A federal judge granted a partial victory to a group of African American union pipefitters claiming their union failed to protect them from racial discrimination, allowing them to proceed to trial on some of the claims in a lawsuit, which asserts the union allowed contractors to circumvent hiring rules to avoid hiring black workers.
In ruling on a motion for summary judgment by Pipefitters Association Local Union 597, U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis said the case can continue to trial on the pipefitters’ claims of disparate treatment, unequal treatment under federal Section 1981 and one claim of violating the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA). She granted the union’s motion for summary judgment on claims of disparate impact, individual retaliation and two other LMRA claims.
The suit claims Local 597 has a long history of discriminating against black pipefitters. In 1984, pipefitter Frank Daniels won a federal lawsuit claiming the union’s system of referring pipefitters for jobs was rigged to favor white members. While the system purportedly worked on a first-come, first-served basis, it was routinely circumvented and jobs were assigned to white pipefitters without going through the proper channels.
After the Daniels verdict, Local 597 established a hiring hall to assign union members to jobs under the supervision of a hiring hall monitor. The hiring hall was designed to maintain an out-of-work list, or OWL; when a request came in from a contractor, the first pipefitter on the OWL with the proper skills would be assigned the job. When that job ended, that pipefitter would cycle to the bottom of the list.
Within 10 years, however, the attorney for Local 597 acknowledged that fewer than 20 percent of jobs were filled using the OWL; in the majority of cases contractors hired pipefitters directly without going through the system. Local 597 officials claim this was not their fault; the contractors, who are supposed to use the system but have sole discretion over hiring decisions, seemed to have “a comfort factor with their work force” and did not want to hire unfamiliar people, they said.
In 2006, without surveying the membership, Local 597 changed its system to allow members to find work directly, as well as through the OWL, court documents said. The plaintiffs, nine black pipefitters who belong to the union, claim these practices result in black union members getting substantially fewer work hours than their white counterparts.
The union only refers pipefitters to jobs; it is up to the contractor to hire or fire them. Local 597 claimed this protects it from liability, but the court disagreed.
“Local 597 can be held liable … if its actions opened the door for contractors to discriminate based on race, but not for actions that the contractors took on their own,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiffs’ claims fall on the former side of that distinction.”
In asking for summary judgment on the disparate treatment and Section 1981 claims, the union argued that there is no evidence Local 597 intentionally discriminated against its black members. In reviewing the evidence presented, the court decided that, while it is possible the plaintiffs’ argument may not be persuasive enough to win at trial, it is sufficient to survive summary judgment.
The claim of disparate impact, however, is another story. The court notes that for a claim of disparate impact to survive a motion for summary judgment, plaintiffs must isolate and identify the specific practice responsible for the disparity and demonstrate statistically how the practice resulted in discrimination. The plaintiffs’ argument that the union’s referral policies as a whole had a disparate impact is too broad and vague to go to trial, the judge wrote.
The judge also found the plaintiffs could not identify specific acts of retaliation against them. One man claimed he was demoted while engaged in a dispute with the union, but offered no evidence that the contractor who demoted him knew of the dispute. Another claimed he was sent to the bottom of the OWL, but did not provide any evidence as to why that was improper.
The case may continue to trial on the remaining three claims, the judge said.
The plaintiffs are represented in the action by attorneys Jamie S. Franklin, of The Franklin Law Firm LLC, of Chicago, Randall D. Schmidt, of the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, of Chicago, and Adam B. Goodman and Wesley E. Johnson, of Goodman Tovrov Hardy & Johnson LLC, of Chicago.
Local 597 is represented by attorneys Leigh C. Bonsall, Aimee E. Delaney, Linda Kay Horras, and Tom H. Luetkemeyer, of the firm of Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP, of Chicago.