Opinion ID: 4549623
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Unfair Labor Practice Claims

Text: Federal law allows a collective bargaining agreement to take eﬀect before the parties have formally executed a written document. “All that is required” to make a collective bargain‐ ing agreement binding is “conduct manifesting an intention to abide and be bound by the terms of [the] agreement.” Brick‐ layers Local 21 of Ill. Apprenticeship and Training Program v. Ban‐ ner Restoration, Inc., 385 F.3d 761, 766 (7th Cir. 2004) (alteration omitted), quoting Gariup v. Birchler Ceiling & Interior Co., 777 F.2d 370, 373 (7th Cir. 1985), and citing Operating Engineers Local 139 Health Benefit Fund v. Gustafson Constr. Corp., 258 F.3d 645, 650 (7th Cir. 2001), and Atchley v. Heritage Cable Vision Assocs., 101 F.3d 495, 500 n.2 (7th Cir. 1996), among oth‐ ers. This rule is implicit in, if not mandated by, § 8(d) of the Wagner Act. See 29 U.S.C. § 158(d) (requiring “execution of a No. 19‐3142 19 written contract incorporating any agreement reached if re‐ quested by either party” as part of duty to bargain collec‐ tively). The parties may not even be able to contract around it. See NLRB v. South Fla. Hotel & Motel Ass’n, 751 F.2d 1571, 1581 n.14 (11th Cir. 1985) (“This clause [providing that the contract would become eﬀective upon execution] notwithstanding, the Union and the Association created a valid and enforceable contract upon rank and file ratification.”). In this case, the union’s February 28, 2015 ratification vote manifested its acceptance of the proposed agreement that had been concluded by the parties’ negotiators the previous day. The ratification was “the last act necessary” to make the agree‐ ment binding. Mack Trucks, Inc. v. United Auto Workers, 856 F.2d 579, 592 (2d Cir. 1988). Plaintiﬀs point to no renego‐ tiation of the agreement’s terms between the date of ratifica‐ tion and the date of execution (March 18) or any other day on or after the eﬀective date of Act 1 (March 11). The execution in itself did not add to or subtract from defendants’ agree‐ ment. As between the parties, its terms had the same force and eﬀect on March 19 as they had on March 17. We agree with the district court that plaintiﬀs’ heavy reli‐ ance on Appalachian Shale Products Co., 121 N.L.R.B. 1160 (1958), is not persuasive. The National Labor Relations Board held in that case that an unsigned collective bargaining agree‐ ment did not bar a competing union’s petition to represent the employer’s employees. Id. at 1161–62. This was a specific ap‐ plication of the “contract bar rule,” a discretionary procedure adopted by the Board for reconciling the Wagner Act’s “goals of promoting industrial stability and employee freedom of choice” in the context of representation petitions. NLRB v. Dominick’s Finer Foods, Inc., 28 F.3d 678, 683 (7th Cir. 1994). 20 No. 19‐3142 The Appalachian Shale rule represents the Board’s judgment of how best to serve “the eﬀectiveness of its contract bar poli‐ cies.” 121 N.L.R.B. at 1161. It says nothing about when a col‐ lective bargaining agreement begins to bind the parties to it. We agree as well with the district court that plaintiﬀs do no better to rely on Board decisions applying the rule against retroactively enforcing union security clauses, see Namm’s Inc., 102 N.L.R.B. 466, 469 (1953), overruled on other grounds, Kaiser Steel Corp., 125 N.L.R.B. 1039, 1041 n.2 (1959), or the ex‐ emption from the prohibition on closed shops for any collec‐ tive bargaining agreement “entered into” before the Taft– Hartley Act’s eﬀective date unless “renewed or extended” af‐ terward. See United Hoisting Co., 92 N.L.R.B. 1642, 1643 n.2 (1951). None of these decisions required execution of a written document to make a collective bargaining agreement binding. Decisions in the latter line proceeded from the unremarkable and uncontested assumption that execution is often a reliable marker of contract formation, but they did not hold that exe‐ cution is required. See United Hoisting Co., 92 N.L.R.B. at 1644; Spiegel, Inc., 91 N.L.R.B. 647, 662 (1950); Salant & Salant, Inc., 87 N.L.R.B. 215, 216–218 (1949). Decisions in the retroactivity line prohibited unions from retroactively demanding dues or fees for any period before the collective bargaining agreement was formed even if new wage rates were made eﬀective as of an earlier date. Plaintiﬀs note the Board’s use of “execution” in International Chemical Workers: “It also is well established that the date of execution, not the eﬀective date, of a collective‐bargaining agreement governs the validity of such a [union security] clause.” Inter‐ national Chemical Workers, Local No. 112, 237 N.L.R.B. 864, 865 No. 19‐3142 21 (1978), citing Local No. 25, Teamsters, 220 N.L.R.B. 76, 77 (1975). The Board in that case referred to “execution” in distinguish‐ ing between contract formation and retroactive eﬀective dates where no collective bargaining agreement had been in place for a time. The Board was not distinguishing between for‐ mation by ratification on one hand and formation by written execution on the other. The same was true in the cited Local No. 25, Teamsters. These retroactivity decisions simply did not address when labor contract formation happens. On that ques‐ tion, the Board continues to adhere to the rule we follow here, that oﬀer and acceptance, not execution, make a labor con‐ tract. See, e.g., YWCA of Western Mass., 349 N.L.R.B. 762, 763 & n.8 (2007). Applying established law on contract formation, defend‐ ants’ collective bargaining agreement here was thus formed upon ratification on February 28, 2015. Neither execution on March 18 nor any contractual event before or after disturbed its terms. Because defendants’ agreement was thus not re‐ newed, modified, or extended after March 10, Act 1 did not invalidate its union security clause. Defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law.