Opinion ID: 457861
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Supervisors--Servicers--Demonstrators:

Text: 8 When an employee covered by this Agreement has been or is in the future elevated to a salaried supervisory position or the salaried position of Servicer-Demonstrator which classifications are excluded from this Agreement, his/her seniority shall be frozen as of the time of such elevation, and the Company's personnel records will be marked accordingly, and should the employee be returned to a position which is covered by this Agreement, he/she shall pick up the seniority he/she had at the time it was frozen. This is to be retroactive with respect to all present salaried supervisory and Servicer-Demonstrator employees. 9 McTighe argues that this language also supports his contention that the Union owed him a duty of fair representation. The district court disagreed: 10 This provision merely provides that should the Company elect to return plaintiff, or someone in similar circumstances, to his original job, he would maintain the seniority he had acquired prior to his promotion. Words in a collective bargaining agreement should be given their ordinary and reasonable meaning. Penn Packing Co. v. Amalgamated Meat Cutters, Local 195, 497 F.2d 888 (3d Cir.1974). 11 The district court further concluded that because McTighe was a supervisor at the time of his termination, to impose upon the Union a duty of fair representation would cause a conflict with its duty to represent the workers whom McTighe had been responsible for supervising. The court quoted from Cooper v. General Motors Corp., 651 F.2d 249, 250 (5th Cir.1981): Supervisors are by the very nature of their positions not members of the collective bargaining unit and cannot be represented by a union that represents rank and file employees.... Therefore, the unions owe them no duty. 12 Similarly, the district court found that because McTighe, as a supervisor, could not be the beneficiary of a collective bargaining agreement, any past practice of the Company was not a relevant consideration. If the Company had returned supervisory personnel to positions within the unit, the court continued, it was done as an exercise of discretion and not as a mandatory requirement of the agreement. 13 We agree with the conclusion reached by the district court. McTighe, as a supervisor, was not a member of the collective bargaining unit and consequently the Union owed him no duty of fair representation at the time of his termination. It follows that the Union owed McTighe no duty several months later, when he sought to be reemployed. We conclude that the district court properly held that because McTighe was not covered by the collective bargaining agreement, the Union owed him no duty of fair representation. Similarly, the Company had no duty to comply with the terms of the agreement in its dealings with McTighe because he was not a member of the collective bargaining unit. 14 We find support for our holding in the recent Ninth Circuit case of Karo v. San Diego Symphony Orchestra Ass'n, 762 F.2d 819 (9th Cir.1985). In Karo, the plaintiff was a member of a musicians' union but was not an employee within a collective bargaining unit. The union had agreed to a contract modification which resulted in a change in audition procedures. The plaintiff filed a grievance with the union when another musician was hired without having to audition for a position which the plaintiff sought. When the union failed to act on his grievance, the plaintiff filed a hybrid action under Sec. 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, alleging breach of the duty of fair representation by the union and breach of the collective bargaining agreement by the Symphony. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit held: Because the union owed no duty to Karo as a nonemployee of the bargaining unit, he lacks standing to sue for breach of such a duty. 762 F.2d at 821. 15 McTighe also contends that summary judgment was improper because discovery was incomplete. He argues that the motion for summary judgment filed by the Union on May 24, 1983, only two months after the lawsuit was initiated, somehow prevented him from pursuing discovery from the Union and Union-related defendants. Although the district court had ordered a five-month discovery deadline, McTighe made no attempts at discovery in regard to the Union defendants until after the court granted the motion for summary judgment in May 1984. McTighe made some attempt at discovery from the Company, but his efforts were rather limited. In view of McTighe's dilatory efforts at discovery, we conclude that his contention that summary judgment was premature is without merit.