collective bargaining agreement the policy committee was asked to decide the very same question that the district court was asked to decide how reasonable minds can differ but the key point here is that the court was not writing on a clean slate the policy committee decided through its interpretive powers given to it under the agreement that the employer does not have to make the additional payment under the national agreement and look in your brief that you hardly know you are all independent of the authority of the national committee to decide the matter it's just very i don't see much argument based upon the text of  we we want to be read but we make much argument to that effect we had some argument but you're absolutely correct that most of the weight and what carries most of our argument is the policy committee so let me try to convince you and persuade you why that's important number one these are the three points that i'd like to get to this morning first of all the policy committee is the entity dancing needed by the parties to the staunch corporate are of the agreement for to the policy committee to the parties troy's of how to interpret the agreement which is the policy committee rather than imposing its own interpretation upon the parties language so it doesn't say any disputes over the meaning of this contract will be decided by the policy committee so the kind of language that we would expect to find here doesn't mean the policy committee is the final interpreter of this is not found it's the sort of strange language i don't and you're absolutely correct judged by that article twenty five the words are the only intermediary or ministry of body so what do those words mean that's the key issue that's a question in the record  i mean we would we would argue that just the plain language of the agreement the only administrate intermediary order minute straight of body gives the policy committee this power i mean after all this is like an agreement a national agreement among numerous employers and numerous and the international union and they have it would be impractical for them to resolve issues like this with so many people at the rate and therefore contrary to the spirit and intent of the national maintenance agreement that also for the i don't know what that means contrary to the spirit and intent is that does that mean that's not permitted it's not  that's the only thing in the record i point out submissions to the policy committee from the other side on this question before the came out with this letter not to my knowledge your honor will they ever invited to make a submission not to not not to my knowledge they a third party beneficiary to the agreement they're not a party to the agreement of course was the union ever invited to participate on the other side of this question the union is part of the policy committee that not the local union but the national agreement because one part of the national agreement says that employers like babcock have to pay fines called for by the local agreement and another part of the national greyman paragraph thirty six says that that has just beneficiary and i think that's a key thing and have your question stands as well your answer is dependent upon a promise that says a third party beneficiary is not entitled and wash contractual right but that's demonstrably wrong they are entitled to a force whatever contract for rights they have and the issue is do these third party beneficiaries have this right and so merely saying they're a third party beneficiary and therefore the administration body didn't need to listen to them isn't much of an answer intermediary and then if the body which is ambiguous at best in your favor and as i'm trying time just to interpret that ambiguous language and then look at the behavior of the parties they're under and they don't adjudicative body because the party in interest the fun doesn't even get to participate which leads me to believe that even if i could interpret this ambiguous language your way of everything else went your way nothing else goes your way two sides to present question there are the same two sizes yes there is the international union and the employer which are the same two sides that went before the policy that determine are part of the policy committee in other words if you do have to the policy committee's determination i don't correct i don't know of anything in the record that challenges the authority of the secretary to speak for the committee or challenges anything that he says in this affidavit i don't think that's where the lines are being and and the battles being fought here i think it's about whether what deference should be paid to the policy committees determination the district court thought that because it wasn't a grievance then the party committees determination really should be given no weight but the policy committee has both the authority to adjudicate grievances clearly but it also has this other broader and authority that burke says is even more formal when it sits in its grievance pay the additional funds under the terms of the national agreement when that determination then when that dispute has been proper to a court the district court should look at that determination just like it look at the result of a grievance process doesn't drop its act and from the agreement is that a plausible interpretation of the agreement here's the committee stronger argument if we're talking real administrative certainly another way to look at it and then in that situation to the district court would defer to the agencies in this case the policy committees determination and it would be an arbitrary and there's an argument that is to know there's no reading of the language that's one of the things that's so frustrating about reading mr bolton is that there isn't any interpretation here it's simply a declaration and it's only a declaration but it's contrary to the spirit and  sounds like it is really a neutral as i understand their argument in terms of judge by the your concern about that he's not the policy committee wasn't interpretating that language when it talks about doesn't article nine standardize the practice article nine says you do what you do whatever you've agreed to do locally and that would be a standard practice with it even if it results in different rates article nine doesn't say you do whatever you do locally level right after thirty six says and you don't have to pay into industry funds national employer this way which is to say there's an obligation to pay twenty five cents into the fund now that was the only obligation i'm not sure i can that's there at all and what happens if the obligation is softened a little bit by saying we don't have to pay the seventy look twenty five cents that there's another reading which is why we emphasized so much the role of the policy committee it is the policy committees reading and impossible reading is it impossible to say this is a deliberate it's against the spirit of the national agreement which is supposed to standardize rates it's not impossible it's not impossible to say that the exercise of the discretion of discretion that comes at such a cost with a penalty the court has no further question industry advancement or a promotion fund but the local agreement says if you're not going to pay that extra discretion as your permitted to under under this paragraph thirty six then you are going to pay an additional twenty five cents into the apprentice fund record ok so it doesn't really turn out to be at your discretion it's not discretionary in the sense that you might think that you get paid or not you have to determine whether you pay it or not pay it you're going to pay the additional twenty five cents the what's at your discretion how is that you can either pay it into the industry that's in a promotion fund or you ma why local employers would want payment to the industry advance and fun one is to help the industry advance one fund whatever it is and they can't do that in this case the other reason is they want to make sure that all the contractors have the same rate when they an additional twenty five cents an hour if that's ok with you you know the only question i have is which funds to go to correct it is that standard practice in your local agreements you know i have no idea the i have no idea can choose to pay into the industry advance and fine if they wish or they can the parties to the contract can change and probably have a dual rates if they wish but they haven't done that retroactively take whatever the argument is we have a judgment for that amount and they have not made the argument that well if it's a judgment against us we think that somebody else that i question is not front of us is that the argument might have others too but you have that argument authority want war he says they met and they talked about t c b the application and this is what they gave an opinion on and there were twenty eight members of which one was a representative of the international union  and we don't even know how he voted i mean maybe was twenty seven the one we don't even know whether he was you know whether any evidence was presented or anything why or why are you or are actually a different question answer the question of the defendant made a motion to supplement the record and attached a letter from the n m a p c to them saying that if you want to more formal approach go through the grievance procedure that's what it says and they didn't i have no idea where the apparently according to mr bo you were given the authority to interpret this agreement or add new costs at a dual rates provision but they weren't given that permission they weren't given that authority and had the parties to the agreement decided well we'd like to change the agreement international name on him and policy committee have another problem there to the article that he's quoted as article twenty seven section two which does not appear in the copy of the articles that we have stopped the article twenty six i don't know where article twenty seven comes from look at page twenty two of the record that's where article twenty else in the record but not at least not at pages twenty two and twenty three well it's not in the record because the parties are stipulated what the national maintenance agreement is and he can say it's different but he doesn't present proof of that just in saying so doesn't make going the same thing that i had earlier on page twenty three and that is the same there's the same agreement appears on pages twenty two and twenty three of the record as well so absent that clause al of a sudden i'm figuring something out based on judged by this question and your response under the well on page twenty two so i guess it's repeated in sixty eight the green is between the employer and the international union only the only intermediary administrative body for this agreement is i say after i'm with you committees we have this complex structure we can think about the implications of an interpretation not just on the dispute in one case but also how it affects ministration of the entire doesn't seem to be in here at all what degree am i supposed to can defer to his statement the committee has exclusive authority to administer and interpret the national maintenance agreement when it's clear that he's working off a different agreement certain authority and certain authority they don't have it it gives them authority in certain areas and you can imply that they have authority in other areas well i'm either the thrust of my question i guess i'm afraid to make not against you but against the other obviously the sentence that supports him the most is the sense that exists in both agreements but maybe he relying on something else in addition i mean how much should i defer to his interpretation of what i mean when  it's obvious that some of the gray he's looking at a different agreement than the one that we have in front of us well that i think he's asserting things that are not in the agreement so i don't know i don't know how expert he can be national maintenance agreement is identical so it's absolutely correct that he is looking at a different iteration a different version of the national agreement and we know that just because is article twenty five and he's looking at article twenty seven but the key language that we rely on is in both and that's the only intermediary or inter s q language you rely on but it's not the language that contrary to the spirit and intent he's trying by his ruling actually would give us a revision of the language of that committee that that agreement well there's nothing in the agreements in front of us the give the committee met and we took a majority vote and we decided to revise this agreement he talks about that in through the various step committees up to the final form or issuance of the only ten which covered under i mean the key language in our view is be only intermediary org ministre does body which is common to both of the agreement