Unis v. INTERNATIONAL BROTH. OF TEAMSTERS, ETC.

541 F. Supp. 706
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedJune 23, 1982
DocketCiv. A. No. 79-3
StatusPublished

This text of 541 F. Supp. 706 (Unis v. INTERNATIONAL BROTH. OF TEAMSTERS, ETC.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Unis v. INTERNATIONAL BROTH. OF TEAMSTERS, ETC., 541 F. Supp. 706 (W.D. Pa. 1982).

Opinion

541 F.Supp. 706 (1982)

Albert UNIS, Jr., d/b/a Albert Unis, Jr., Trucking, Plaintiff,
v.
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN & HELPERS OF AMERICA, Building Material and Construction Drivers, Local 341, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of America, and Joint Council of Teamsters No. 40, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 79-3.

United States District Court, W. D. Pennsylvania.

June 23, 1982.

*707 James B. Brown, Pittsburgh, Pa., for plaintiff.

Stanford A. Segal, Pittsburgh, Pa., for Local 341.

OPINION

ZIEGLER, District Judge.

This civil action was instituted by Albert Unis, Jr., d/b/a Albert Unis, Jr., Trucking, against Local 341 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.[1] Plaintiff seeks damages under Section 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 187 (1976), alleging a violation of Section 8(b)(4) of that Act.

The relevant facts are as follows. Unis was engaged in the business of hauling dirt, slag and other materials for various companies in Western Pennsylvania. Specifically, during the time period in question, Unis performed services for the following companies: Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, a corporation engaged in manufacturing steel and steel products, at its facility in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania; Dick Corporation, a corporation engaged in general construction, at the Jones & Laughlin facility in Aliquippa; Eichleay Corporation, a corporation involved in the construction industry, at the Jones & Laughlin facility in Aliquippa; and Townsend and Bottom, Inc., a Michigan Corporation engaged in the construction industry, at a jobsite in Shippingport, Pennsylvania.

At the time in question, Local 341 was the recognized collective bargaining representative of most of the Unis employees. Plaintiff asserts that, beginning in 1976, members of Local 341 picketed and threatened to picket Unis and its customers in order to force Unis to sign either the Independent Building Trade Agreement or the Independent Haulers Agreement. Plaintiff further contends that the contracts at issue contained unlawfully restrictive subcontracting language, or "hot cargo" clauses, in violation of Section 8(e) of the Labor Management Relations Act. Plaintiff finally asserts that defendant's threats and actual picketing—designed to force Unis to enter into agreements containing illegal subcontracting language—constituted a violation of Section 8(b)(4) of the Act.

Currently before this court is the motion of plaintiff for partial summary judgment. The sole issue is whether, as a matter of law, the subcontracting language contained in the Independent Building Trade Agreement and the Independent Haulers Agreement, violates Section 8(e) of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 158(e).

I.

Section 8(e) of the Act provides as follows:

*708 It shall be an unfair labor practice for any labor organization and any employer to enter into any contract or agreement, express or implied, whereby such employer ceases or refrains or agrees to cease or refrain from handling, using, selling, transporting or otherwise dealing in any of the products of any other employer, or to cease doing business with any other person, and any contract or agreement entered into heretofore or hereafter containing such an agreement shall be to such extent unenforcible and void: Provided, That nothing in this subsection shall apply to an agreement between a labor organization and an employer in the construction industry relating to the contracting or subcontracting of work to be done at the site of the construction, alteration, painting, or repair of a building, structure, or other work.

The specific clauses in dispute are straight forward. Section 19.4 of the Independent Haulers Agreement of 1976 provides as follows:

The Employer agrees to use only Sub-Contractors in `Good Standing' with the Union, and that Sub-Contractors will be subject to this Agreement.

Section 16 of the Independent Building Trade Agreement of 1976 similarly provides:

Subcontracting. The Employers agree that they will not attempt to circumvent the intent of this Agreement by subcontracting work which has heretofore been assigned usually and normally to persons within the job classifications described in Article IV, § 1, hereof.
Prime contractors will not subcontract any work to contractors not in Agreement with the Joint Council of Teamsters # 40 or its affiliated locals.
Upon breach of this section of the Agreement by the Employer, the Employer agrees that the Union shall have the right to revoke the obligations required of it under Article VII Section 1, 2, and 3, until the dispute is resolved by the parties hereto. (emphasis added).

The law is now settled that contract clauses which are limited to primary considerations, such as the preservation or protection of the traditional work of employees in the bargaining units represented by a union, are not proscribed by Section 8(e) of the Act. National Woodwork Manufacturers Association v. N.L.R.B., 386 U.S. 612, 87 S.Ct. 1250, 18 L.Ed.2d 357 (1967). In this case, however, there is little doubt that the subcontracting clauses are secondary, and thus fall within the proscriptions of Section 8(e). As one leading commentator has explained:

The NLRB has been least troubled where the Union's demand expressly makes relevant the union or nonunion status of the boycotted employer. A contract clause permitting subcontracting only to organized companies or requiring preference to such employers is readily held unlawful. Here the board thinks it plain that the union is not seeking to keep the work in question within the unit but to prevent nonunion subcontractors from getting it. Lesnick, Job Security and Secondary Boycotts: The Reach of the NLRA Sections 8(b)(4) and 8(e); 113 U.Pa.L.R. 1000, 1032 (1965).

A second commentator has observed:

Another type of clause which restricts the general employer's choice of subcontractors is one which permits him to subcontract only to other employers who are signatories with the union representing his bargaining unit ... [T]he Board and the courts have easily found such clauses to be violations of Section 8(e) because they are infested with the secondary objective of pressing unionism upon outside employers.

Comment, Subcontracting Clauses and Section 8(e) of the National Labor Relations Act, 62 Mich.L.R. 1176, 1193 (1964).

Under the test of National Woodwork, union signatory clauses such as here presented are secondary in objective. They do not seek to preserve work for the employees of the contracting employer by limiting the amount of subcontracting. Nor do they seek to protect the wage and benefit *709 standards of those same employees in their present employment by merely limiting subcontracting to third parties who maintain equivalent standards. Instead, these clauses permit unlimited subcontracting so long as the subcontractors have an agreement with the contracting union.

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