INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS and AEROSPACE WORKERS, DISTRICT LODGE 4 and LOCAL LODGE S6 v. BATH IRON WORKS INC

Filing 13

ORDER ON MOTION TO DISMISS granting 8 Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim; denying 11 Motion for Oral Argument By JUDGE GEORGE Z. SINGAL. (lrc)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MAINE
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
MACHINISTS & AEROSPACE
WORKERS, DISTRICT LODGE 4 and
LOCAL LODGE S6,
Plaintiff,
v.
BATH IRON WORKS, INC., a
SUBSIDIARY OF GENERAL
DYNAMICS CORP.,

Defendant.

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ORDER ON MOTION TO DISMISS

Before the Court is the Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 8) by Defendant Bath Iron Works,
Inc. and the Motion for Oral Argument (ECF No. 11) by Plaintiff International Association of
Machinists & Aerospace Workers, District Lodge 4 & Local Lodge S6. The Motion for Oral
Argument is hereby DENIED upon the Court finding, in an exercise of its discretion, that the
papers provide an adequate basis for deciding the pending Motion to Dismiss. See D. Me. Local
R. 7(f). For reasons briefly explained herein, the Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED.

I.

STANDARD OF REVIEW
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require only that a complaint contain “a short and

plain statement of the grounds for the court's jurisdiction . . . a short and plain statement of the
claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief; and a demand for the relief sought[.]” Fed. R.
Civ. P. 8(a)(1)-(3). In deciding a motion seeking dismissal for failure to state a claim, the Court

assumes the truth of the complaint's well-pleaded facts and draws all reasonable inferences in
plaintiff's favor. Schatz v. Republican State Leadership Comm., 669 F.3d 50, 55 (1st Cir. 2012).
Under Rule 12(b)(6), the Court “may consider only facts and documents that are part of or
incorporated into the complaint.” United Auto., Aero., Agric. Implement Workers of Am. Int'l
Union v. Fortuno, 633 F.3d 37, 39 (1st Cir. 2011) (internal citations omitted); see also Alternative
Energy, Inc. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 267 F.3d 30, 33 (1st Cir. 2001) (“When the
complaint relies upon a document, whose authenticity is not challenged, such a document ‘merges
into the pleadings’ and the court may properly consider it under a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to
dismiss.”)
A viable complaint need not proffer “heightened fact pleading of specifics,” but in order to
survive a motion to dismiss it must contain “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible
on its face.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). In considering a motion
to dismiss, the Court should “begin by identifying pleadings that, because they are no more than
conclusions, are not entitled to the assumption of truth.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679
(2009). A plaintiff must include enough facts supporting a claim for relief that “nudge[s][the]
claims across the line from conceivable to plausible.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570. “If the factual
allegations in the complaint are too meager, vague, or conclusory to remove the possibility of relief
from the realm of mere conjecture, the complaint is open to dismissal.” Haley v. City of Boston,
657 F.3d 39, 46 (1st Cir. 2011) (quoting SEC v. Tambone, 597 F.3d 436, 442 (1st Cir. 2010)); see
also Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (stating that the Court need not accept “[t]hreadbare recitals of the
elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements”).

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II.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Plaintiff International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers, District Lodge 4,

Local Lodge S6 (“Local S6” or the “Union”) is a labor union representing thousands of production
workers employed by Bath Iron Works, Inc., a subsidiary of General Dynamics Corporation.
Defendant Bath Iron Works, Inc. (“BIW” or the “Company”) is primarily located in Bath and
Brunswick, Maine, and is engaged in the business of building ships for the United States Navy.
The employment relationship between BIW and the Union members is governed by a
collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”), which has been provided to the Court (ECF Nos. 8-3 –
8-5 at Page ID#s 41-148).1 As explained in the Complaint, every CBA between the Union and
BIW since at least 1994 has included a listing of Job Classifications. Beginning with the 1997
CBA, and continuing to the present, BIW and the Union have maintained an addendum to the CBA
that details all of the specific tasks performed by each Job Classification (the “Blue Book”). BIW
is not permitted to assign work outside the parameters of the Blue Book. The Union may grieve –
and has done so on hundreds of occasions – assignments in violation of the Blue Book.
In addition to the CBA, the parties have a Memorandum of Understanding, dated December
10, 2001 (hereinafter “2001 MOU”) (ECF No. 8-6),2 which sets up a process for adding or
changing “a Job Function in the Classification Task List (Blue Book).” (Id. at Page ID# 150.)
This 2001 MOU states: “If agreement cannot be reached at any level, the issue will be resolved in
accordance with the provisions of Article 39 of the Joint Agreement.” (Id.) “Article 39 of the
Joint Agreement” is a reference to the “Joint Agreement Process” section of the CBA. Article 39,

1

Although this case is currently before the Court on a motion to dismiss, the Court may properly consider the CBA
as a document sufficiently referred to in the Complaint and central to the Plaintiff’s claims. See, e.g., Fire & Police
Pension Ass’n of Colorado v. Abiomed, Inc., 778 F.3d 228, 232 & n. 2 (1st Cir. 2015) (citing Watterson v. Page, 987
F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1993)).
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This document may also be properly considered by the Court in deciding the motion to dismiss. See supra note 1.

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in turn, indicates that when the joint agreement process does not result in an agreement between
the parties, “[t]he Company can at that point implement its decision, which may be subject to the
accelerated arbitration process in Article 24.” (Id. at PageID# 100.) Article 24 of the CBA details
a three-step process to resolve disputes “raised by any employee(s) or the Union.” (Id. at Page ID#
89 (Sections 1-4).) The third step in that process is arbitration. Section 5 of Article 24 is titled
“Accelerated Arbitration” and indicated that this type of arbitration proceeding may be instituted
by “BIW or the Union.” (Id. at PageID# 90 (Section 5).)
The present dispute began in January 2015 when BIW proposed to implement a “job
function reallocation and modification.” In all, BIW proposed over 100 “reallocations” that would
have expanded the tasks that could be done by various Job classifications. The Union maintained
that BIW’s proposal was not subject to the 2001 MOU and as a result refused to engage in the
Article 39 Joint Agreement Process. In response, BIW informed the Union that it intended to
implement the “job function reallocation and modification.” On April 2, 2015, BIW demanded
arbitration as a mechanism for resolving this dispute.
Via the pending complaint, the Union seeks a declaration that this dispute is unarbitrable.
The Union argues that the reallocations are not subject to the 2001 MOU or any other arbitration
provision in the CBA. Rather, the Union maintains that BIW is attempting to implement
“Associated Functions,” a provision that was included in CBAs between 1994 and 2000 and
resulted in a prolonged strike in 2000. This strike ended with the signing of a new CBA that had
eliminated “Associated Functions.”3 (See Compl. ¶¶ 11-13, 15-18, 28.)

The Union’s Complaint does note that the current CBA replicates language from prior CBAs with respect to Article
36 (scoping) and Article 37 (Rescoping). These articles discuss how work is assigned to given classifications but also
notes that both processes are subject to the Article 39 Joint Agreement Process already detailed above.
3

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III.

DISCUSSION
Under the established framework for determining whether a dispute is arbitrable, “a court

may order arbitration of a particular dispute only where the court is satisfied that the parties agreed
to arbitrate that dispute.” Granite Rock Co. v. Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters, 561 U.S. 287, 297 (2010)
(emphasis in original). Where the parties concede that they have agree to arbitrate “some matters
pursuant to an arbitration clause, the ‘law's permissive policies in respect to arbitration’ counsel
that ‘any doubts concerning the scope of arbitral issues should be resolved in favor of arbitration.’”
Granite Rock Co., 561 U.S. at 298 (quoting First Options of Chicago v. Kaplan, 514 U.S. 938, 945
(1995)); see also Shaw's Supermarkets, Inc. v. United Food & Commercial Workers Union, Local
791, AFL-CIO, 321 F.3d 251, 254 (1st Cir. 2003) (discussing and applying the presumption of
arbitrability).
Accepting the Plaintiff’s description of the current dispute, the Court finds no “positive
assurance” that the parties’ agreement to arbitrate “is not susceptible to an interpretation that covers
the asserted dispute.” United Steelworkers of Am. v. Warrior & Gulf Nav. Co., 363 U.S. 574,
582-83 (1960) (“An order to arbitrate the particular grievance should not be denied unless it may
be said with positive assurance that the arbitration clause is not susceptible of an interpretation that
covers the asserted dispute. Doubts should be resolved in favor of coverage.”) Rather, the Court
concludes that the present dispute is subject to Article 39. As a result, it appears BIW would have
been permitted to implement its January 2015 “job function reallocation and modification” if no
joint agreement was reached. To the extent that the Union objects to this implementation, its
remedy would be grievance under Article 24, which could culminate in arbitration as the third step
of Article 24.4 In short, there is a designated path for this dispute and that path requires arbitration.

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To the extent Local S6 argues that the Company may not invoke arbitration, the Court concludes it need not address
or resolve that argument. Having concluded that arbitration can be initiated on the disputed issue, the Court need not

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In asking this Court to make a determination as to whether BIW’s “job function
reallocation and modification” is allowed under the 2001 MOU or should be deemed an
“associated function” that is no longer allowed under the MOU or the CBA, the Union is asking
this Court to weigh in on the merits of its current dispute with BIW.

However, upon a

determination that there is an applicable agreement to arbitrate, “a court generally has ‘no business
weighing the merits of the grievance, considering whether there is equity in a particular claim, or
determining whether there is particular language in the written instrument which will support the
claim.’” Ramirez-Lebron v. Int'l Shipping Agency, Inc., 593 F.3d 124, 134 (1st Cir. 2010) (quoting
United Steelworkers v. Am. Mfg. Co., 363 U.S. 564, 567 (1960)). Given this clear limitation, the
Court’s discussion of the legal issues presented must end upon finding an arbitrable dispute.

IV.

CONCLUSION
In light of the Court’s determination that the dispute pled in Plaintiff’s Complaint is

arbitrable, the Court concludes that Plaintiff’s Complaint fails to state a plausible claim for
declaratory relief. Therefore, the Court hereby GRANTS Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss (ECF
No. 8).
SO ORDERED.
/s/ George Z. Singal
United States District Judge
Dated this 12th day of June, 2015.

resolve who can or must initiate the arbitration or whether that arbitration would be under section 4 or section 5 of
Article 24.

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