Noranda Aluminum, Inc. v. UNITED BRO. OF CARPENTERS, ETC.

382 F. Supp. 1258
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Missouri
DecidedDecember 28, 1973
Docket72 C 33(1)
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 382 F. Supp. 1258 (Noranda Aluminum, Inc. v. UNITED BRO. OF CARPENTERS, ETC.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Noranda Aluminum, Inc. v. UNITED BRO. OF CARPENTERS, ETC., 382 F. Supp. 1258 (E.D. Mo. 1973).

Opinion

382 F.Supp. 1258 (1973)

NORANDA ALUMINUM, INC., Plaintiff,
v.
UNITED BROTHERHOOD OF CARPENTERS AND JOINERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO, and United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, AFL-CIO, Local No. 618, Defendants.

No. 72 C 33(1).

United States District Court, E. D. Missouri, E. D.

December 28, 1973.

*1259 Gerald Tockman, St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiff.

Morris J. Levin, Levin & Weinhaus, St. Louis, Mo., Wm. A. McGowan, Washington, D. C., for defendants.

MEREDITH, Chief Judge.

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. Noranda Aluminum, Inc., (hereinafter referred to as "Noranda") is a domestic wholly-owned subsidiary of Noranda Mines, Ltd., a foreign corporation (which in the course of the proceedings herein agreed that all its claims, if any, against defendants are merged with plaintiff's claims and that it would be bound by these proceedings and the findings and judgment of this Court).

2. Noranda was incorporated in Delaware in 1968 to establish and operate a 200-acre primary aluminum smelter in New Madrid County, Missouri.

Noranda entered into a contract with Kaiser Engineers, Inc., (hereinafter referred *1260 to as "Kaiser") for the engineering design and construction of its smelter on a cost-plus-fixed-fee basis.

The contract called for the design and construction of a smelter consisting of 174 reduction cells or "pots" with a capacity of 70,000 tons per year production of primary aluminum.

3. Under the contract between Noranda and Kaiser, the employment of all subcontractors and building and construction trades employees, as well as the work tasks to be performed by those subcontractors and employees, were to be and were performed and determined by Kaiser.

In the performance of its contract with Noranda, Kaiser set up a field construction staff at the site in New Madrid County, Missouri, to manage, direct, and support direct construction activities. This construction staff assigned work to and supervised the work performed by the laborers, pipefitters, painters, teamsters, teamster operators, operating engineers, surveyors, boilermakers, cement masons, carpenters, millwrights, and ironworkers directly employed by Kaiser, as well as the electricians employed by Kaiser's electrical subcontractor, Comstock-Roper, and other subcontractors employed from time to time by Kaiser.

4. Pursuant to its collective bargaining agreements with international building and construction trades unions, Kaiser conducted a pre-job conference at the construction site in February 1969, before actual construction activities began. At this meeting, attended by both international and local representatives of the various trades involved in the work, Kaiser agreed to observe the terms and conditions of employment established by the various trades in the Southeast Missouri building trades area.

5. Pursuant to its collective bargaining agreements with the respective international building and construction trades unions, Kaiser obtained craft employees using the local labor organizations of the respective internationals as a hiring hall source for employment and first construction activities began in March 1969.

6. In July 1969, Kaiser held several "mark-up" meetings to review local area and trade practices with respect to the assignment of work among the trades in the construction of the smelter. At these meetings, attended by both international and local representatives of the various building and construction trades, claims to particular work performance and items of equipment were asserted by the respective international and local representatives. Following these meetings, and on August 25, 1969, Kaiser issued a Summary of Work Assignments to the international and local union representatives in attendance at the July 1969 meetings.

7. Kaiser's August 25, 1969, Summary assigned certain "systems" in the various facilities comprising the aluminum smelter to pipefitter members of the United Association of the plumbing and pipefitting industry of the United States and its Local Union No. 562. The Summary assigned to millwright members of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and its Local 618 certain equipment items known as dry material handling rack and pinion gates and dry material handling chutes; in the case of the latter equipment items, the assignment was in terms of a local ironworker-millwright agreement.

8. In late June 1970, Carpenters Local 618 representative, J. D. Morris, complained to Kaiser that pipefitters were performing work on rack and pinion gates and material handling chutes that had been assigned to millwrights in the August 25, 1969, Summary. On July 8, 1970, international and local representatives of the millwrights and pipefitters met with Kaiser to discuss the dispute. Failing agreement the international representatives involved agreed and informed Kaiser that the dispute would be referred for determination by a special joint committee established by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters *1261 and the United Association to resolve jurisdictional disputes between the trades without resort to the procedures of the National Joint Board for the settlement of jurisdictional disputes. On July 16th, however, the United Brotherhood also complained to the National Joint Board.

9. In November 1969 and January 1970, Ray Brown, the millwright steward, informed Kaiser that he and United Association Local 562 steward, DeWeese, had worked out an arrangement covering the installation of rack and pinion gates and material handling chutes which would cause "no problems" on the Noranda job. Other such arrangements in the past had been worked out between various crafts on the job from time to time.

10. The millwrights and pipefitters continued to work on rack and pinion gates and material handling chutes at the Green Carbon Plant in the period July 3-July 28, 1970.

11. At some time before July 28, 1970, Carpenters Local 618 business representative Morris, a representative of a carpenter type of local who did not know or understand millwright work, contacted Frederick Bull, the General Executive Board member of the United Brotherhood, who had been assigned by the United Brotherhood to advise and assist Morris as the international union's jurisdictional expert on millwright work. Morris described to Bull the work activities, as reported by Brown, being performed by pipefitters on rack and pinion gates and chutes at the Green Carbon Plant. On the basis of Morris' descriptions, Bull informed Morris that pipefitters were performing work on gates and chutes at the Green Carbon Plant that belonged to millwrights under the August 25, 1969, assignments and in accordance with the claims of trade autonomy contained in the Constitution of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters.

12. On July 28, 1970, Morris confronted Al Gordon, a representative of Kaiser's labor relations department in charge of the handling of jurisdictional disputes, and demanded that Kaiser take pipefitters off the work they were then performing on gates and chutes at the Green Carbon Plant and place millwright members of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and its Local 618 on the work; Morris stated that he had talked with the International and had his instructions. At the time of this conversation, neither Morris nor the United Brotherhood of Carpenters nor millwright steward Brown, upon whose observations the demand was based, were aware that millwrights, in fact, were performing final installation work on Green Carbon Plant gates and chutes or that they had been doing so since July 3, 1970, along with pipefitters.

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