International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers v. Marathon Petroleum Company LP

Background

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 302, brought its only claim to compel arbitration of a dispute with the defendants. The dispute concerns whether work involving “post-weld heat treating and stress relieving” at the defendants’ petroleum refinery qualifies as “Covered Work” under the parties’ project labor agreement (PLA). The opinion states that the defendants subcontracted this work to Superheat.

Arbitration analysis

The court explained that whether a collective-bargaining agreement requires arbitration is a question for the court. The PLA defines as a grievance “any question arising out of and during the term of this Agreement involving its interpretation and application,” except jurisdictional disputes. The PLA requires grievances to proceed through a four-step process ending in arbitration. The court found that the Covered Work dispute involved interpretation and application of the PLA and that no other steps in the grievance process remained.

The defendants argued that disputes against the “Owner” were excluded from arbitration. The court rejected that reading. It found that no PLA provision excludes such disputes and that Section 8.7, which addresses the Owner’s responsibility for arbitration costs when a grievance is brought against the Owner, confirms that grievances against the Owner can be arbitrated. The court also rejected the defendants’ reliance on provisions allowing the Owner to participate in or monitor other grievances, explaining that those provisions did not permit the Owner to avoid arbitration when a grievance was brought against it.

The court further held that the PLA was unambiguous, so the parties’ negotiation history did not affect its meaning. The defendants’ arguments that the PLA excluded the disputed work or allowed them to decide whether a non-union subcontractor could perform it were merits arguments. The court stated that it could not decide the merits of the grievance and that the arbitrator must initially interpret the PLA’s substantive provisions.

Finally, the court rejected the argument that the dispute was a “jurisdictional dispute.” In this context, the court defined that term as a dispute in which one union seeks to compel an employer to assign it work being performed by another union. Because the work here was being performed by a non-union subcontractor, the court held that the dispute was not jurisdictional under the PLA.

Disposition

The court granted Local 302’s motion for summary judgment and compelled the defendants to arbitrate their dispute with Local 302 under Section 8 of the PLA. The court also denied the defendants’ motion for leave to file a supplemental declaration addressing Local 302’s evidentiary objection. The opinion does not decide whether the disputed work is Covered Work; that question is for arbitration.