Opinion ID: 2994733
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: LMRA definition.

Text: The LMRA provides that, for purposes of determining an appropriate bargaining unit any individual employed by his parent or spouse is not included within the definition of employee. 29 U.S.C. sec. 152(3). ERISA’s definition of employee is any individual employed by an employer. 29 U.S.C. sec. 1002(6). James claims that LMRA’s definition of employee should be used to interpret the CBA rather than ERISA’s because ERISA was not passed until well after the trust agreements creating the funds were formed, which was in 1961 and 1963. The district court relied on the ERISA definition and the CBA’s explicit exclusion of trainees but not children of employers in determining that such children were employees on whose behalf contributions are owed. We review the district court’s interpretation of pension plan terms de novo. Moriarty, 164 F.3d at 330. We agree with the district court that the definition contained in 29 U.S.C. sec. 152(3) should not be used to interpret the CBA. Even assuming without deciding that LMRA rather than ERISA should be used to interpret the CBA, James’s argument that he is not an employee because he was Elmer’s son would not succeed. Within LMRA itself, the definition of employee is broader than that contained in sec. 152(3) when determining whether an employer may make payments to workers by means of a trust fund under sec. 186(c)(5). See Reiherzer v. Shannon, 581 F.2d 1266, 1276 (7th Cir. 1978), abrogated in other part by Black v. TIC Inv. Corp., 900 F.2d 112 (7th Cir. 1990). For example, retired workers are not employees for purposes of sec. 152(3) but are employees under sec. 186(c)(5). See Allied Chem. & Alkali Workers of Am. v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U.S. 157, 170 (1971). The portion of the CBA about which James is arguing concerns a trust fund, and so the broader definition of sec. 186(c)(5) should be used to interpret the CBA rather than sec. 152(3). Whether children of employers would be considered employees for purposes of sec. 186(c)(5) is unclear. Thus, LMRA does not support James’s construction of employee in the CBA.