Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Laborers' International Union, Local 100

49 F.3d 304, 1995 U.S. App. LEXIS 3779, 66 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 43,472, 67 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 205
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedFebruary 27, 1995
DocketNo. 94-3296
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 49 F.3d 304 (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Laborers' International Union, Local 100) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Laborers' International Union, Local 100, 49 F.3d 304, 1995 U.S. App. LEXIS 3779, 66 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 43,472, 67 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 205 (7th Cir. 1995).

Opinion

FLAUM, Circuit Judge.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) brought suit against Local 100 of the Laborers’ International Union of North America alleging the union failed to file certain reports with the EEOC as required by federal law. The district judge agreed and issued a remedial order commanding the union’s compliance as well as requiring it to submit additional information to the EEOC. Local 100 appeals from this decision, and we affirm.

I.

Local 100 of the Laborers’ International Union of North America is a referral union that operates as a hiring hall in Caseyville, Illinois. Section 709(e) of Title VII requires labor organizations like Local 100 to make records relevant to membership and referral practices and to preserve those records. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-8(c). Regulations issued pursuant to § 2000e-8(c) specifically require such unions to file with the EEOC an EEO-3 form, which calls “for information, about union policies and practices and for the compilation of statistics on the race, color, national origin, and sex of members, persons referred, and apprentices.” 29 C.F.R. §§ 1602.22 to 1602.27. Under the regulations, a' union must maintain referral and membership records for one year and must keep any records required to complete the EEO-3 form for one year after the due date of the report for which they were compiled. 29 C.F.R. § 1602.28. Covering referral and membership figures over a given two-month period in a particular year, an EEO-3 thus provides the EEOC with a snapshot of employment-referral practices at a referral union. An EEO-3 must typically be filed once every two years.

In March, 1991, the EEOC began investigating Local 100 after receiving allegations that Local 100’s referral system discriminated against blacks. During the investigation, an EEOC investigator requested referral records from the union but was told by the union’s business manager, Ronald Shev-lin, that the union did not maintain any such records. The investigator later learned from Shevlin’s. assistant that Local 100 kept records but that they consisted of a cardboard box containing slips of paper on which were recorded the names of persons seeking referral each day. Sometime after the investiga-t.or’s visit, Shevlin discarded the slips of paper. .

After uncovering this informal record-keeping system, the EEOC began investigating the union’s compliance with Title VII’s reporting and record-keeping requirements. The EEOC requested copies of Local 100’s EEO-3 reports from 1980 to the present, referral records from 1989 to the present, or an explanation if Local 100 could not produce [306]*306either. The union did not turn over such material and did not offer any reason for its failure, whereupon the EEOC brought suit against Local 100 to demand compliance. The district court conducted a bench trial and found for the EEOC on the grounds that Local 100 had failed to file EEO-3s in 1982, 1984, 1987, 1988, 1990, and 1993. The court ordered Local 100 to comply with EEO-3 filing requirements and to submit an EEO-3 by December 31, 1995. The district court also enjoined the union to report the “name, race, sex, national origin, and social security number of each of its members as of the date of entry of the Remedial Order” and to retain for three years, commencing September 1, 1994, “all referral records ... and other documents showing information about people seeking referrals and about the referrals themselves; ... all membership lists and per capita sheets; and all documents showing the acceptance or rejection of such applications and other requests for membership and the reasons for such acceptance or rejection.” This appeal followed.

II.

On appeal, Local 100 challenges both the district court’s finding in favor of the EEOC and the scope of the remedial order. The union asserts that the court lacked sufficient evidence to find the union not in compliance with the EEOC’s reporting requirements and that the remedial order improperly demands information and record-keeping that exceed the EEOC’s regulatory authority. Both contentions are without merit.

A.

Local 100’s arguments about its compliance with EEOC reporting regulations hinge on factual determinations, which we will reverse only if they are clearly erroneous. Hughes v. Brown, 20 F.3d 745, 747 (7th Cir.1994). In the instant case, the district court was clearly correct. Shevlin admitted that he had failed to file an EEO-3 on behalf of the union for 1992 but maintained that he had mailed EEO-3s to the EEOC in all the other years. Yet the EEOC official responsible for EEO-3 reports, Clairice Bryce, testified that she had kept a log of EEO-3s received since 1988 and that the log showed no entry for Local 100 for 1988,1990 or 1993. Bryce also testified to having searched microfilm copies of reports filed by unions and discovering that the most recent report Local 100 had filed dated to 1980. Additionally, the regulations required Local 100 to maintain certain application and referral records for one year after the making of a record, and the union admitted that it destroyed applications for referral, as well as the slips of paper the EEOC’s investigator had discovered at the union hall, before the expiration of that time period. See 29 C.F.R. § 1602.28.

Local 100 counters with opposing evidence, but none of it establishes that the district court’s findings were clearly erroneous. Local 100 asserts that Bryce’s testimony was suspect on the grounds that Bryce lacked independent knowledge of Local 100 and lacked knowledge of reporting procedures prior to 1988. The union explains that Bryce may have forgotten to record the EEO-3s during her tenure or that the contractor who microfilmed the EEOC’s pre-1988 EEO-3s may have forgotten to film the union’s. The mere existence of alternative explanations (especially ones as dubious as these) does not leave us with the “definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed” and that reversal is appropriate. United States v. Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 542, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948). Absent additional proof, it seems unlikely that the EEOC consistently lost everything Local 100 submitted while maintaining records on other unions. Furthermore, the union responded to the EEOC’s allegations of noncompliance solely with Shevlin’s testimony that he did mail the EEO-3 forms for all the years in question except 1992. The district court expressly found Shevlin not credible.

With regard to the destruction of applications and the slips of paper, the union argues that it does not use them to prepare its EEO-3 forms since it employs the “visual reporting” method. However, § 1602.28 requires a referral union to maintain referral applications for one year, and the district court found that the slips of paper were relevant to Local 100’s referral records. Shevlin’s discredited testimony to the con[307]*307trary does not prove otherwise.

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49 F.3d 304, 1995 U.S. App. LEXIS 3779, 66 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 43,472, 67 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 205, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/equal-employment-opportunity-commission-v-laborers-international-union-ca7-1995.