Masonry Magazine August 1977 Page. 9
MCAA legal corner
LABOR LAW POTPOURRI
By GEORGE L. PLUMB
MCAA Legal Counsel
# NLRB APPROVES UNION HIRING HALL PRACTICE
In 1974 the NLRB ruled that it was illegal to provide in any labor agreement a procedure of hiring men based upon union seniority and experience in the craft. In other words, what the Board did in 1974 was to rule and establish a firm precedent that any union hiring hall practice or referral system was illegal and in violation of the National Labor Relations Act if it gave preference to experienced men.
This ruling handicapped contractors who worked outside of their home areas when they would seek certain experienced type of men to fill their manpower requirements, because any arrangement with the local business agent for this type of reference would have been and was illegal. The Labor Board has changed all that and nullified the 1974 decision. The Board has issued an order upholding the right of a union to prescribe a set of conditions based upon restricted experience and restricted seniority within the local area of the particular union.
The Board emphasized that the construction industry has special provisions in the Taft-Hartley Act as well as in other laws which are applicable to management and employees, and, because of this special treatment, the Board felt justified in arriving at its judgment.
For example, while the word "employer" can be clearly defined when applied to the manufacturing and industrial or commercial areas of business, the construction industry operates differently. It is customary for the average journeymen to work for various employers, so we have a multi-employer situation. The Board used this reasoning to support its decision.
The General Counsel for the Board disagreed with the NLRB. He argued that the seniority requirements in the agreement were discriminatory because they rewarded any job applicants who worked for employers who were parties to the agreement while penalizing employees who may have greater seniority and more experience in the trade merely because they work either for a non-union employer or employers who were not parties to the local trade agreement.
The significance of this ruling is that a new policy has been adopted by the NI.RB. and hiring hall practices with carefully precautionary safeguards are now considering legal methods of work referral. It will obviously mean that the union men in each area will be protected because they are working for and have had the experience of working with those employers who are parties to the agreement for the period of time prescribed.
# "DOUBLE-BREASTED" OPERATION WITH SINGLE AND COMMON CONTROL HELD ILLEGAL
The National Labor Relations Board ruled that a California general contractor who set up a subsidiary partnership and had one company which he controlled operate as a union shop and the other company a non-union shop was guilty of fraud and deceitfully concealing the operation controlled by him. The concealing charge was with reference to his relations with the Carpenters Local Union after assuring the union representative on two different occasions that he not only did not engage in employing non-union carpenters as required by his union agreement, but he denied that he was employing any carpenters.
The evidence before the Board was that the same contractor who signed the union agreement on behalf of the union company also controlled the open shop company and that, as a matter of fact, the two companies really had a single owner and employer. The evidence presented indicated that the management was inter-changed, but the ownership was actually a common one.
The Labor Board found that the employer had laid off his three union carpenters employed by the union company, and that he had plenty of work to be done, which was performed by the non-union carpenters employed by the second company. The contractor involved was Burgess Construction Co. of Fresno. The number one company had an agreement with the Carpenters' Union in Fresno, and when that agreement expired the contractor told the busicontinued on page 21
MASONRY/AUGUST, 1977 9