Commonwealth v. Local Union 542

807 F.2d 330
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedDecember 5, 1986
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 807 F.2d 330 (Commonwealth v. Local Union 542) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Local Union 542, 807 F.2d 330 (3d Cir. 1986).

Opinions

OPINION OF THE COURT

STAPLETON, Circuit Judge.

In these consolidated appeals, Local Union 542, International Union of Operating [331]*331Engineers, (“Local 542” or “the Union”) challenges the district court’s extension of an injunctive decree first imposed on the Union in 1979, after a finding of intentional employment discrimination by the Union against minority workers. Specifically, the Union objects to the minority job referral levels that the extended decree requires. Because we do not believe that the district court abused its discretion in extending the decree, including its referral requirements, for two additional years, we affirm.

I.

The elaborate factual foundation for holding the Union liable in this case is recited at length in previous opinions that have emerged from this fourteen-year-old litigation. The Union here challenges only the extended injunction imposed after the district court determined that the initial decree’s requirements had not been met. Because the factual background is set forth extensively in prior opinions, we can treat the long history of this case briefly. The most relevant facts for this appeal are the lower court’s findings of continuing discrimination and the provisions of the extended decree.

The district court in 1978 found Local 542 liable for intentional, classwide discrimination against minority workers in violation of both Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Local Union 542, Int’l Union of Operating Engineers, 469 F.Supp. 329 (E.D.Pa.1978), aff'd, 648 F.2d 922 (3d Cir.1981) (en banc). The court found discrimination by the Union in entry into the Union as well as in job referrals from the Union’s exclusive hiring hall. Id. The court then entered an injunctive decree, effective November 7, 1979, to remedy the Union’s unlawful conduct. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Local Union 542, Int’l Union of Operating Engineers, 502 F.Supp. 7 (E.D.Pa.1979) (the injunction), aff'[d, 648 F.2d 922 (3rd Cir. 1981); Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Local Union 542, Int’l Union of Operating Engineers, 488 F.Supp. 988 (E.D.Pa. 1980) (opinion in support of the injunction), aff'd, 648 F.2d 922 (3rd Cir.1981). Contractors that relied on Local 542’s hiring hall were initially found vicariously liable by the district court, but the Supreme Court reversed this holding, General Building Contractors v. Pennsylvania, 458 U.S. 375, 102 S.Ct. 3141, 73 L.Ed.2d 835 (1982), thus invalidating the part of the injunctive decree that applied to the class of contractors. After this decision the obligations of the Union remained unchanged, except for the decree modifications discussed below.

The injunctive decree’s ultimate objective was to achieve, at the end of its life, a level of hours worked by minority Union members commensurate with the percentage of minority persons in the local workforce population. The decree established a different hours goal for each of five districts where the Union operated. The hours goals increased over the five-year period of the initial decree. To assure that the hours goals would be met, the district court imposed subsidiary obligations on the Union. One of the subsidiary obligations, the referral level (specified for each district), established the rate at which minority members were to be referred to jobs from the Union hiring hall. “Referrals” include dispatches from the hiring hall’s out-of-work lists and recalls of preferred employees by employers.

The Union’s collective bargaining agreements give employers the right to recall a preferred employee during a 90-day period after the employee is laid off by the employer. Thus during the recall period the employer can hire a Union member who is out of work but has worked previously for the employer, giving the employer some control over who is sent from the hiring hall. If the employer does not recall a particular worker, the Union dispatches a member from its out-of-work list.

At the outset, the referral levels of the injunction (i.e., the ratio of minority referrals to total referrals) were set at the same percentage as the yearly hours goals for each district (i.e., the ratio of minority hours worked to total hours worked), with a provision in the injunction that referral [332]*332levels could later be increased if necessary to achieve the appropriate level of minority hours worked. To reach a desired level of minority work hours, referral levels must be set higher if the number of hours worked per referral is on the average higher for white workers. In this case, white Union members have consistently been referred to longer jobs. When the district court found that the initial referral levels resulted in a shortfall in minority hours worked, the court altered the referral obligations. Thus in 1983, the court set aside 22% of the referrals in District 1 for minority workers during the last two years of the initial decree, instead of 18%, the ultimate hours-worked goal for that district. In 1984, the court raised the referral level in District 1 to 40% for the remainder of the initial decree’s life. Of the injunction’s five districts, District 1 is the district with the greatest percentage of minorities, 18%, in its workforce population.

As the years of the initial decree passed, the Union met neither the referral nor the hours-worked specifications of the decree. The Union also did not comply with integrated membership and validation requirements. The Master, appointed by the district court to oversee implementation of the decree, conducted evidentiary hearings in early 1985 and issued a detailed report that recommended inter alia extending the time period of the decree. The Master’s Report states,

The purpose of the Judgment and Decree was to assure the plaintiff class of adequate representation within the construction industry and more particularly in the endeavors of Operating Engi-neers____ This purpose has not been met. The Court found that the plaintiff class was entitled to this injunctive relief, and it is the finding of the Master after these years of experience, that the plaintiffs are still entitled to that relief and that the percentages mandated by the Court are reasonable goals.

App. at 31. On July 30, 1985, the district court heard argument on whether to accept the Master’s recommendations. At the conclusion of this argument, the court issued an order dated August 1, 1985, extending the injunctive decree for two years, to August 31, 1987, subject to modifications to be made by the court. An order dated October 9, 1985, sets out the district court’s findings and its modifications of the injunction. The Union appeals from the August 1 and October 9, 1985, orders.

The district court found “a serious shortfall” in the amount of work done by minorities during the last two years of the initial decree, the time period during which minorities were to achieve work levels commensurate with the number of minorities in the local workforce population. App. at 671. The court calculated that from September, 1983, to May, 1985, minority workers in District 1 and District 5 lost $4,101,727.00 in wages because of discrimination in the allocation of the Union’s work. App. at 672.

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Commonwealth Of Pennsylvania v. Local Union 542
807 F.2d 330 (Third Circuit, 1986)

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