Didn't we already go over this, perhaps elsewhere?
Your left, right and center divs are absolutely positioned which removes them from the normal flow. That is why the middle div collapses because it has no content and the three others rise up to the previous div. IE, in its numbskull way, automatically encloses those divs fooling you into thinking all is right with the world when, in reality, IE is wrong.
I don't have time right now to study your code but, if you want the middle div to enclose the three others, you will need to make sure it actually contains those three divs and then add overflow:auto; to the middle css. Right now, I'm not sure your middle div actually encloses the other three.
Never, ever design and test code in IE. It will screw you up more than anything else. Always, always use a modern browser like...anything but IE. Once your page is working, then we can adjust for IEs quirks and bugs.