Source: https://casetext.com/case/plumbers-pipe-fitters-no-32-v-nlrb
Timestamp: 2019-09-19 21:26:42
Document Index: 92313247

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Plumbers Pipe Fitters No. 32 v. N.L.R.B, 50 F.3d 29 | Casetext
50 F.3d 29 (D.C. Cir. 1995)
Plumbers Pipe Fitters No. 32v.N.L.R.B
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia CircuitMar 28, 1995
No. 93-1738.
Decided March 28, 1995. Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing In Banc Denied June 7, 1995.
Harper and Flowers charged Local 32 with committing an unfair labor practice in the operation of its referral system. In identical charges, each alleged that Local 32 "failed to dispatch [him] for arbitrary, capricious and invidious reasons" in violation of sections 8(b)(1)(A) (2) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(1)(A) (2) (1988). The Board's General Counsel filed a consolidated complaint against Local 32, casting the alleged unfair labor practice as a breach of the duty of fair representation. After a hearing, the administrative law judge found that Local 32 failed to use objective criteria and standards in the operation of its hiring hall in violation of section 8(b)(1)(A) of the Act, and that Local 32 discriminated against Harper, Flowers and other rig welders seeking employment referrals for reasons not based on objective criteria and standards in violation of section 8(b)(2). ALJ Decision at 1139. He recommended that the Board order Local 32 to cease and desist from its unfair labor practice and that it order make-whole relief for Flowers and Harper. Id. The Board adopted his recommendations without opinion. Id. at 1137. Local 32 now petitions for review and the Board cross-applies for enforcement.
We must first address Local 32's claim that a breach of the duty of fair representation does not amount to an unfair labor practice and, as a result, that the Board lacked jurisdiction in this case. The judicially-created duty of fair representation arises from the union's status as the exclusive bargaining representative of all employees in a bargaining unit. See 29 U.S.C. § 159(a) (1988). A union breaches its "statutory duty fairly to represent all of those employees" when its actions are "arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith." Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 177, 190, 87 S.Ct. 903, 909, 916, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967).
With its argument that the Board lacks jurisdiction over a complaint alleging a breach of the duty of fair representation, Local 32 seeks to revive a debate settled long ago in this circuit. As early as 1967, in Truck Drivers, Local Union 568 v. NLRB, this court squarely held that a breach of the duty of fair representation can constitute an unfair labor practice within the jurisdiction of the Board. 379 F.2d 137, 141-42 (D.C. Cir. 1967). We relied on Vaca v. Sipes, noting the Supreme Court's "explicit assumption that unfair representation is an unfair labor practice." 379 F.2d at 142. See also 2 The Developing Labor Law 1413 (Patrick Hardin ed., 3d ed. 1992) (concluding that the Court's discussion of federal preemption in Vaca v. Sipes was necessarily premised on the assumption that the breach of a union's duty of fair representation constituted an unfair labor practice under § 8(b) of the Act).
Faced with this clear and binding precedent, Local 32 argues, citing our recent decision in Lotus Suites, Inc. v. NLRB, that the authority of Truck Drivers is "not significant" because the parties in that case did not litigate the issue of the Board's jurisdiction. 32 F.3d 588, 592 (D.C. Cir. 1994). In Lotus Suites, however, we merely declined to rely on a Supreme Court decision which did not decide the issue before the panel. Id. Truck Drivers did decide the issue that Local 32 presents here, concluding that the Board has jurisdiction over a complaint alleging a breach of the duty of fair representation. Truck Drivers, 379 F.2d at 141-42. We have consistently followed the conclusion reached in Truck Drivers, as have other circuits that have decided the issue. See, e.g., International Union of Elec., Elec., Salaried, Mach. and Furniture Workers v. NLRB, 41 F.3d 1532, 1537 (D.C. Cir. 1994); see also NLRB v. Gen. Truckdrivers, 778 F.2d 207, 213 (5th Cir. 1985) (partial listing of circuits which decided that breach of the duty of fair representation may be an unfair labor practice). We follow Truck Drivers again today and turn to an examination of the Board's decision in this case.
According to well-accepted standards of review, we set aside a decision of the National Labor Relations Board only if it "acted arbitrarily or otherwise erred in applying established law to the facts" at issue, International Union of Elec., Elec., Salaried, Mach. and Furniture Workers, 41 F.3d at 1536 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted), or if its findings are not supported by "substantial evidence." 29 U.S.C. § 160(e), (f) (1988). In this case, the Board affirmed the ALJ's determination that Local 32 operated its hiring hall in violation of sections 8(b)(1)(A) and (2) of the Act, which prohibit a union from "restrain[ing] or coerc[ing]" employees in the exercise of their collective bargaining rights, 29 U.S.C. §§ 158(b)(1)(A), 157 (1988), or "caus[ing] or attempt[ing] to cause an employer to discriminate against an employee" in regard to employment so as to encourage union membership. 29 U.S.C. §§ 158(b)(2), (a)(3) (1988).
In Boilermakers Local No. 374 v. NLRB, 852 F.2d 1353 (D.C. Cir. 1988), we reviewed the Board's application of sections 8(b)(1)(A) and (2) of the Act and the duty of fair representation to an exclusive hiring hall. We explained that a union must maintain a "high standard of fair dealing" when operating a hiring hall because "[t]he union's tremendous authority and the workers' utter dependence create `a fiduciary duty on the part of the union not to conduct itself in an arbitrary, invidious, or discriminatory manner when representing those who seek to be referred out for employment by it.'" Id. at 1358 (quoting Teamsters Local 519 ( Rust Engineering), 276 N.L.R.B. 898, 908, 1985 WL 57106 (1985) (citations omitted)). Summarizing the applicable law, we held that "a union commits an unfair labor practice if it administers the exclusive hall arbitrarily or without reference to objective criteria and thereby affects the employment status of those it is expected to represent." Boilermakers, 852 F.2d at 1358. We thus affirmed the Board's decision that the union breached its duty of fair representation and violated sections 8(b)(1)(A) and (2) by arbitrarily imposing registration requirements and refusing to inform applicants of the hiring hall rules. See id. at 1358, 1361. The ALJ's decision in this case is fully consistent with Boilermakers. The ALJ reviewed Local 32's actions to determine whether, in operating its exclusive hiring hall, it had established and employed objective standards in a nondiscriminatory manner. ALJ Decision at 1138.
At issue in O'Neill was a duty of fair representation challenge to the substantive provisions of a strike settlement. Grounding its decision in national labor policy, the Supreme Court found that, although the duty of fair representation applied to contract negotiations, "Congress did not intend judicial review of a union's performance to permit the court to substitute its own view of the proper bargain for that reached by the union." Id., 499 U.S. at 78, 111 S.Ct. at 1135. The Court's focus on protecting the content of negotiated agreements from judicial second-guessing is apparent from its repeated references to "the substance of negotiated agreements," and "the final product of the bargaining process." Id. at 77-78, 111 S.Ct. at 1135-36. Attentive to the special role of the union as negotiator, the Court required that "[a]ny substantive examination of a union's performance . . . must be highly deferential, recognizing the wide latitude that negotiators need for the effective performance of their bargaining responsibilities." Id. at 78, 111 S.Ct. at 1135. "For that reason," the Court set forth the "wholly irrational" language, stating that "the final product of the bargaining process may constitute evidence of a breach of duty only if it can be fairly characterized as so far outside a `wide range of reasonableness' that it is wholly `irrational' or `arbitrary.'" Id. (citing Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U.S. 330, 338, 73 S.Ct. 681, 686, 97 L.Ed. 1048 (1953) (a case similarly addressing the scope of authority of union negotiators)).
This case does not involve a negotiated agreement. At issue here is the operation of a hiring hall, where the union has assumed the role of employer, as well as representative, and where the risk of judicial second-guessing of a negotiated agreement that was of such concern to the Court in O'Neill is simply not present. Although the Court rejected the union's attempt in O'Neill to differentiate between contract negotiations and contract administration, noting that no "bright-line" can be drawn between the two, id., 499 U.S. at 77, 111 S.Ct. at 1135, a union's operation of a hiring hall is easily distinguishable from other activities where the union does not assume the role of employer. Cf. id. (indicating that some union activities, like the operation of a hiring hall, "fall into neither category"). As the Supreme Court has recognized, "if a union does wield additional power in a hiring hall by assuming the employer's role, its responsibility to exercise that power fairly increases rather than decreases." Breininger, 493 U.S. at 89, 110 S.Ct. at 437. We, too, have recognized the union's increased responsibility when it operates a hiring hall. In Boilermakers, we held that this dual role called for a "high standard of fair dealing." Boilermakers, 852 F.2d at 1358. More recently, we applied the "presumption of illegality" under section 8(b)(2) that "arises whenever an employee loses his job or hiring opportunity as a result of a union's conduct" in the operation of a hiring hall. Radio-Electronics Officers Union v. NLRB, 16 F.3d 1280, 1284 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 184, 130 L.Ed.2d 118 (1994). When a union operates a hiring hall and assumes the dual role of employer and representative, its obligation to deal fairly extends to all users of the hiring hall, not simply to its members or those that it represents.
We next consider whether substantial evidence exists to support the ALJ's findings and the Board's conclusion that Local 32 operated its hiring hall in violation of sections 8(b)(1)(A) and (2). We are satisfied that it does. The ALJ's conclusion that the applicant pool was closed to anyone unknown to Local 32 officials is confirmed by Galloway's own testimony. He described three sources for the welder applicant list: welders whose reputations were known to Manning, welders who had worked on a previous union job and welders recommended by other local business managers. The barriers to unknown applicants are further illustrated by the runaround that Harper and Flowers encountered. The two men arrived on the jobsite, interested and available for work. Informed that Sexton was in charge of referrals, the men sought him out at the union office. Unable to meet with him, they left their travel cards, paid dues and requested that Sexton contact them. Despite two weeks of waiting for a call from the union and repeated trips to the jobsite, the men were unable to even register for work. Local 32's defense of its operation as a "word-of-mouth" referral system misses the point. True, Harper and Flowers somehow heard about the welding jobs, but Local 32 then arbitrarily excluded them from applying for work. The union's actions plainly violated its fiduciary duty to treat applicants "even-handedly," to inform all potential applicants of relevant hiring hall rules, and to allow qualified individuals to register for work. See Boilermakers, 852 F.2d at 1357, 1358.