Advocates for Labor and Progressive Institutions
The United States District Court for the District of Alaska rejected Chicago Bridge & Iron Company’s claim to indemnification for withdrawal liability under the terms of a multi-union collective-bargaining agreement it had negotiated with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1547 and the Fairbanks Joint Crafts Council, as well as several other unions.
The United States District Courts for the Northern District of Mississippi and the Western District of Virginia threw out claims that longstanding union-time provisions in collective-bargaining agreements violate Section 302 of the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947.
The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) affirmed an administrative law judge’s (“ALJ’s”) determination that Mondelez Global, LLC acted out of anti-union animus in discharging three elected shop stewards of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International Union, Local 719, including its president, at the Mondelez plant in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, among other violations of the National Labor Relations Act.
In a pair of decisions, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that public-employee unions that acted in good-faith compliance with then-binding Supreme Court precedent, both in collecting mandatory fair-share fees from nonmembers and in expending those fees on collective bargaining activities benefiting members and nonmembers alike, could not be compelled to refund the fees to nonmembers when the precedent was later overturned.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that plan participants in an unlawful retirement plan were permitted to seek a court order reforming the plan to comply with the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) and granting them the pension benefits they would have received under that reformed plan.
In a pair of significant rulings, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that public-employee unions are shielded from paying damages or restitution for fair-share fees collected from nonmembers before the United States Supreme Court decided that those fair-share fees were unconstitutional in Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31, 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018).
The employer tactic of using the federal RICO statute and its treble-damages provisions to chill robust union-sponsored corporate social responsibility campaigns was dealt a major blow when the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey threw out the claims of a chain of nursing homes against SEIU and two of its locals.
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a constitutional challenge to a Maine statute providing that, when a majority of employees within a bargaining unit support union representation, the union serves as the exclusive bargaining representative for all employees within the bargaining unit.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America violated a collective bargaining agreement.