LOWIS & GELLEN WINS TWO MAJOR LABOR ARBITRATIONS

June 30, 2004

Lowis & Gellen's team of Robert Smeltzer and Patrick Moran recently delivered major victories for two clients in consecutive labor arbitrations.

In the first case, decided June 16, 2004, Mr. Smeltzer and Mr. Moran successfully defended their manufacturing client's right to train and assign employees to specific work, regardless of seniority. The Paper Allied Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers Union initiated the dispute against the company, a metal stamping manufacturer, alleging the company had violated the collective bargaining agreement by laying-off a tool and die maker with 36 years of seniority. The company had retained two other tool and die makers with much less seniority, because they were the only employees in the tool and die maker classification qualified to operate and maintain four specific machines on which the laid-off employee had not been trained. The company argued that the collective bargaining agreement recognized an exception to lay-offs by seniority to ensure that employees remaining in the affected classification possessed the qualifications to perform all of the work involved in that classification. The union argued that the employer's decisions about whom to train was a pretext to avoid the seniority provisions.

Mr. Smeltzer and Mr. Moran persuaded the arbitrator to uphold the company's right to exercise its discretion under the collective bargaining agreement to manage its workforce. The arbitrator also found that whether other workers who were not tool and die makers could operate the machines was irrelevant, because the collective bargaining agreement specifically permitted the employer to lay-off by classification.

On June 30, 2004, Mr. Smeltzer and Mr. Moran prevailed again in a labor arbitration involving a wage dispute. In this case, the union, Laborers' Local 309, claimed that the company, a supplier of traffic control devices for construction projects, violated the collective bargaining agreement by not paying its employees prevailing wages for "public works projects," covered by the Illinois Prevailing Wage Act. The Illinois Prevailing Wage Act requires construction employers to pay their employees prevailing wages, which are usually several dollars per hour more than normal, for work on "public works." The union claimed that state law required the company to pay prevailing rates for every single project on which the company supplied equipment. The company argued that the union failed to meet its burden of proving that all of the company's work invovled "public works" per the statutory definition. In finding for the company, the arbitrator noted that there was simply no evidence that the company had violated either the Illinois Prevailing Wage Act or the collective bargaining agreement.

Robert Smeltzer is a 13-year veteran of labor and employment arbitrations and federal and state court trials. Patrick Moran is a trial and arbitration attorney with significant experience in labor and employment claims.

For more information, please contact:
Robert Smeltzer(312) 456-7952
rsmeltzer@lowis-gellen.com