Opinion ID: 512025
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Building and Construction Industry Exception

Text: 26 The term building and construction industry is not defined in MPPAA. Congress, in the legislative history, indicated this term should be given the same meaning as has developed in the administration of the Taft-Hartley Act. Report, supra, at 76, 1980 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News at 2944; see Senate Comm. on Labor and Human Resources, 96th Cong., 2d Sess., The Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980: Summary and Analysis of Consideration 14 (Comm.Print 1980). Like the district court and the arbitrator, we look to case law under section 8(f) of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 158(f), which contains the same term. Section 8(f) is applicable to employers engaged primarily in the building and construction industry. Id. 27 Initially, we note that under section 8(f) the term building and construction industry has been construed narrowly because, as in section 1383 of MPPAA, the term is part of a statutory exception. See Frick Co., 141 N.L.R.B. 1204, 1208 (1963). The National Labor Relations Board has generally defined the term as subsum[ing] the provision of labor whereby materials and constituent parts may be combined on the building site to form, make[,] or build a structure. Carpet, Linoleum, and Soft Tile Local Union No. 1247, 156 N.L.R.B. 951, 959 (1966) (Indio Paint ) (emphasis omitted). Thus, employers who manufacture construction materials that are installed by others at the construction site are not in the building and construction industry. See, e.g., NLRB v. W.L. Rives Co., 328 F.2d 464, 469 (5th Cir.1964) (manufacturer of pipes and fittings made to order but installed by others); Forest City/Dillon-Tecon Pac., 209 N.L.R.B. 867, 868, 870-71 (1974) (manufacturer of precast concrete building products that does no work on job site), enforced in part, 522 F.2d 1107 (9th Cir.1975). Similarly, employers who are involved in the construction process in only a minimal way are not in the building and construction industry. See, e.g., Frick Co., 141 N.L.R.B. at 1208 (employer involved in manufacture and sale of refrigeration equipment with little time spent or revenue obtained from installation of that equipment); see also Construction, Bldg. Materials & Miscellaneous Drivers, Local No. 83, 243 N.L.R.B. 328, 331 (1979) (summarizing these rules). 28 The district court recognized that actual on-site work is not always required for an employer to be in the building and construction industry. See A.L. Adams Constr. Co. v. Georgia Power Co., 733 F.2d 853, 857-58 (11th Cir.1984). For example, a general contractor may subcontract the actual on-site work and only manage the project by overseeing and coordinating the work on the job site. See id. at 858. Even then, however, a contractor's involvement in the construction must be more than negligible. Id. at 858 n. 12. Thus, work or significant involvement on the construction site is an important indication that the employer is in the building and construction industry. See, e.g., Operating Eng'rs Pension Trust v. Beck Eng'g & Surveying Co., 746 F.2d 557, 562-64 (9th Cir.1984) (ninety percent of employer's surveying work done with regard to construction projects, and thus employer in building and construction industry); Indio Paint, 156 N.L.R.B. at 959 (ninety-three percent of gross revenue derived from providing labor and materials to install floor coverings on job site, and thus employer in building and construction industry). 29 Here, UA was merely a supplier. UA sold a product that another company refined, and still others applied or used. UA employees transported their employer's product from the refinery to the buyer's specified point of delivery, usually the job site. Once at the job site, UA employees discharged the road materials from their trucks to another tank or receiving vessel. The arbitrator specifically found that 30 [i]n discharging their loads, [UA's] employees were responsible only for operating equipment[ ] on their trucks and tractors and doing paper work [indicating they had made delivery]; they did not engage in spreading road oil or asphalt on any highway or in any other way engage in actual road construction or repair. 31 After the UA truck drivers unloaded at the job site, they did not remain. Instead, they returned to the refinery, reloaded, and drove to the next delivery point, whether a job site or storage area. See Forest City/Dillon-Tecon Pac., 209 N.L.R.B. at 871. 32 We have no argument with the arbitrator's finding that UA had some characteristics consistent with companies that are working in the building and construction industry. Nevertheless, MPPAA, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1383, and the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 158(f), require that work be in the building and construction industry, not just connected to that industry, see Hoover, Inc., 240 N.L.R.B. 593, 599 (1979) (connection with the building and construction industry insufficient under section 8(f); the employer must be engaged in building and construction industry); Forest City/Dillon-Tecon Pac., 209 N.L.R.B. at 870-71 (same).