Opinion ID: 186875
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Effect of Florida CBA

Text: 13 In general, an employer's obligation to make benefit contributions under section 515 of ERISA arises from a collective bargaining agreement in the geographic area in which the employer's work is performed. Dick Corporation signed no CBA in Florida, where the two relevant construction projects were to be undertaken. The Company instead signed two independent agreements — and, by their operation, two CBAs — in Massachusetts. See JA 10-13, 71-74; Dick Corp., 384 F.Supp.2d at 194-96. Both successor CBAs contain a traveling contractor's clause, which, as noted earlier, requires that a signatory employer with any work [covered by the CBA] to be performed outside of the geographic area of the CBA and within the geographic area covered by an Agreement with another affiliate of [the BAC] ... abide by the full terms and conditions of the Agreement in effect in the job site area. JA 195. 14 The Fund reads the traveling contractor's clause in the August 2002 CBA to require the Company to contribute to the Fund in accordance with the Florida CBA. See Appellants' Reply Br. at 13. 5 The clause provides: 15 When the Employer has any work specified in ... this Agreement to be performed outside of the geographic area covered by this Agreement and within the geographic area covered by an Agreement with another affiliate of [the BAC], the Employer agrees to abide by the full terms and conditions of the Agreement in effect in the job site area. 16 JA 195 (emphasis added). Two different district courts have given conflicting interpretations to the unambiguous meaning of identical traveling contractor's clauses. Compare Flynn v. Beeler Barney Assocs. Masonry Contractors, Inc., No. 02-1411, 2004 WL 3712630, at  (D.D.C. Aug. 10, 2004) (clause unambiguously bound employer to the terms of [the jobsite] jurisdiction's BAC collective bargaining agreement, even though the employer never signed the agreement with that BAC affiliate), with Trs. of the Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers, Local 5 v. Charles T. Driscoll Masonry Restoration Co., 165 F.Supp.2d 502, 511 (S.D.N.Y.2001) (holding that, on its face, clause bound employer only to CBA employer in fact signed). 6 17 We believe the clause is ambiguous. Indeed, as the Sixth Circuit noted in construing a virtually identical clause, the first sentence of the BAC Traveling Contractor clause is susceptible to more than one interpretation because the phrase `within the area covered by an agreement with another affiliate of the [BAC]' could refer to an agreement between [the employer] and the BAC affiliate, or it could refer to an agreement between any employer and the BAC affiliate. Trs. of the B.A.C. Local 32 Ins. Fund v. Ohio Ceiling & Partition Co., 48 Fed.Appx. 188, 195 (6th Cir. Oct. 4, 2002) (emphasis added). Given the ambiguity, we may consider the intent of the parties to interpret the meaning of the August 2002 CBA's traveling contractor's clause. See, e.g., United States v. Ins. Co. of N. Am., 131 F.3d 1037, 1042 (D.C.Cir. 1997). 18 Unlike the statements of the union president in Driscoll Masonry — accepting a narrow interpretation of the clause — and those of the company president in Ohio Ceiling — with a similar narrow understanding of the clause, see Ohio Ceiling, 48 Fed.Appx. at 195-96 — there is little extrinsic evidence of intent here. A Massachusetts BAC official submitted an affidavit regarding the reason the BAC inserts traveling contractor's clauses into all collective bargaining agreements. See Decl. of Ronald Marvin at 4-5, reprinted in JA at 287-88. His statement reflects a broad understanding of the clause, binding signatory employers to the CBAs of local BAC affiliates — even if the employer does not sign the local CBA — in order to prevent ... employers from operating non-union in foreign jurisdictions. Id. at 287. 19 Moreover, it would make little sense to interpret the ... clause as only applying when the employer works in a jurisdiction where that same employer has signed a separate CBA with another BAC affiliate because, if the employer was signatory to an agreement in the jobsite area, there would be no need for a traveling contractors clause. Beeler, 2004 WL 3712630 at  (emphasis in original). Indeed, a narrowly construed traveling contractor's clause would simply reimpose the employer's already existing contractual obligation. Such an interpretation would render the traveling contractor's clause meaningless and, absent evidence of such intent, parties ought not be presumed to have included in their agreement a meaningless provision. Martinsville Nylon Employees Council Corp. v. NLRB, 969 F.2d 1263, 1267 (D.C.Cir.1992). As a consequence, and absent evidence of any contrary intent, we believe the August 2002 CBA's traveling contractor's clause binds Dick Corporation to a CBA in force at a foreign jobsite even if the Company is not a signatory thereto. 7