Westinghouse Hanford Company v. Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council

Defendant Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council (“the Union”) appeals from the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of plaintiff Westinghouse Hanford Company (“Westinghouse”) on Westinghouse’s action to stay arbitration and the Union’s counterclaim to compel arbitration. We reverse and remand for the district court to enter an order compelling arbitration.

FACTS

The Union represents several thousand workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation (“Hanford”) near Richland, Washington. The United States Department of Energy (“DOE”) is responsible for operating and maintaining Hanford, and it delegates those responsibilities to several private contractors. Defendant Westinghouse, DOE’s Operations and Engineering Contractor, has primary responsibility for the day-today operation and maintenance of Hanford. Kaiser Engineers Hanford (“Kaiser”) is DOE’s Engineer/Constructor Contractor.

Pursuant to DOE regulations and its contracts with Westinghouse and Kaiser, DOE assigns Kaiser all work covered by the Davis-Bacon Act, 40 U.S.C. §§ 276a to 276a-5 (1988). That work includes “every contract in excess of $2,000 ... for construction, alteration, and/or repair, including painting…