Vulcan Materials Co. v. United Steelworkers of America

316 F. Supp. 509, 71 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2300, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9714
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Alabama
DecidedMay 19, 1969
DocketCiv. A. No. 68-104
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 316 F. Supp. 509 (Vulcan Materials Co. v. United Steelworkers of America) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Vulcan Materials Co. v. United Steelworkers of America, 316 F. Supp. 509, 71 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2300, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9714 (N.D. Ala. 1969).

Opinion

OPINION

GROOMS, District Judge.

This case is before the Court for decision on the merits. The evidence was heard ore terms. The parties have supplied the Court with extensive and exceptionally well written briefs. These have been carefully considered. The principal authorities relied on have been analyzed in relation to the material facts presented in the evidence.

1. The plaintiff, Vulcan Materials Company, has a slag producing plant located in Gadsden, Alabama. Adjacent to this plant is the concrete producing facility of Forman Ready-Mix Company, which is located on land formerly owned by Vulcan. A strike began at Forman Ready-Mix on February 14, 1968. This strike lasted until March 15, 1968. The case arises out of that strike, which the plaintiff alleges was not confined merely to Forman and had secondary ramifications which injured its business. Damages are sought under the “secondary boycott” provisions of the Labor Management Relations Act. 29 U.S.C. § 158(b) (4) (i) (ii) (B), and § 187.

2. The specific facts surrounding the Forman strike of February 14, 1968, would not be meaningful without certain background information. This is true [511]*511in that prior to December 29, 1967, what is now Forman Ready-Mix was a part of Vulcan Materials Concrete Products Division. On that date the Concrete Products Division was sold to Forman Ready-Mix Company, a division of Kyle, Inc. Both Kyle and Forman are largely composed of former Vulcan employees. Before the sale of the concrete facility, Vulcan’s slag operation supplied a limited amount of raw material slag needed in the concrete production that required slag. Likewise, after the sale Vulcan continued to supply Forman with this raw material slag.

3. In the years preceding the disposition of Vulcan’s Concrete Products Division, the production and maintenance employees of Vulcan’s entire Gadsden facility, both concrete and slag, had been represented by the defendants, United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO and Local Union No. 2176. The same collective bargaining agreement covered both sets of employees. In late 1967, this agreement was due to be renewed. Negotiations began, and during these negotiations Vulcan Materials informed the Union that its Gadsden Ready-Mix facility would be sold. The Union thereupon proposed joint negotiations between it, Vulcan, and Kyle, the prospective purchaser of the concrete facility. Vulcan, however, refused this proposal, and separate negotiations followed between Kyle and the defendants.

4. On December 31, 1967, Vulcan Materials reached a three-year collective bargaining agreement with Local Union No. 2176 covering the production and maintenance employees of its Gadsden slag processing plant. Union negotiations with Kyle continued, but no agreement was reached. The strike which began at Forman on February 14,1968, was in support of Union demands previously made during their collective bargaining negotiations.

5. Inevitably, transfer of employees and operations from one company to the other of necessity would be attended with certain overlap and complications. Indeed, it would not be logical in a sale such as the one effected between Vulcan and Kyle to expect an instantaneous changeover of operations, and this was recognized in the informal agreement between the two respecting the interim sharing of certain work and expenses incident thereto. When Forman Ready-Mix Company began operation of the former Vulcan concrete plant in Gadsden on January 1, 1968, until the beginning of the strike on February 14, 1968, an overlap into the former Vulcan operation did occur.

6. Examples of this overlap were as follows. The concrete trucks which Forman purchased from Vulcan remained painted the traditional Vulcan color and evidenced the Vulcan symbol. The same telephone number served outside calls for both Vulcan and Forman. Employees of both companies used the same time clock, and the time cards of employees of both companies were intermingled in a common rack. Additionally, both companies utilized a common paymaster. However, each employee was paid by a check bearing identification of his respective company. Further, an interoffice telephone system operated between both plants, and the Vulcan Materials gate was used by employees of both facilities.

7. - The infusion between Vulcan and Forman was also evidenced on the employee level. The truck dispatcher for Vulcan Materials also operated as dispatcher for Forman. A former employee, Mr. W. W. Spray, testified that he directed the operations of the Vulcan Materials Company’s front end loader and dump trucks. Certain clerical services were intertwined. Mr. A1 Harris, a salesman for Forman, appears to have continued to take orders for both companies after the sale, and Vulcan employee Anderson continued to perform functions for Forman.

8. The complaint of Vulcan Materials Company, as amended, contains two counts. In the first count Vulcan alleges that during the Forman strike members of the defendant Union picketed the access route to its Gadsden plant and “induced or encouraged” its em[512]*512ployees to refuse to work, thus attempting to force Vulcan to cease doing business with Forman. In the second count plaintiff asserts that the defendants picketed its access route and thereby “threatened, coerced, and restrained” plaintiff with an object of causing Vulcan to cease doing business with For-man. Liability then is clearly predicated upon the “secondary boycott” concept.

9. The strike at Forman Ready-Mix began at midnight on February 13, 1968. The letter notifying Forman of the strike was signed by Mr. Jack Ryan, who was the full time International Union representative in the Gadsden area. The production and maintenance employees of Forman had voted for the strike. The strike was officially recognized by both Local Union No. 2176 and the International, United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO. The employees of Vulcan Materials did not participate in the voting for the Forman strike. Neither did the production and maintenance employees of Vulcan themselves vote to strike. Yet, on February 14, 1968, when the strike at Forman began, neither employees of Forman nor Vulcan reported to work.

10. The picket line supporting the Forman employee demands was established as soon as the strike began. The placement of the picket line on the access road leading into the Vulcan plant was repeatedly emphasized in the plaintiff’s testimony. This was due to the fact that when the Vulcan concrete operation in Gadsden was sold to For-man separate gates along the common access road had been designated into the respective plants.1 Vulcan’s contention is that if the strike was solely against Forman, then the strike picket line should have been established solely at the For-man gate, in order not to interfere with Vulcan’s business. This however was not the case, the picket line having been established on the access roadway leading into the Vulcan plant at a point where Vulcan employees would have to cross in order to get to work. That Forman employees had continued to use the Vulcan gate even after the sale of the concrete operation was the apparent justification for this placement of the picket line. Nonetheless, on February 14th Mr. Wyatt Brock of Vulcan Materials requested specifically that the picket line be moved to the Forman gate. The request was denied, and the Union continued to picket along the access route throughout the duration of the strike.

11.

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316 F. Supp. 509, 71 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2300, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9714, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vulcan-materials-co-v-united-steelworkers-of-america-alnd-1969.