Opinion ID: 2997088
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Supervisory Employees

Text: RES asserts that the Funds improperly included supervisory employees in the Graff Report. The Funds respond that the CBA unambiguously requires that contributions be made for supervisory employees who also have held nonsupervisory positions during the relevant time period. Indeed, the CBA provides that the bargaining unit includes: [P]ersons in the employ of an Employer who are supervisors as defined by the Labor Management Relations Act as amended; and who at one time were Employee members of the bargaining unit herein on whose behalf contributions were required to be made to the trust fund described [in other sections of the CBA]. RES does not dispute this provision of the CBA. To rebut this requirement, RES offers only Wiley Stewart’s affidavit. Specifically, Stewart’s testimony that: [T]wo of these RES employees who were included in the Second Audit, Donald Stewart and Adam Sulik, worked in supervisory positions for RES. Contrary to [Plaintiffs’ Statement of Facts] plaintiffs are now seeking payment from RES for hours worked by those employees. [The Funds’ Field Representative] had previously advised me that plaintiffs would remove those hours from the Second Audit but plaintiffs have not done so. Issues of parol evidence aside, this testimony is not relevant to the appropriateness of including the hours worked by the former-employee supervisors in the auditor’s calculations of unpaid contributions. The plain language of the CBA provides that former-employee supervisors are to be included in the bargaining unit. Stewart’s testimony does not dispute that these two employees fall into that category nor does it provide any other legally cognizable reason why including them would be inappropriate under the CBA. Thus, RES’s reliance on Ill. Conference of Teamsters v. Steve Gilbert Trucking, 71 F.3d 1361 (7th Cir. 1995) (finding that No. 03-3360 5 facts contained in affidavit submitted by company’s owner directly undermined the accuracy of auditor’s calculations) was misplaced. Summary judgment was appropriately granted on this issue.