Monday, September 21, 2015
CINCINNATI
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the decision of a Youngstown-based federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit by 28 General Motors Lordstown workers whose pay was reduced significantly in 2008.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled Friday, unanimously upholding U.S. District Court Judge Benita Y. Pearson’s decision last year to dismiss the case without a trial.
The lawsuit, filed in 2011 against GM and the United Auto Workers International Union and UAW Local 1112, sought $3 million in back pay.
“I’m pleased because the 6th Circuit recognized that the unions had not breached their duty of fair representation,” said Atty. Dennis Haines of Youngstown, who represented Local 1112.
Judge Pearson ruled that GM paid the employees in accordance with the union contract and that the plaintiffs failed to show that the union breached its duty to represent them.
The employees lost their jobs due to GM’s financial woes in 2007 and were rehired early in 2008 at their previous wage levels.
Two months later, they were reclassified as entry-level employees and their wages were cut in the company’s transition to a lower wage tier for new employees under the collective-bargaining agreement.
Through their lawyer, Ken Myers of Cleveland, the plaintiffs said GM should have applied the new classification to new employees, not current workers, such as the 28 in the complaint.
But GM’s lawyer, Johanna Parker, said in a court hearing last year that the employees’ current positions were no longer relevant and they were properly classified as new employees under the new wage-tier system.
Mark Dragomier of Lords-town, the lead plaintiff, said the new system reduced the workers’ pay from $24 to $26 an hour to $14 an hour.
The employees accused their union of violating its duty to represent them by not filing a grievance on their behalf, but Charles Oldfield, another lawyer for Local 1112, argued that the union has broad discretion over what grievances to file.
Myers could not be reached to comment, and lawyers for GM and the UAW International Union declined to comment late Friday on the appeals-court decision.
“Appellants have failed to prove that the unions breached their duty of fair representation by declining to file a grievance on their behalf,” the appeals court decision said.