Opinion ID: 429185
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The 1977 Negotiations

Text: 7 Before the 1977 round of grocery negotiations was scheduled to commence, Arnold Weinmeister, a leader of the Warehouse Locals, convened a meeting of Teamsters representatives to discuss a new team approach to negotiations. Weinmeister wanted representatives of all the major locals to sit in on the negotiations between Allied and Local 174 to avoid the problems that had occurred in 1974. William Roberts, an attorney in private practice, advised the unions that presentation of a team of representatives would be legal, but suggested an alternative approach. Instead of having a team of representatives negotiate with respect to Local 174's contract, Roberts recommended that the locals consider coordinated bargaining whereby they could negotiate the three contracts simultaneously rather than conduct three separate sessions. The union representatives agreed to present this proposal to Allied. 8 The day negotiations over Local 174's contract were scheduled to open, a team of union representatives arrived at Allied's offices. The team included Weinmeister, Roberts, Cooper, and representatives of Local 313 and one of the major Warehouse Locals, Local 599. The spokesman for Allied's bargaining team, Richard King, expressed surprise at seeing the other locals represented at the opening of negotiations on Local 174's contract. At that point, Weinmeister proposed that they engage in coordinated bargaining to avoid the problems that had occurred in 1974. Roberts cited a case, General Electric Co. v. NLRB, 412 F.2d 512 (2nd Cir.1969), as authority for conducting coordinated bargaining. King indicated that he wanted to read the case and caucus with the other members of Allied's bargaining team. Afterwards, at a private meeting with Weinmeister and Roberts in his office, King stated that he had learned something about coordinated bargaining and indicated that Allied was agreeable to coordinated bargaining. 9 When the full group of union and employer representatives reconvened, the parties discussed the groundrules for the coordinated bargaining structure. The unions would have one spokesman with representatives of the other major locals present at the bargaining table. Although each bargaining unit would still have a separate contract, they agreed to submit the proposed contracts to their memberships for ratification on the same day. Someone on the union side may have said that there would be one big strike or one big settlement. 10 At the outset of the 1977 grocery negotiations, Weinmeister was the primary union spokesman. He later was replaced by William Grami. Other union representatives, however, were present at the bargaining table and participated in discussions throughout the negotiations. The parties negotiated an agreement which all three unions voted to ratify. 11 The coordinated bargaining approach was also incorporated into the soft drink negotiations in 1977 following a similar opening day scenario. Representatives of all the locals showed up on the first day of bargaining for Local 117's contract--the first soft drink contract scheduled to expire. The parties agreed to engage in coordinated bargaining with one set of negotiations producing separate contracts for each local. Allied's spokesman understood that the failure of one local to ratify would be an internal union problem. 12 In 1977, Local 174 voted to reject the soft drink agreement, but signed the contract anyway pursuant to an agreement among the unions to pool the votes of all affected employees. The Board relied heavily on Local 174's behavior in the 1977 soft drink negotiations to support its finding that Local 174 intended to be bound by the results of group bargaining in the 1980 grocery negotiations. Yet the soft drink negotiations differed from the grocery negotiations in several important respects. Allied represented a different set of employers and used a different negotiating team and a different spokesman in the soft drink negotiations. Moreover, because Local 174 represented only 65 of the 1200 employees covered by the soft drink agreements, it had not been a dominant force in those negotiations. Finally, unlike the situation in the grocery negotiations, Local 174 was not the first union to sit down with Allied to negotiate a soft drink contract.B. The 1980 Negotiations 13 Before the grocery negotiations commenced in 1980, Weinmeister told the Allied representatives that there would be coordinated bargaining just like the last time. When asked what would happen if one local voted to reject the contract, Weinmeister responded: It becomes an internal Union matter. Petitioner's representative, Robert Cooper, was present when Weinmeister made that statement, but did not respond to it in any way. Throughout the 1980 grocery negotiations, whenever the question was raised as to what would happen if one local rejected Allied's offer, the response from the union was always the same: that would be an internal union matter. Nothing else was said concerning the ground rules for negotiations. Union spokesmen did not say that the unions had agreed to be bound by any agreement ratified by a majority of the unions. 14 Following numerous bargaining sessions, the unions conducted simultaneous votes on their individual contract offers. Local 174 voted overwhelmingly to reject the offer, 286-7, while the other bargaining units voted to ratify. Local 174 immediately went on strike, but discontinued it after failing to receive strike sanction from Joint Council No. 28. At that point, Allied filed an unfair labor practice charge which alleged that Local 174 was bound by the vote of the majority and was refusing to execute a completed, ratified Agreement in violation of section 8(b)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act). 29 U.S.C. Sec. 158(b)(3) (1976). Petitioner has continued to refuse to sign the contract. 15 The Board's General Counsel issued a complaint against Local 174 and three days of hearings were held before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). In his decision, the ALJ made several important credibility determinations, discrediting the testimony of the two major spokesmen in the 1980 grocery negotiations, William Grami and Richard King, along with the testimony of three other employer representatives. General Teamsters Local Union No. 174, No. 19-CB-3873, slip op. at 10-11 (August 5, 1981), attached to General Teamsters Local Union No. 174, 265 NLRB No. 59 (1982). (The bulk of the remaining credited testimony was that of Local 174's Robert Cooper and the attorney, William Roberts.) Based on the remaining credited evidence, the ALJ concluded that Local 174 was not bound by the agreement ratified by the other unions. 16 The Board reversed, resting its findings solely on credited or uncontradicted record evidence. 265 NLRB No. 59, slip op. at 4-5. The Board concluded that the coordinated bargaining format used in 1977 and in 1980 contemplated a binding contract upon ratification by a majority of the unions and that Local 174 had tacitly concurred in that majority ratification principle. Id. at 4. In refusing to execute the contract, the Board concluded that Local 174 was refusing to bargain collectively within the meaning of section 8(b)(3) of the Act. The Board ordered petitioner to cease and desist from its activities and to make whole any employees covered by the contract for any financial losses sustained by them as a result of [its] unlawful refusal to sign the contract. Id. at 6 (footnote omitted). 17 Local 174 filed a petition for review of the Board's decision and order and the Board cross-petitioned for enforcement. Because Allied was the party which brought the charge underlying the proceedings below, we granted its motion to intervene.