Wisconsin Federal Court Grants Summary Judgment for Union on Worker’s Breach of Duty of Fair Representation Claim Following Violation of Workplace Safety Rule

While working in a plastics manufacturing plant, a worker violated a Task Safety Analysis rule requiring belly bands (or lifting straps) to be used when changing shafts as opposed to manually lifting them.  The employer investigated the incident and terminated the worker because this was his second willful violation of a Task Safety Analysis rule at the plant and he had previously been warned that failure to follow those rules would lead to disciplinary action.  The worker filed a union grievance that the union eventually settled on behalf of the worker for $20,000.  The settlement did not include reinstatement.

The worker brought suit alleging that the union breached its duty of fair representation and the employer breached its collective bargaining agreement, but the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin granted summary judgment to the union and the employer.  The court found that neither federal law nor the collective bargaining agreement mandated that the worker’s grievance proceed to arbitration, that the union had the authority to settle the worker’s case without the worker’s consent, and that a disagreement about the union’s handling of the worker’s grievance did not in itself amount to a breach of the union’s duty of fair representation.  The court concluded that given the facts of this case, the record lacked the evidence necessary for a jury to find that the union acted arbitrarily or in bad faith.