Christian Labor Association v. City of Duluth

Background

The plaintiffs were Christian Labor Association, Kaski, Inc., Nordic Group Inc., Roen Salvage Co., and Luke Krhin. The defendants were the City of Duluth, City of Cloquet, City of Two Harbors, Western Lake Superior Sanitary District, and Duluth Building and Construction Trades Council.

The case challenged project labor agreements used by the three cities and the Sanitary District on certain public-works projects. These agreements required covered contractors and subcontractors to recognize a union affiliated with the Building Trades as the exclusive bargaining representative for covered employees, use affiliated unions’ job-referral systems, and follow wage, employment-rule, and fringe-benefit terms in applicable labor agreements. Earlier versions of some agreements also contained union-security provisions. In March 2021, the three cities amended their agreements to remove those provisions and to state that employees could not be required to join or pay a union as a condition of working on a covered project.

The plaintiffs’ remaining claim alleged that the referral and union-security provisions violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The plaintiffs had also brought an antitrust claim, but the court previously dismissed that claim for failure to state a claim.

The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The plaintiffs argued that they had standing and that the constitutional claim should be resolved in their favor. The defendants argued that the plaintiffs lacked standing and, alternatively, that the constitutional claim failed on the merits.

Standing

Standing is a requirement that a plaintiff show a concrete injury, a connection between that injury and the challenged conduct, and a likelihood that a favorable court decision would remedy the injury. The court concluded on the summary-judgment record that Krhin, the employer-plaintiffs, and the Christian Labor Association lacked standing.

The court determined that Krhin was a supervisor under the National Labor Relations Act. The agreements excluded supervisors from their provisions. The court relied primarily on Krhin’s deposition testimony that he worked as a superintendent, participated in interviews, made hiring recommendations that the company typically followed, and used his own judgment in that role. The court disregarded a later declaration from Krhin because it contradicted his earlier testimony and was an unexplained revision that could not create a factual dispute. Because Krhin was excluded from the agreements and had never worked under them, paid union dues under them, or used a union referral system, the court found that any claimed future injury was speculative.

The employer-plaintiffs argued that they had been injured because they refrained from bidding on projects covered by the agreements and were likely to seek covered work in the future. The court rejected that argument because the constitutional claim belonged to employees, not employers, and the employers could not establish standing to assert the employees’ constitutional rights.

The Christian Labor Association argued that it had associational standing, which permits an organization to sue on behalf of its members in some circumstances. To establish that form of standing, the organization had to identify at least one member who could sue individually. The court found that the national Christian Labor Association had no members, based on its president’s deposition testimony, and that its affiliated local unions operated independently. The court also found that the record did not identify a local-union member who had suffered a concrete injury. As a result, the association could not satisfy the first requirement for associational standing.

Constitutional Claim: Referral Provisions

Although it found that the plaintiffs lacked standing, the court also addressed the merits of the constitutional claim. The plaintiffs argued that the referral provisions forced workers to associate with unions and compelled speech because they required workers to use union referral systems. The defendants argued that the provisions required use of referral procedures but did not require contractors to hire referred workers, union membership, union payments, or agreement with any union message.

The court held that the referral provisions did not violate the First Amendment. They did not require the plaintiffs to communicate a message, express an opinion, join a union, pay a union, or endorse union membership. The court also found that a reasonable person would not view using a referral system as expressing support for the unions. The court therefore concluded that no reasonable juror could find that the referral provisions compelled speech or unconstitutional expressive association.

Constitutional Claim: Union-Security Provisions

The plaintiffs argued that the former union-security provisions were invalid under Janus v. AFSCME, which held that public-sector employees could not be required to subsidize union speech through compelled payments. The court held that Janus did not apply because the challenged agreements governed employees of private contractors, not employees of the public entities. The court concluded that the union-security clauses were lawful under the authorities governing private-sector collective bargaining and declined to extend Janus to the private construction contractors involved here.

Disposition

The court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment. It granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment in part: it ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing and granted summary judgment for the defendants on the plaintiffs’ constitutional claim, Count II. The order directed that judgment be entered accordingly. The opinion was signed by United States District Judge Donovan W. Frank on June 14, 2023.