## Facts

- Eight Black pipefitters worked for Foster Wheeler Constructors on a Robbins, Illinois construction project and were members of Pipefitters Association Local Union 597.
- The jobsite featured pervasive racist harassment, including racist graffiti in portable toilets (with threats and slurs), a swastika placed in a worker’s toolbox, a Ku Klux Klan poster in a break trailer, and a hangman’s noose displayed at the site.
- Dennis Hahney served both as the union steward on the project and as Foster Wheeler’s superintendent of pipefitting (a supervisory management role for the employer).
- Hahney knew about racist graffiti but did not act until a worker complained about graffiti targeting him personally; after that, some graffiti was painted over.
- Another union official ordered non-racist graffiti removed but did not similarly address racist graffiti he knew about.
- Apart from the targeted complaint to Hahney, the workers did not report the hostile environment to the union as such.
- The EEOC sued Foster Wheeler and the union under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981; one worker intervened seeking higher damages.
- Foster Wheeler settled; after a bench trial against the union, the district court found the union liable, awarded compensatory and punitive damages, and issued an injunction barring the union from permitting racially hostile environments for its members at any jobsite.
- The union appealed, conceding the environment was hostile but disputing its legal responsibility.

## Issues

1. Whether a labor union that lacks control over workplace conditions and discipline has an affirmative duty under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981 to prevent or remedy a racially hostile work environment and may be held liable for failing to do so.
2. Whether the union’s limited response to known racial harassment constituted actionable “discrimination” under Title VII and § 1981, as opposed to nonaction without discriminatory intent.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit reversed the judgment against the union.
- The court held the union had no general affirmative duty to police or remediate an employer-controlled workplace for harassment when it lacked managerial authority to change conditions or discipline employees.
- The court concluded the union’s weak response, without evidence of race-based motive or policy, did not amount to “discrimination” under Title VII or § 1981.
- The damages and injunction entered against the union were vacated.

## Legal Principles

- Union liability under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981 depends on discriminatory conduct or discriminatory intent/policy within the union’s sphere of authority, not a generalized duty to maintain workplace conditions typically controlled by the employer.
- A union’s failure to act forcefully against workplace harassment is not, by itself, actionable discrimination absent proof the union’s inaction was race-based (e.g., selective disfavor toward Black members or a policy subordinating racial complaints).
- A union official’s concurrent management role for the employer does not automatically convert employer-side supervisory failures into union liability where workplace control and disciplinary authority rest with the employer.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit held that, despite severe racial harassment at the jobsite, the union was not liable under Title VII or § 1981 because it lacked control over workplace conditions and there was no showing that the union’s limited response reflected race-based discrimination rather than nonaction.


Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm'n v. Pipefitters Ass'n Local Union 597, 334 F.3d 656 (7th Cir. 2003)