Court Opinion

ID: 9496201
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:20:02.86903+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:25.039245
License: Public Domain

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
My colleagues’ analysis is premised on the notion that the union has no control over workplace conditions and so lacks the authority to deal with workplace harassment of the kind proven in this case. E.g., ante at 659 (“[t]he company, not the union, controls the workplace”). Confining liability to the company on that basis has the appeal of simplicity, but it may not always comport with reality. My brothers themselves leave room for the possibility that a collective bargaining agreement might confer upon a union sufficient power vis-á-vis personnel assignments and work rules to expose the union to liability for workplace discrimination. Ante at 661. Authority is not always conveyed formally, however (see, e.g., Kujawski v. Board of Commissioners of Bartholomew County, Ind., 183 F.3d 734, 739-40 (7th Cir.1999) (policymak-ing authority); Moriarty v. Glueckert Funeral Home, Ltd., 155 F.3d 859, 865-66 (7th Cir.1998) (agency principles)), and we should not close our eyes to the realities of the workplace, particularly in view of the broad remedial purposes of Title VII and section 1981 (see, e.g., Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409, 437, 88 S.Ct. 2186, 2202, 20 L.Ed.2d 1189 (1968), quoting United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787, 801, 86 S.Ct. 1152, 1160, 16 L.Ed.2d 267 (1966); Veprinsky v. Fluor Daniel, Inc., 87 F.3d 881, 889 (7th Cir.1996)). Where the facts reveal that, in practice, the union enjoys significant control over working conditions and has the power to correct workplace inequities, it is appropriate to hold it liable for failing to do so on the same basis as the employer.
The evidence in this case permits the inference that the pipefitters’ union in fact did have control over significant aspects of the Robbins workplace, including the ability to address precisely the type of discrimination at issue here. The person who functioned as the union steward, Dennis Hahney, was also the piping superintendent for Foster Wheeler. As such, Hah-ney hired pipefitters for the Robbins project (R. 290-2 at 417), chose foremen and everyone else in the chain of command beneath him (id. at 429), decided whom to lay off when workforce reductions were necessary (id. at 418, 501-02), laid out the work for pipefitters to be completed at any given time (id. at 418), doled out work assignments (id. at 459-60), walked the job site to see that pipe was being installed as planned (id. at 473), made sure that everyone had a safe work environment (id. at 439), and strove to maintain “some sort of semblance of peace” among the pipefitters (id. at 471). It was Hahney’s responsibility to see that things ran smoothly between the company and the pipefitters (id. at 418) by, among other things, ensuring that *664none of the pipefitters was “hassle[d]” (id. at 421). Hahney’s testimony makes clear that he had at least some power to resolve workplace issues on his own. He testified, for example, that he would have acted independently to remedy any safety problem he noticed. Id. at 439. His testimony also suggests that his authority extended to the conditions of the portable toilets at the Robbins project that were the situs of the graffiti underlying the plaintiffs’ harassment claim. Although those toilets were leased by Foster Wheeler and were cleaned by the contractor that supplied them, Hahney testified that he would have taken steps to have them cleaned if necessary (id. at 423, 489); indeed, on one occasion when workers were tracking snow into the toilets, he arranged for laborers on the job site to clean them out (id. at 461-62). So the notion that Foster Wheeler had exclusive control over the toilets and thus the sole authority to deal with the graffiti is an illusion. Lest there be any doubt on that score, one need only recall that when the union’s business agent, Steven Toth, noticed sexual graffiti in one of toilets that he thought “might be a little offensive” (R. 290-3 at 514) he took the initiative to have it dealt with (id. at 513-15). Moreover, when Toth learned that pipefitter James Ferguson had complained about some of the racial graffiti in the toilets, Toth immediately turned to Hah-ney and admonished him, “[W]e can’t stand for that. If there’s anything like that in the port-a-johns, see your' powers to be and have the laborers paint them over.” Id. at 517. Although Toth opined on the witness stand that “[i]t was Foster Wheeler’s job to get rid of [the graffiti]” (id. at 518), his conduct and his remarks to Hahney suggest that the responsibility in fact was not Foster Wheeler’s alone and that the union did not treat it as such.
On these facts, it was a fair inference that the union had the power to deal with the racially-charged graffiti defacing the toilets, but intentionally acquiesced in the harassment rather than exercising its authority to remove the graffiti. That is precisely the inference that Judge Coar drew after hearing the evidence, and I can see no clear error in that assessment. After all, it is undisputed that Hahney, at least, was aware of the rampant graffiti on the walls of the toilets. See, e.g., R. 290-2 at 423, 426. The offensive character of that graffiti was obvious. As Judge Coar put it, “Only a visitor from another planet would fail to understand the ugliness of what was written and drawn on those walls.” 2002 WL 976618, at *7. The evidence does not bespeak a perception by union officials that they were powerless to act. Again, Hahney expressed no reservation about taking independent action to correct a workplace safety problem or to clean up a dirty toilet, and Toth did act to have sexually-charged graffiti removed from one of the toilets, recognizing its offensive character. Given the union’s evident willingness and ability to address sexual graffiti, it is an entirely fair and permissible inference that the union was deliberately indifferent to the rampant racial graffiti that defaced the toilets.
Only if we dismiss the authority exercised by union officials such as Hahney and Toth can we say that there was no basis for imposing liability on the union. My colleagues reason that when union steward Hahney was dealing with personnel and work issues, he was acting for the company, not the union, and so could not expose the union to liability for his failure to redress the graffiti problem. Ante at 660, 662-63. This neat division of Hah-ney’s two roles strikes me as artificial, however. Hahney’s own testimony reflects no such bisection of his responsibilities. See, e.g., R. 290-2 at 418-20; 2002 WL 976618, at * 4 ¶ 60. It may well have *665been inappropriate for the union to make Hahney its steward given his management responsibilities. Ante at 660. Whether that decision was well thought out or not, anomalous or not, we do not know. But having placed a management official in the role of union steward, the union ought to bear the consequences — good and bad — of that decision. Hahney’s testimony suggests that in his dual role, he had the authority to address the graffiti. Toth’s testimony about removing the sexual graffiti confirms that union officials not only could but on one occasion did take initiative to remediate this type of problem. Toth’s initiative on that occasion may not, by itself, establish that the union had assumed responsibility to correct any and all workplace problems (see ante at 662), but coupled with Hahney’s testimony it at least belies the notion that the union lacked the power to address the graffiti that defaced the toilet walls. The union’s de facto authority — unexercised despite the patently offensive nature of the graffiti — supports the district court’s decision to impose liability on the union.
We need not wring our hands in worry about the awkward position in which a union might find itself if we obligate unions to take action where some of its members are harassing or otherwise discriminating against other members, as apparently was the case here. See ante at 661. Unions already are called upon routinely to navigate a thorny path between the clashing interests of their members. See, e.g., Thorn v. Amalgamated Transit Union, 305 F.3d 826, 833 (8th Cir.2002) (‘When the employer investigates a sexual harassment claim by one union member against another, the union has a statutory duty to fairly represent both in their disciplinary dealings with the employer.”). My colleagues may be correct in holding that, as a general rule, unions have no affirmative duty to prevent discrimination in the workplace. But it seems to me that a union may nonetheless take on that obligation if, as the facts suggest was true at the Robbins project, union officials assume responsibility for the type of workplace conditions that later give rise to a discrimination claim. Having voluntarily crossed the boundary separating the company’s domain from the union’s, see ante at 660, the pipefitters’ union was not free to turn a blind eye to the racial graffiti that was staring its officials in the face.
I respectfully dissent.