Opinion ID: 508502
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Voidability of the Pre-Hire Agreement

Text: 23 It is settled law that a pre-hire agreement is voidable by the employer and that such an agreement does not become a collective bargaining contract unless the union actually represents a majority of the employees in the relevant unit and is recognized as such by the employer. Epley, 764 F.2d at 1514 (original emphasis). It is undisputed that the union in this case had not established majority status either at any particular project or in B & B's overall work force. The district court therefore correctly concluded that any pre-hire agreement in force between B & B and the union--the AGC agreement, the ESA, or a project agreement--was voidable. 24 The union argues that B & B should not be allowed to repudiate its agreement with the union for two reasons. First, the union argues that a project agreement is not a section 8(f) pre-hire agreement but is instead a section 9 agreement that is not voidable. The union is simply wrong. Nothing in the two cases on which it relies, Jim McNeff, Inc. v. Todd, 461 U.S. 260, 103 S.Ct. 1753, 75 L.Ed.2d 830 (1983), and A.L. Adams Company v. Georgia Power Company, 557 F.Supp. 168 (S.D.Ga.1983), aff'd, 733 F.2d 853 (11th Cir.1984), supports the proposition that project agreements are section 9 agreements that are not voidable. In fact, the Eleventh Circuit in A.L. Adams affirmed the district court's conclusion that the project agreement involved in that case was a valid pre-hire agreement under section 8(f). 733 F.2d at 855. See also NLRB v. Haberman Const. Co., 641 F.2d 351, 368 (5th Cir.1981) (in order to enforce a section 8(f) contract with a project-by-project employer, the union must re-establish its majority at each successive job site). 25 Second, the union argues that B & B should be estopped from asserting the union's non-majority status because B & B's failure to follow the referral rules caused the union's lack of majority status. 3 26 The union's estoppel remedy argument is without merit. Even assuming that B & B did breach the pre-hire agreement by failing to follow its referral rules, the union has not pointed to any evidence that the breach caused the union's failure to achieve majority status. It is undisputed that, as of the date of B & B's repudiation, B & B employed a total of thirty-one workers. Twenty-two of the thirty-one were paid $10.00 per hour or more and eight of the twenty-two were union members. Assuming, as the union argues, that all twenty-two workers being paid journeymen's wages were in fact journeymen who should have been hired from the hall, the union would attain majority status on the project if eight of the fourteen remaining journeymen had been union members. 27 However, there is no evidence that if B & B had hired the remaining fourteen employees on referral from the union at least eight of the fourteen would have been union members, thereby giving the union majority status. It cannot be argued that the union deliberately would have referred only union members, since federal and state law require an open shop. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 158(a)(3) and (b)(2); Alabama Code Section 25-7-30. The pre-hire agreement's requirement that journeymen be hired from the hall is a referral requirement, not a requirement that B & B hire only union members. Nor can the union rely on the allegation by the assistant business agent for Local 92 that It appears that if Local 92 did not represent a majority of workers it was because B and B violated our contract by hiring from an unauthorized source. R. 1-16-4. Rule 56(e) requires the nonmoving party to designate specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial, Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2553, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986), not simply conclusory allegations with no revealed basis in fact. Moreover, as B & B points out, B & B could have recruited non-union workers, sent them to the hiring hall to get a referral slip--which the union could not deny because of its duty not to discriminate--and then hired the non-union workers. 28 At least in the absence of any causal link between B & B's breach of the pre-hire agreement and the union's lack of majority status, the collateral estoppel remedy sought by the union would violate the non-union workers' rights. Estopping the employer from asserting the union's non-majority status would allow the union to convert its section 8(f) pre-hire agreement into a section 9 collective bargaining agreement, thereby installing the minority union as the employees' exclusive bargaining representative without the consent of the employees. In the leading Supreme Court decisions discussing the enforceability of section 8(f) pre-hire agreements, Jim McNeff, Inc., 461 U.S. 260, 103 S.Ct. 1753, and NLRB v. Iron Workers, 434 U.S. 335, 98 S.Ct. 651, 54 L.Ed.2d 586 (1978) (Higdon ), the Court was careful not to infringe employees' rights, under section 7, to select their own bargaining representative. In Higdon, the Court held that a union commits an unfair labor practice by picketing to enforce a pre-hire agreement before it has attained majority status. In describing the holding of Higdon, the Court in Jim McNeff, Inc., stated: If ... an employer could be compelled by picketing to treat a minority union as the exclusive bargaining agent of employees, the section 7 rights of those employees would be undermined to an extent not contemplated by Congress. 461 U.S. at 268, 103 S.Ct. at 1758. The union in this case cites no authority supporting the application of an estoppel remedy in cases such as this and the remedy itself appears to be flatly contrary to Congress' concerns as expressed in section 7 and as described by the Supreme Court. 4 29