Summary
The Sixth Circuit denied Rieth-Riley Construction Company’s petition for review and enforced a National Labor Relations Board order. The court held that the union timely withdrew from multiemployer bargaining and upheld findings that Rieth-Riley committed unfair labor practices, including insisting on multiemployer bargaining, making unilateral wage changes, clawing back benefit contributions, and locking out employees. The opinion also addresses the Board’s determination that the employees’ strike was motivated in part by the company’s unfair labor practices.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the Union timely withdrew from the multiemployer bargaining unit.
- Whether Rieth-Riley committed unfair labor practices by insisting on multiemployer bargaining, unilaterally changing wages, clawing back benefit contributions, and locking out bargaining-unit employees.
- Whether substantial evidence supported the Board's finding that the 2019 strike was motivated in part by Rieth-Riley's unfair labor practices.
- Whether the court had jurisdiction to review Rieth-Riley's challenge to the Board's affirmative bargaining order when that challenge was not first raised before the Board.
Holdings
- The Union timely withdrew from the multiemployer bargaining unit because it gave notice before negotiations on a successor agreement began; the contract-modification deadline did not independently bar withdrawal.
- The Board properly found that Rieth-Riley violated the NLRA by insisting on multiemployer bargaining after the Union's withdrawal, granting a 2018 wage increase without bargaining, locking out employees to pressure multiemployer bargaining, clawing back benefit contributions without bargaining, and granting a 2020 wage increase without bargaining.
- Substantial evidence supported the Board's finding that the 2019 strike was motivated at least in part by Rieth-Riley's unfair labor practices and therefore was an unfair-labor-practice strike rather than solely an economic strike.
- The court lacked jurisdiction to consider Rieth-Riley's challenge to the affirmative bargaining order because Rieth-Riley failed to raise that objection before the Board and identified no extraordinary circumstances excusing the failure.
Key quotations
“Now, neither an employer nor a union can withdraw “from a duly established multiemployer bargaining unit, except upon adequate written notice given prior to the date set by the contract for modification, or to the agreed-upon date to begin the multiemployer negotiations.”” (at 9)
“Thus, the purported economic exigency was not beyond Rieth-Riley’s control and, at a minimum, it was reasonably foreseeable.” (at 14)
“Because the company’s 2018 lockout was an unfair labor practice, sufficient evidence exists connecting the lockout to the strike.” (at 17)
Factual background
The Union and Rieth-Riley historically bargained through a multiemployer arrangement administered by MITA. In 2018, the Union withdrew from that arrangement before successor-contract negotiations began, while Rieth-Riley continued insisting on multiemployer bargaining, locked out employees, made unilateral wage changes, and later clawed back benefit contributions without bargaining. In 2019, employees struck during ongoing negotiations, citing the lockout and related unfair-labor-practice allegations. The NLRB found multiple unfair labor practices and ordered Rieth-Riley to bargain in good faith.
Procedural history
The NLRB General Counsel filed unfair-labor-practice charges against Rieth-Riley. After a hearing, an administrative law judge found several violations, including unlawful insistence on multiemployer bargaining, an unlawful lockout, unilateral wage increases, and an unlawful benefit-contribution clawback, but characterized the 2019 strike as economic. The Board affirmed most of the ALJ's findings, reversed the strike characterization, and issued an affirmative bargaining order. The Sixth Circuit denied the petition for review and granted enforcement.