Opinion ID: 198870
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Labor Dispute

Text: 2 We begin by sketching the facts of this labor dispute, reserving for later a more detailed discussion of the district court's findings. In doing so, [w]e recite the facts in the light most favorable to the district court's findings of fact. Servicos Comerciales Andinos v. General Electric Del Caribe, Inc., 145 F.3d 463, 466 (1st Cir. 1998). 3 In 1995 the Unions and Springfield negotiated a collective bargaining agreement that governs the rates of pay, rules, and working conditions for Springfield locomotive engineers, conductors, and trainmen. The agreement specifically provides that union employees shall perform any and all services under the direct control of the Carrier required for the make up of trains and/or the movement of cars and trains over and through the Carrier's trackage and in its business of servicing industrial sidings. 4 One such business of servicing industrial sidings is switching, a service that rail carriers often provide for their customers on the customers' properties. Springfield employees who are union members have historically provided this service to many of Springfield's line-haul railway customers. Pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement, the union members performing these switching services have been paid and treated identically to engineers, conductors, and trainmen involved in other aspects of Springfield's railway business. 5 In 1996 Springfield proposed that the union members engaged in switching accept a twenty-six percent pay cut and less favorable working conditions. Although the Unions' leaders initially resisted, they eventually agreed to submit a proposed pay cut to their respective memberships. The memberships of both Unions rejected the changes in August 1996, opting instead to maintain the more favorable terms of the collective bargaining agreement. Despite the vote, Springfield persisted in seeking a pay cut for switching work. 6 Unable to persuade the Unions to accept lower pay for switching, Springfield took a series of steps in the spring of 1998 that resulted in ABR performing switching that had previously been done by Springfield's unions. ABR is a non-unionized company located along Springfield's railway lines engaged primarily in the manufacture of clothes pins and other wood products. Springfield executed an agreement with ABR in April 1998 giving ABR joint use of some railway tracks, and Springfield personnel trained two non-union ABR employees to use a leased track-mobile to perform the switching at the ABR wood products mill previously done by Springfield's union employees. While joint use agreements of this type are fairly common in the railway industry, Springfield's next move was unusual. Shortly after executing the joint use agreement, Springfield suggested to ABR that it truck its switching equipment from place to place so that it could perform switching work for various Springfield railway customers that had previously used Springfield (and the Unions) for switching. ABR agreed and by May of 1998 it was providing switching services for Springfield customers Lincoln Pulp & Paper (Lincoln) and Passadumkeag Stud Mill, owned by Champion International, Inc. (Champion). ABR also investigated performing switching work for other Springfield customers. 7 Although nominally an independent corporation, ABR is not unrelated to Springfield. Springfield is a wholly owned subsidiary of Guilford Transportation Industries, Inc. (Guilford), a holding company that owns several railroads in New England. 1 Guilford, in turn, was closely held (at the time of the dispute) by four individuals who also served as its directors: David Andrew Fink, David Armstrong Fink, Richard Kelso and Timothy Mellon. Both of the Finks and Mellon were also the sole owners of ABR. The three companies shared the same four directors at the time the dispute arose: all three ABR owners plus Richard Kelso. While David Andrew Fink served as President of Springfield, his son, David Armstrong Fink, served as President of ABR (as well as a Director of Guilford and, later, as an Executive Vice-President at Springfield). It was David Armstrong Fink who met with a Springfield vice-president involved in the failed labor negotiations about the possibility of ABR performing the switching work previously done by the Unions.