Wines v. Ford Motor Co.

704 F. Supp. 754, 129 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2512, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15380, 1988 WL 145531
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Kentucky
DecidedMay 2, 1988
DocketNo. C 87-0002-L(A)
StatusPublished

This text of 704 F. Supp. 754 (Wines v. Ford Motor Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wines v. Ford Motor Co., 704 F. Supp. 754, 129 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2512, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15380, 1988 WL 145531 (W.D. Ky. 1988).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ALLEN, Senior District Judge.

This action is submitted to the Court on the motion of the defendants for summary judgment. The action is brought under Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 and is a hybrid duty of fair representation claim by a group of employees of the Ford Motor Company.

The plaintiffs are employees who were working at the Kentucky Truck Plant (hereinafter KTP) of Ford Motor Company when they were laid off by a reduction in force. They subsequently accepted employment at the Louisville Assembly Plant (hereinafter LAP) of Ford and are still employed at that plant. Since the time that they commenced working at the LAP, Ford has employed new employees at the KTP, and plaintiffs are asserting that they are entitled to be returned to the KTP and to assume their original seniority there.

It should be added that Ford recalled workers to the KTP who have less seniority than the plaintiffs and also hired other workers who have no seniority at KTP. When the plaintiffs sought to have a grievance filed on their behalf by Local No. 862, the local union refused to do so. After the request for a grievance was denied, the plaintiffs then appealed to the international union, which upheld the refusal of the local union to file a grievance.

The local union and the international union took the position that the collective bargaining agreement between Ford and the union specified that in order to be recalled to KTP after having been laid off from there and being hired at LAP, there had to be a layoff at LAP, upon which occasion the original KTP worker could elect to be placed on a recall list at KTP.

The union and the company both maintain that there is no breach of contract, and that, therefore, the filing of a grievance would have been a useless procedure. They point to Article VIII, Section 1(b) of the collective bargaining agreement which was dated October 14, 1984. That article provides that any employee who has basic seniority in one unit, and who is on the active employment rolls of another unit, or who is subsequently placed in another unit under circumstances where he does not carry his seniority with him, shall at his [756]*756first layoff thereafter in a reduction in force have his seniority determined by whichever of the following he then elects:

(ii) Such employee may elect to return to his basic unit, in which event he shall be placed in, or on the recall list of, his basic seniority unit with full credit for seniority accumulated while working in the other unit....

The history of this portion of the collective bargaining agreement is stated in a letter from Owen Bieber, President of the International Union, addressed to Robert L. Shumate, et al. and the members of the Local Union 862 UAW, in care of David Leighty, attorney, Louisville, Kentucky. The letter is dated October 30, 1986, and Mr. Leighty is the attorney for the plaintiffs in this action. In his letter, Mr. Bie-ber relates that UAW had negotiated a national provision with Ford Motor to give laid off Ford workers employment opportunities in other Ford facilities. The quid pro quo was the requirement that such employee would remain in the second plant until such time as they were laid off there. This was for the purported purpose of minimizing frequent employee turnovers with accompanying loss of efficiency. As stated in the letter, “the workers did not surrender their seniority at the base plant but their right to exercise it lies dormant until they are laid off from the second unit.”

The plaintiffs contend, however, that there are other provisions in the collective bargaining agreement which entitle them to the right to be recalled to the base plant before they are laid off at the secondary plant. Plaintiffs point to Article VIII, Section 18, which provides layoff in reverse order of seniority and recall in order of seniority.

Plaintiffs also rely upon Section 26 of Article VIII. That section gives Ford the right to offer work to laid off employees at an alternate plant. It concludes, “employees who refuse such offers of available work or displacement of probationary employees shall not by such refusal lose their seniority callback rights.”

Plaintiffs contend vigorously that the contract contains no language which prohibits a union member who has transferred from one plant to another because of a layoff at the first plant from transferring back to his original plant as soon as he wishes to once there is an increase in working force and once his seniority entitles him to employment at the original plant.

Plaintiffs contend vigorously that the basic defense of the union and the company is really one of interpretation by both of the parties of the collective bargaining agreement during their dealings with each other and that they have both erroneously interpreted the contract language. The plaintiffs also take the position that two employees, Bobby Gibson and Ermil Bogar, Jr., were recalled to their basic seniority unit even while working at a secondary unit. Plaintiffs contend that this is proof that defendant’s interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement is fallacious. Defendants, on the other hand, contend that the two employees were skilled employees, and that as such, the union had agreed with the company that skilled employees who were transferred to another plant in a non-skilled classification would be deemed to have basic skilled seniority at the original plant and basic non-skilled seniority at the new plant. The plant seniority date of that employee in the new plant was to be his transfer level seniority date pursuant to the provisions of Article VIII, Section 1(c) of that agreement.

Plaintiffs also rely upon an affidavit reflecting that there were seventeen employees with basic seniority at a Norfolk, Virginia plant who transferred to a Ford plant in Atlanta and then moved back to their primary plant at Norfolk without being laid off from the secondary plant. The defendants admit that this did indeed happen but distinguished the situation from the situation of the Louisville plaintiffs in this case in that the Louisville plaintiffs are in the same area regardless of whether they work at LAP or KTP, whereas, the Norfolk employees’ rights were governed by a provision which pertains to employees who are transferred from one geographic area to another.

[757]*757Plaintiffs also rely upon interpretation No. 50, which is part of a union precedent manual. It provides that employees who are affected by a reduction in force in seniority units who are given available work in another unit are entitled to recall to their basic seniority unit in the same manner as they would if they were laid off on the street (unless, of course, a sufficient period passed so as to transfer their seniority to a new unit) M-1001.

M-1001 was decided long before the collective bargaining agreement between the union and Ford, but apparently the union has kept it in their precedent manual despite that fact.

Plaintiffs also rely upon an umpire’s decision in Case No. 25,599, appeal E-813-75. There two employees of Ford had basic seniority in the Cleveland plant but were laid off from that plant and working on an interim basis at Ford’s Sandusky plant. There the umpire held that the employees who were temporarily working in Sandusky could return to their work at Cleveland as soon as positions became available there and were not compelled to wait until they were laid off in future reduction in force in Sandusky.

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Bluebook (online)
704 F. Supp. 754, 129 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2512, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15380, 1988 WL 145531, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wines-v-ford-motor-co-kywd-1988.