Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case About Meddling International Union
The US Supreme Court just agreed to hear a case asking just how much international unions will be allowed to meddle in the affairs of their local affiliates. In Granite Rock v. Teamsters, the employer sued the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in federal court claiming that the International interfered with the relationship between the employer and the Local Teamsters union.
In Granite, the employer and the Local had reached a tentative new agreement which contained a no-strike clause. The employer alleged that the Local ratified the agreement and then engaged in a strike. Apparently a high ranking official of the International was the motivating force behind the strike. The 9th Circuit held that the employer could not sue the International because the agreement was between the employer and the Local, and did not involve the International. The Supreme Court granted cert and will hear the case, perhaps recognizing that international unions are often working behind the scenes with their local unions.
The Court will probably not hear the case until the 2010 session, and it could be some time before an opinion is issued. It is not uncommon for employers to have good relationships with local unions. Sometimes those relationships are strained through pressure from out-of-town international union officials. Currently, international unions are somewhat insulated from liability for meddling in negotiations and other ongoing business relationships between local unions and employers. Ultimately, this decision could open a new legal avenue for employers to hold international unions accountable for their actions.
Carpenters Union to Pay Oregon Employer $450,000 to Settle Picketing Dispute
The Pacific Northwest Regional Council of the Carpenters and Joiners of America recently agreed to pay Hoffman Construction Co. $450,000 and to settle a lawsuit over alleged unlawful picketing during a 2007 strike in Oregon. The Carpenters have also agreed to pay an additional $200,000 into an escrow account until the union has trained its members on diversity, race and sex discrimination, intimidation, and picket line behavior. Click here to read the consent decree.
A union paying an employer? You read that correctly. Hoffman alleged that Carpenters members engaged in unlawful picketing with mass picketing and improper signage, intimidated workers, disrupted traffic, struck vehicles, picketed reserved gates, made excessive noise, and caused physical damage. Hoffman also alleged that picketers used derogatory racial and sexist epithets, obscenities and threatening language aimed at replacement workers and union members crossing picket lines.
This is an important decision for employers. While lawsuits against unions for picket line misconduct are fairly common, a decisive outcome like this is very rare. This sets a precedent that such picket line behavior is not acceptable, and may encourage unions to better control picketers.
"Permanent" Strike Replacements Can Be Employed At Will
Earlier this week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an employer does not violate the National Labor Relations Act by refusing to reinstate economic strikers because it had hired permanent replacements, even though those "permanent" workers are at-will employees. The decision in United Steelworkers v. NLRB upheld an earlier National Labor Relations Board ruling, also in favor of the employer.
The court upheld the NLRB's ruling board permissibly held that employer and the replacement employees had a "mutual understanding" that, despite an at-will clause in the replacements' employment applications, their employment was, for purposes of replacing the strikers, "permanent." The Court agreed with the NLRB that an at-will employment clause in the striker replacements' job applications did not make them "temporary" replacements who normally must be terminated in favor of returning strikers.
This ruling gives employers greater flexibility in hiring permanent replacement workers in the event of a strike. Nevertheless, whether an employer may "permanently" replace strikers in a particular strike is a very complex legal issue. In any strike situation, employers need to be very careful about whether to hire "permanent" or "temporary" replacement workers, and to only permanently replace strikers if they are legally entitled to do so. And in any event, employers may not ever replace a striking Tina Fey, because she's too funny.
