Local 18 International Union of Operating Engineers v. Ohio Contractors Ass'n

644 F. App'x 388
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 19, 2016
Docket14-4294
StatusUnpublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 644 F. App'x 388 (Local 18 International Union of Operating Engineers v. Ohio Contractors Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Local 18 International Union of Operating Engineers v. Ohio Contractors Ass'n, 644 F. App'x 388 (6th Cir. 2016).

Opinion

*389 ROGERS, Circuit Judge.

The International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 18 (Local 18), a labor union, filed suit to compel an association that represents employers, the Ohio Contractors Association (OCA), to arbitrate a dispute concerning certain Hydro-Excavator equipment. Local 18 and the OCA are parties to a collective bargaining agreement, the Highway Heavy Agreement, which governs the relationship between the OCA, Local 18, and operating engineers in the heavy highway and utility construction industry. Local 18 alleges that the OCA breached the agreement in refusing to arbitrate a dispute about the classification of Hydro-Excavators and the wage rates of Local 18 members who operate that equipment. The district court granted the OCA’s motion to dismiss, reasoning that the OCA did not agree to submit this type of dispute to arbitration. Judgment should not have been entered for the OCA, however, because the facts alleged in Local 18’s complaint do not compel the conclusion that this dispute is not arbitrable. To the contrary, because an arbitration provision separate from the one that the district court analyzed presumptively channels this type of dispute to arbitration, Local 18 may be entitled to a judgment in its favor absent some reason not briefed here.

For more than forty years, Local 18 and the OCA have negotiated a series of collective bargaining agreements. The current agreement (the CBA) was executed on May 8, 2013. The CBA establishes terms of employment for Local 18 members, and Exhibit A of the CBA establishes wage rates for Local 18 members employed to operate certain equipment. During negotiations for the CBA, Local 18 and the OCA placed equipment into one of five categories in Exhibit A. Although the Hydro-Excavator equipment is not listed in Exhibit A, during the twelve months before the filing of the complaint, OCA contractors employed Local 18 members to operate the equipment. The OCA asserted in its answer to the complaint that nonunion members also operated the equipment during that time.

In January of 2014, Local 18 requested that the OCA meet to negotiate a classification and wage rate for the Hydro-Excavator equipment. Local 18 made this request pursuant to Paragraph 30 of the CBA, which states in relevant part that:

If equipment within the jurisdiction of the International Union of Operating Engineers is used by an Employer and there is not an appropriate classification listed under the wage schedule [in Exhibit A], either party may request the other party to meet to negotiate a new classification and rate of pay.... If no agreement can be reached on a new rate, the dispute will be referred immediately to Step 4 of the Grievance Procedure outlined in Article XV, Paragraph 108[, which provides for final and binding arbitration of certain disputes.]

The CBA’s Index lists Paragraph 30 as the “New Equipment Rate” subsection of Article IV. Article IV, in turn, is entitled “Wage Rates.” Paragraph 29, which is the first paragraph in Article IV, also provides that “[t]he purpose of th[e] Agreement is to establish wage rates and conditions to apply for all work as defined herein and for operation of all equipment which comes under the jurisdiction of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 18.”

In response to Local 18’s request, the OCA informed Local 18 that it vjvould not negotiate a classification and wage rate for Hydro-Excavators because Local 18’s request was improper. The request was improper, according to the OCA’s memorandum in support of dismissal, because the dispute was a “jurisdictional dispute” not *390 subject to Paragraph 30 and because Local 18 was attempting to compel arbitration through Paragraph 30 after unsuccessfully attempting to include the Hydro-Excavator in the current CBA. 1 Local 18 then advised the OCA that it was submitting the dispute to Step 4 of the grievance procedure in Paragraph 108, which is incorporated into Paragraph 30 and provides for binding arbitration. In May 2014, the OCA reaffirmed that it would not arbitrate the dispute and that Local 18’s attempt to do so was improper.

Local 18 next filed a petition in state court to compel arbitration pursuant to Paragraph 30. After the OCA removed the case to federal court, Local 18 amended its complaint to allege that the OCA’s failure to arbitrate the dispute was a breach of contract under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA). Section 301 provides that “[s]uits for violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization .,. may be brought in any district court of the United States having jurisdiction of the parties.” LMRA § 301, 29 U.S.C. § 185(a); see also Int’l Bhd. of Elec. Workers, Local 71 v. Trafftech, Inc., 461 F.3d 690, 693 (6th Cir.2006) (citation omitted) (noting that § 301 empowers courts to enforce agreements to arbitrate).

The district court dismissed Local 18’s complaint under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. The court framed the issue as “whether the arbitration provision in the [Highway Heavy] Agreement” — which the court identified as Paragraph 30 — -“applies to this particular controversy.” First, the court noted that Paragraph 30 requires that the equipment at issue must be “within the jurisdiction” of Local 18. To resolve this question, the court looked to Paragraph 4 of the CBA, which the Index labels “Jurisdiction, Work.” Paragraph 4 provides that:

The Employer- will employ Operating Engineers for the erection, operation, assembly and disassembly, and maintenance and repair of the following construction equipment, regardless of motive power: Air Compressors, Backfillers, Batch Plants, Boilers, Ca-bleways, Connection Machines, Derricks, Finishing Machines, Truck-Crawler and Locomotive Cranes, Concrete Mixing Plants, Shovels, Hoes, Keystone Graders, Paving Mixers, Pi-ledriving Machines, Tractors, Le Tour-neau and other types of Scoops, End Loaders and all like equipment within the jurisdiction assigned to the Union by the American Federation of Labor.

The court then observed that “Exhibit A does not include Hydro-Excavators” and that “[n]either the Hydro-Excavator nor any type of excavator is listed in Paragraph 4.” The court concluded its analysis by reasoning that:

It is undisputed that OCA members have employed both Union and non-union members to operate Hydro-Excavators in the past without paying a penalty. It is also undisputed that the Union was unsuccessful in getting the OCA to agree to add Hydro-Excavators to the list of equipment described in Exhibit A or Paragraph 4 of the current Agreement. These undisputed facts alone show that neither party, today or in the past, considered Hydro-Excavators to be “within the jurisdiction of the Union.”

Because Hydro-Excavators are not within Local 18’s jurisdiction, according to the court, the OCA “did not agree to ... *391 submit” this dispute to arbitration.

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Bluebook (online)
644 F. App'x 388, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/local-18-international-union-of-operating-engineers-v-ohio-contractors-ca6-2016.