FLOYD HENSON еt al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. C. OVERAA & COMPANY, Defendant and Respondent.
No. A139966
First Dist., Div. One.
June 29, 2015.
A petition for a rehearing was denied July 21, 2015
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Davis, Cowell & Bowe, John J. Davis, Jr., Andrew J. Kahn, Eric B. Myers; Wohlner Kaplon Phillips Young & Cutler and Jeffrey L. Cutler for Plaintiffs and Appellants.
Cook Brown, Ronald W. Brown, Barbara A. Cotter, Stephen R. McCutcheon, Jr.; Law Office of James P. Watson and James P. Watson for Defendant and Respondent.
Weinberg, Roger & Rosenfeld, Barry E. Hinkle, Roberta D. Perkins and Conceptión E. Lozano-Batista for Northern California Laborers’ Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.
Simpson, Garrity, Innes & Jacuzzi and Paul V. Simpson for United Contractors as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.
Lawrence H. Kay for Construction Employers Association as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.
Cox, Castle & Nicholson, John Stonewall Miller, Jr., and Dwayne P. McKenzie for Associated General Contractors as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.
DONDERO, J.—
INTRODUCTION
This appeal arises out of a dispute over the meaning of certain provisions of the “Prevailing Wage Law” and Shelley-Maloney Apprentice Labor Standards Act of 1939 (Shelley-Malony Act)1 relating to the employment of apprentices on public works projects. Floyd Henson, Gabriel Maestretti, and Leonard Minor (appellants) assert that C. Overaa & Company (respondent) violated the statutes by hiring construction craft laborer (laborer) apprentices instead of pipe fitter apprentices to work on the construction of certain water treatment plants.2 Appellants are pipe fitter apprentices, and thеy seek to represent a class of similarly situated individuals who lost wages and training as a result of respondent‘s alleged violations. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of respondent on the ground the journeymen on the relevant projects were classified as laborers, and the Prevailing Wage Law merely required employers to hire apprentices who are in the same occupation as the journeymen on their projects. Appellants assert the trial court erred because the statutes require a contractor to select apprentices based not on their job title or union affiliation but the work processes on which they have been expressly approved to train. We find the argument unpеrsuasive and affirm.3
BACKGROUND
A. Legal Background
The Prevailing Wage Law requires that contractors on public works projects pay their employees union wages. (
If the Prevailing Wage Law required contractors to pay all employees union wages, it would present a significant obstacle to the hiring and training of lesser-skilled apprentices. (See Electrical Joint Apprenticeship Com. v. MacDonald (9th Cir. 1991) 949 F.2d 270, 274.) “The basic idea of an apprenticeship program is to allow on-the-job training for apprentices who work under the supervision of journeymen and thus to encourage and assist persons to enter into the skilled work force . . . . In order for such an apprenticeship program to work, it is essential that the employer be able to pay lesser wages to apprentices while they are in training.” (Ibid.)
The drafters of the Prevailing Wage Law took these considerations into account. The statute allows contractors to pay an apprentice a lower “apprentice wage” if that apprentice is enrolled in a state-approved apprenticeship program. (
Apprenticeship standards and training are governed by the Shelley-Malonеy Act, which provides that the Director of DIR is ex officio the administrator of apprenticeship. (
CAC meets at the direction of DIR and aids DIR in the formulation of policies for the effective administration of apprenticeship laws. (
B. Facts and Procedural History
Rеspondent is a general contractor and a signatory to a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the Northern California District Council of Laborers (Laborers Union). The CBA requires respondent to employ construction craft laborers represented by the Laborers Union. The CBA also obligates respondent to hire apprentices enrolled in the state-approved apprenticeship program sponsored by the Laborers Union. Whenever possible, respondent must rotate laborer apprentices through different types of work so that they may become trained in a variety of work operations and work skills.
This case arises out of respondent‘s construction work on dozens of water and sewage treatment systems in Northern California, including those owned by the East Bay Municipal Utility District and the Alameda County Water District. A significant portion of the work on many of these projects involved the installation of sophisticated, three-dimensional pipe systems, sometimes referred to as “process piping.” Pursuant to the CBA, respondent hired journeymen and apprentice laborers to perform this work.
Appellants contend the laborer apprentices hired by respondent were not qualified to work on process piping, though they do not contest respondent‘s decision to hire laborer journeymen for the projects. The DAS-approved apprenticeship standards for the Laborers Union‘s apprenticеship program
Appellants assert that respondent should have instead hired apprentices from an approved pipe fitting apprenticeship program, such as the one in which appellants are enrolled. Appellants’ program is sponsored by the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry (Pipefitters Union), a union with which respondent does not have a collective bargaining agreement. The Pipefitters Union program provides classroom instruction and on-the-job training on process piping, which involves, inter alia, cutting, threading, bending, beveling, welding, and assembling various types of pipe. According to the Pipefitters Union, there are no other DAS-approved programs that offer training and instruction on these process piping skills.4
Appellants filed this putative class action against respondent in December 2011, claiming that they lost wages and on-the-job training hours as a result of respondent‘s refusal to hire pipe fitter apprentices. They seek to represent all apprentice pipe fitters registered on out-of-work lists in the geographic areas where, and in the time period during which, respondent employed laborers on the projects at issue. Appellants allege that respondent is liable under the unfair competition law because it violated
The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of respondent. The court held the Prevailing Wage Law requires contractors that employ journeymen in any apprenticeable craft or trade to also employ apprentices from the same craft or trade. It further held that the term “craft or trade” refers to the journeymen‘s trade or occupation, not the work processes in which they engage on any given day. The court concluded that respondent
This appeal followed. Various organizations have filed amicus curiae briefs in support of respondent, specifically: Northern California Laborers’ Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee, United Contractors, Construction Employers Association, and Associated General Contractors of California. Among other things, the amici curiae assert this case arises out of a long-running jurisdictional dispute between the Pipefitters Union and the Laborers Union over whether the members of the Pipefitters Union should have the exclusive right to perform process piping work on municipal water plant projects. They also assert a ruling in favor of appellants would force respondent and other contractors to breach their CBAs with various unions.
DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
Summary judgment must be granted if all the papers and affidavits submitted, together with “all inferences reasonably deducible from the evidence” and uncontradicted by other inferences or evidence, show “there is no triable issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” (
We review the trial court‘s summary judgment determinations de novo. (Sangster v. Paetkau (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 151, 163 [80 Cal.Rptr.2d 66].) “We are not bound by the trial court‘s stated reasons or rationale. Instead, we review the summary judgment without deference to the trial court‘s determination of questions of law. [Citations] We may consider only those facts which were before the trial court, and disregard any new factual allegations made for the first time on appeal.” (Ibid.)
B. Plain Language of the Statute
This dispute primarily turns on
Turning to the statutory text,
The trial court held the statute requires contractors to hire apprentices in the same craft or trade as the journeyman on a public works project, and the craft or trade of a journeyman should be understood to refer to the journeyman‘s occupation, not the work processes in which the journeyman is engaged on any given day. Under the trial court‘s reading, if an apprentice is called a laborer and training in аn apprenticeship program sponsored by the Laborers Union, that apprentice is authorized to perform the type of work in which laborer journeymen and other members of the Laborers Union engage. Appellants contend the trial court erred because, under
We agree with the trial court. The Prevailing Wage Law requires that apprentices on public works projects “be employed only at the work of the craft or trade to which he or she is registered” (
Under this interpretation, respondent did not violate
Appellants point out DIR regulations define a journeyman as a person who has “completed an accredited apprenticeship in his/her craft” or “who has completed the equivalent of an apprenticeship in length and content of work experience and all other requirements in the craft which has workers classified as journeyman in the apprenticeable occupation.” (Reg. § 205, subd. (a).) According to appellants, this means a journeyman is a person who mastered the set of skills that the state has recognized as defining the apprenticeable craft or trade, and who is therefore qualified to teach new workers who also wish to master that trade. But nothing in the regulation indicates certain skills, such as process piping, may not be mastered by several kinds of journeyman or that a journeyman is limited to performing the work processes on which his or her apprenticeship program has been authorized to train.
Appellants also assert the trial court ignored
We cannot conclude this additional training constituted a violation of the relevant apprenticeship standards, since those standards set a floor, not a ceiling. The Shelley-Maloney Act provides: “Nothing in this chapter or in any apprentice agreement approved under this chapter shall operate to invalidate any apprenticeship provision in any collective agreement between employers and employees setting up higher apprenticeship standards.” (
As respondent points out, the CAC enacted this resolution to address an issue different from the one presented by this case. Specifically, the resolution was prompted by complaints from a pipe fitter training coordinator that public works contractors were assigning pipe fitter apprentices work outside of their program‘s work processes.8 The coordinator‘s complaint was referred to a CAC committee on rules and regulations, which held a meeting on the issue. At the committee meeting, speakers from other apprenticeship programs reported similar problems. One speaker explained how a plumber apprentice had been employed full time as a truck driver and backhoe operator. Nothing in the record suggests the CAC was concerned about the selection of apprentices by public works contractors, the primary issue on appeal. Rather, the CAC focused on the specific tasks to be assigned to apprentices after they have been selected by a contractor.
Appellants argue the CAC resolution is clear and unambiguous, and thus there is no need to look beyond its text to determine its meaning and the meaning of
For these reasons, we find that the plain language of the Prevailing Wage Law and Shelley-Maloney Act support the trial court‘s finding that respondent was not required to employ pipe fitter apprentices for the relevant projects.
C. Legislative History
When the plain meaning of the text does not resolve a question of statutory interpretation, we may examine extrinsic sources, including the statute‘s legislative history. (Long Beach Police Officers Assn. v. City of Long Beach (1988) 46 Cal.3d 736, 741 [250 Cal.Rptr. 869, 759 P.2d 504].) To the extent that there is any ambiguity in the plain language of the Prevailing Wage Law and Shelley-Maloney Act, the legislative history does not support appellants’ interpretation of thе statutes. As appellants point out, since the statutes were first enacted in the 1930s, the Legislature has vested increasing authority in state agencies to regulate the specific content of apprenticeship programs by enacting the statutory provisions discussed above. However, appellants have pointed to nothing in the legislative history, such as prior amendments, committee reports, or floor debates, that directly address how the term “craft or trade” should be defined in the context of
D. Other Interpretive Aids
Where the plain language and legislative history do not resolve ambiguity in a statute, then we apply “reason, practicality, and cоmmon sense to the language at hand.” (Halbert‘s Lumber, Inc. v. Lucky Stores, Inc. (1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 1233, 1239 [8 Cal.Rptr.2d 298].) “If possible, the words should be interpreted to make them workable and reasonable [citations], in accord with common sense and justice, and to avoid an absurd result.” (Ibid.)
To the extent that such interpretative aids are necessary in this case, they weigh against adopting appellants’ view of the statute. As the trial court held,
Appellants argue that there is no evidence in the record to support this conclusion. But the trial court was merely exploring the logical implications of appellants’ view of the statute. The Prevailing Wage Law requires contractors to endeavor, “to the greatest extent possible,” to employ apprentices during the same time period as journeyman in the same craft or trade. (
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed. Respondent shall recover its costs on appeal.
Margulies, Acting P. J., and Banke, J., concurred.
A petition for a rehearing was denied July 21, 2015, and appellants’ petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied October 14, 2015, S228369.