this is a case where in poly con is asking this court to deny enforcement of an n l r b decision the questions here are limited the matter that's so much going against union three years you in the union agreed about this you know the business with the right to work law you agree that's in the analog governs that's it union they read to that they did and as you'll see in the record the exchanges that occurred at the end were between mr berkowitz myself that were by email so in the march eleventh e mail to harvey jackson who was the union negotiator on the other side when we began communicating by email what i suggest what i told mr jackson was i needed to get approval from the client because we were no longer partly across the bargaining table i was receiving e mails we continued to bargain and ultimately what i received from mr berkowitz from mr jackson first was a draft that's in the record that looks a bit like this bargaining in this case took much longer than it should have for a variety of reasons in the draft document that's part of the record that i didn't realize until yesterday is that the crazy quilt of letters that you see on a diagonal in the record is the watermark that says draft only three twenty thirteen now in the in the copy that got into the record for some reason apparently the photocopier picked are not in agreement there was not start up you mean you mean you mean the union has not agreed now the right to work law prevents them from prevents them from requiring all the workers to belong to the union said no sir not saying that at all what i'm saying is that as we neared the end of negotiations mr berkowitz and i were working to come to an agreement that we could submit to our partners you have agre other term in the contract and ultimately the draft of the agreement the draft of the agreement pursuant to mr berkowitz ozemail was going to be submitted to the employer for approval we had long since stopped bargaining across the table we were trying to get things done quickly in conformity with this court's chicago tribune case consequently we were sending e mails back and forth it was clear from march from the march e mail that if this is the way we were going to operate then i needed to get approval from the client because i didn't have client approval i was trying to get language that would be acceptable if we wanted to get if there were two options get together and bargain across the table which i'd done with the same union on more than fifty occasions prior to this you know are read you don't understand what you're talking about the union is agree you've agreed right to work law takes we did not go through the agreement your honor at the end as your part of what is judge posner refers to no so he is your client has no idea of the proposed proposal i'm sure i forwarded a copy of the proposal alternately to the client did he eat she or it object to any portion thereof they said nothing one way or the other as we neared that as we got to the end of pardoning judge the as mr burke which e mail said here's the here's the agree here's here's a draft sent it to your client for approval we understood that this was mr berkowitz and me talking by email and that we needed to get the approval of our clients that never happened because what happened in the interim was a bit filing of the  knowledge of a of the petition wherein the petition had signatures of more than fifty percent of the employees so we never took the last step and got that approval that's the circumstance to change of the union security agreement the union security agreement that we didn't win to charity agreement cannot override a law the right certainly then what does it matter what the is because under indiana law the indiana statute says that any contract that contains a union security agreement in violation of the indiana right to work law is void or not enforceable and there are civil and criminal penalties that that attach to and so the language the ref specific reference to the indiana law is irrelevant what was important was that the language was drafted did not violate the the step was that i needed to take the agreement to my client because we were no longer bargaining across the table the client wasn't involved in those that was part of an email and as a matter of fact in mr berkowitz's e mail to me he said here's the draft for your review that included the review of bill hanson and from march on it was clear that the client needed to review it once we got to the end of this process how longer is tanks for this mind created get this  everything happened with and within a day all of this happened within twenty four to forty eight on are you talking about a big delay but everything happens now the the collect know that the negotiations took a long you say that just takes a day when mr berkowitz and i finally exchanged the last e mails it was one day later that we learned about the protection learned about  sure but that's totally irrelevant the courts have or have rejected the notion that you can that that a change in the amount of support for the union wipes out a collective bargaining but we only have a collective or a whisper that i'm sergeant we only have a collective bargaining agreement if we have a meeting of the minds and what was left to do to get a contract here was that the client needed to know what the contract was because we weren't at the bargaining table the union understood that for a march on mr you've got a lot of decisions here which may clear that there's no basis for here for this stalling there was no showing to read you agreed on language which would make clear that of course indiana law t submit this here you know company once we receive the petition i did mine what a ninth why how long after midnight before this was submitted to kompany in the company made a decision the company told me it would you answer my question yes sir it was not look that has never sent us to the collective we got to the end of bargaining what we thought was the end of bargaining for the draft on may seventh when i received the last modification from mr berkowitz that in every nation related to your client may twenty third or a top twenty second i'm sorry i'm i misspoke it was may ninth when the employer became aware of the petition the employer advised me of the existence of the part of the petition i had not at that time having only receive draft from mr berkowitz forty eight hours before reviewed the document and gotten it to the client to review i believe that to be a change in circumstance that was consistent with the chicago tribune case at that point i realized that the union no longer enjoyed majority support irrelevant we didn't bargain with the other after there are once there's an agreement then a subsequent loss of unions court does not affect the client has three years yes sure of the client never had the opportunity to see the document so there was no meeting of the minds because the client never saw the document in order again that's really thought it didn't show them the documents and show them the which was how to comply with the and you know right to work statute that day the company said your proposed language is fine upon that point there was a meeting of the minds are already in effect could you speak a little  throughout the entire collective bargaining process throughout the entire collective bargaining process your honor if there is never a question that company council was the authorized parking agent for much of the bargaining what is due do you think dick got drunk  union stating your language is fine and the moment he did that your honor the two parties agree to the final substantive issue in the collective bargaining agreement and the moment that that happens the two parties reached a meeting of the minds on all substantive issues in the collective bargaining agreement therefore poly kind of violating the national labor relations act when it refused to execute the collective bargaining agreement to which it had already agreed with the union the board's finding is supported by substantial evidence through analyzing events both before as well as during and after this may third two thousand and thirteen date before may third if the two parties had reached a meeting of the minds on all substantive issues except for at the right to work statute as early as january of two thousand and thirteen and in the ensuing four months polly cond ever objected to any of those other issues and only raise concerns about a typo regarding vacation time and the right to work statute had polychondritis to go back in renegotiate any of those issues to which i had already agreed it would have evidence to bad faith bargaining under the national labor relations act the fact that poly cunt didn't do that further supply is evidence that when it agreed with the union the union security cause the two parties reached a meeting of the minds once the parties agreed to this issue all further communications related to mere formatting issues in the collective bargaining agreements minor alterations to a collective bargaining agreement don't undermine a previously established meeting of the minds so when polly connor requested a review of a written documents it's not trying to introduce a new condition precedent to the greenman because the parties had already reached a meeting of the minds in that sense this case is virtually identical to a previous case before this court and be the general teamsters local six six two in that case the final issue that the parties agreed upon was a quid pro quo where the company agreed that it would guarantee employment for four workers who had gone on strike in addition to the union no longer using fo listed employees as part of its employee representative committee the union agreed with the company's proposed let's propose language and then said they would submit the entire collective bargaining agreement for edification when the union later refused to execute the quid pro quo by claiming that didn't submit that part to ratification the court ruled against the unions argument and found that once there was a meeting of the minds the union could not introduce a new condition precedent to the agreements this case is identical because once the company stated your proposed language is fine its request for review of the written document doesn't create a new condition precedent to the meeting of the minds because there's already been an agreement on all substantive issues initial matter of section ten each of the national labor relations act bars poly con from raising any issues before the courts that it didn't previously raise before the board even if this issue were to be consider it is worth noting that  contract law has nothing to do with this case the duty to collectively bargain arises from section eight d of the act and therefore the federal statute and not state law govern this dispute poly then somehow petition has been filed before the board more importantly poly comes reluctance to sign a document with typographical errors is of no benefit to its case this is a risk that a party faces when signing any contract under any contract law regime is also worth noting that between it may have two thousand and thirteen and now poly com hasn't raised any other type of graphical errors or any other disputes in the document of the collective bargaining agreement that's been submitted to its indicating that there's probably no errors of that kind it's also worth noting that article seven of the collective bargaining agreement to which the parties have agreed includes a dispute resolution grievance procedure through which the parties could arbitrate any disagreements about the of the collective bargaining agreement if during the term of the agreements there is a dispute then poly con can have an arbitrator away the text of that agreement again some kind of bargain in history finally the companies brief nowhere mention the contract bar rule under this rule which the board has long impose and has been applied by this court a cut a collective bargaining agreement prevents the decertification petition from being considered for the life of the contract or three years whichever is shorter you know hasn't you rebuttable presumption of majority status during that time the moment the contract there for the moment there was a meeting of the minds on the third the decertification petition filed on may twenty second doesn't invalidate the previously established meeting of the minds if this court has no further questions then the board respectfully request that the court you clear that with them before you're sent that the client was relying on me to write draft proposal so i did not clear it before right before i sent it because the client was relying on me to make sure that the contract was in conformity with the so you client why not you're there lawyer when we were sitting at the collective bargaining again we were sitting in collective bargaining together with the client there with the c f o with me the client was there and i had the authority to negotiate what i thought was agreeable language to the client on behalf of the client and to submit it to the client for ultimate review and signature that was consistent with mr berkowitz his email to me when he sent me the document who said he had no a by didn't you why didn't you clear your language fine with pollack on given your proximity to it before you sent that  because the client would have relied on my advice as to whether or not the language of dealing with the way you secured act but first you say if you have to clear it with them now you say there's no you didn't have to clear it vance because the company trust ok for you to tell him that language is fine because there i was dealing with a with a particularly legal issue that the client would have no night on it you can't have it both ways you say you had to get approval afterwards but if you got an approval before a lot of confusion and and and and disagreement would have been a void that it was it's not company would have said that's fine or that's no good right didn't clear this with your client once more and even though you regarded this crucial fight you're not going to win so i get i agree i understand i had no authority to bind the client to the first to their first ever collective bargain you understand i had authority to negotiate the language that was a peculiarly legal nature we were in the process of trying to get a draft together so that the draft could be submitted to the client that process was contemplated in this to berkeley which is he mail when he sent me that when he sent me the draft agreement we were going to review it and then and then we were going to some initial each page because we had spent two and a half years  collective bargaining and things had changed over two and a half years if you look for instance at the draft agreement what you'll see is that there was no pay increase in the collective bargaining agreement there were things that had occurred over two and a half years that needed to be addressed and that was going to occur after that after we concluded the language negotiation with regard to the right to work statute just as with any with any contract the lawyer is negotiating the contract within certain general parameters that are that are expressed by the client ultimately when a draft is produced that document is reviewed with the client to make sure that the client that's ultimately negotiated by virtue of the back and forth reflects the