Opinion ID: 392946
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: SASMI and the 1974 Agreement

Text: 2 SASMI is a comprehensive supplemental employment compensation plan developed in 1973 to encourage maximum employment in the sheet metal industry and to minimize the hardships workers endure in periods of less than full employment. As conceived, the plan sought a rough approximation in disposable income between union workers who were fully employed and those unemployed for a major portion of the year due to local economic conditions. Economic assistance in the form of four types of benefits was to be provided to those deemed underemployed. Funding was to be obtained from sheet metal contractors agreeing to SASMI's incorporation into local collective bargaining agreements. Sheet Metal Workers' International Association, 234 N.L.R.B. 1238, 1239 (1978), appeal docketed, No. 79-2396 (5th Cir. June 12, 1979). 3 In July 1974, representatives of Local 493 demanded that the Association agree to SASMI's incorporation into the collective bargaining agreement then under negotiation. When the Association rejected this demand, and protracted bargaining produced no consensus, the Local and the Sheet Metal Workers' International Association (SMWIA) initiated a strike against CFSMCA members. The Association then acquiesced in SASMI's inclusion, and the parties concluded in October 1974 a contract in which Association members agreed to make monthly payments into the SASMI fund beginning in August 1976. 4 This apparent resolution of the SASMI dispute was, however, merely temporary. Dissatisfaction with the agreement and the obligations it imposed prompted the Association to file unfair labor practice charges against the SMWIA and Local 493, and to pay the sums into an escrow account rather than into the SASMI fund. The unfair labor practice charges were ultimately resolved by the National Labor Relations Board (Board or NLRB), and its decision is presently on appeal, Sheet Metal Workers' International Association, 234 N.L.R.B. 1238, 1239 (1978), appeal docketed, No. 79-2396 (5th Cir. June 12, 1979); 1 the refusal to pay prompted the fund and its trustees to bring the suit presented here on appeal.