming that such was available), it 

would be manifestly unjust to deny the Laborers an opportunity to be heard by way of bipartite arbitration.”). None of 

these circumstances are present here. The Laborers Union 

notified the Carpenters of the work-jurisdiction dispute ten 

days after it filed its bipartite grievance. And Brock challenged the propriety of bipartite arbitration at the earliest 

opportunity.

The district judge offered two reasons to affirm the arbitral award but neither holds up under the caselaw we’ve just 

surveyed. First, the judge reasoned that because several 
Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688 15

Laborers were already working on the project, removing 

those workers from the job gave rise to a wrongfultermination claim distinct from the jurisdictional dispute. 

Not so. The Laborers were terminated because the work was 

assigned to the Carpenters; a finding of wrongful termination necessarily implies that the work was misassigned. That 

puts this grievance squarely on the work-jurisdiction side of 

the line. As such, it was subject to tripartite arbitration.

Second, the judge held that the grievance arose out of 

Article I, Section 5, which provides a separate contractual 

basis for bipartite arbitrability. The provision in question 

states: “During the existence of the [a]greement, there shall 

be no strikes, lockouts, work stoppages, or picketing arising 

out of any jurisdictional dispute. Work will continue as 

originally assigned, pending resolution of the dispute.”

Grievances arising under this provision are indeed subject to bipartite arbitration. Like the subcontracting provisions in Hutter and Miron, a dispute under this provision can 

be separately arbitrated without interfering with a jurisdictional dispute. Suppose for a moment that the Laborers and 

the Carpenters submitted a jurisdictional dispute to tripartite 

arbitration, and to pressure Brock into taking its side, the 

Laborers Union called a strike, prompting Brock to file a 

grievance under Section 5. It would be completely consistent 

for one arbitrator to award the work assignment to the 

Laborers and another to sanction the Laborers for initiating a 

strike. Neither award would call the other into question.

But bipartite arbitration was not appropriate just because 

the Laborers labeled the grievance as one arising under 

Section 5. We look instead to the substance of the grievance. 

And in substance, this grievance is a work-jurisdiction 
16 Nos. 17-2597 & 17-2688

dispute. As such, it was subject to tripartite arbitration, and 

the Subcommittee lacked arbitral authority.

REVERSED; CROSS-APPEAL DISMISSED.