Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-00-07045/USCOURTS-caDC-00-07045-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 720
Nature of Suit: Labor Management Relations Act
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 8, 2000 Decided December 8, 2000

No. 00-7045

Washington Mailers Union No. 29,

Affiliated with Communications Workers of America,

Appellant

v.

Washington Post Company,

Appellee

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

District of Columbia

(99cv01044)

Richard Rosenblatt argued the cause for appellant. With

him on the briefs was Mark F. Wilson.

Willis J. Goldsmith argued the cause and filed the brief for

appellee.

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Before: Tatel and Garland, Circuit Judges, and

Silberman, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

Silberman.

Silberman, Senior Circuit Judge: The Washington Mailers

Union brought suit in federal district court seeking to compel

the Washington Post to arbitrate a dispute concerning the job

security provision of the collective bargaining agreement.

The court granted the Post's motion for summary judgment.

It concluded that the issue was related to an area of management discretion and refused to order arbitration. We reverse.

I.

The Washington Post publishes a daily newspaper. The

Washington Mailers Union No. 29 is the collective bargaining

representative of the Post's mailing room employees. The

Union represents both mailers, who operate the machinery

which collates and places inserts into the newspaper, and

helpers, who perform materials-handling functions. When

the time for the expiration of the prior collective bargaining

agreement neared, the Union and the Post began negotiations, and they entered into a new agreement in 1998. Section 5 of the agreement allows for a grievance to be filed

"[w]henever there is a disagreement involving an alleged

violation of a specific provision of this Agreement, including a

controversy over any form of discipline or discharge." If the

parties cannot resolve the grievance, s 5(d) provides for

arbitration, but also limits the arbitrator's authority: "The

arbitrator shall not have the authority to amend or modify or

to add to or subtract from the provisions of this Agreement,

nor shall matters left unrestricted by a specific provision of

this Agreement or left to the discretion of the Publisher be

subject to arbitration."

Throughout the year, the Post analyzes production needs

and other factors to determine the minimum number of

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"situations" (jobs)1 for both mailers and helpers needed to

handle production volume during the period. After such

determinations, the Post provides the Union with a mailroom

work schedule (the "mark-up") of available shifts for the

designated number of mailers and helpers. The mailers and

helpers included in each mark-up, referred to as situationholders, then select their fixed, five-day-a-week schedules in

order of seniority. The employees work these schedules for

the duration of the mark-up. The Post fills additional labor

needs, which vary depending on production and employee

absences, with mailer and helper "substitutes." Substitutes

are on-call employees to whom the Post offers, on a weekly

basis, up to five shifts per week. But substitutes are not

guaranteed five shifts a week.

In November 1998, the Post announced a new mark-up,

effective January 1999, which reduced the number of helper

situations from 144 to 122; the result was that 22 helpers no

longer had fixed five-day-a-week schedules. Instead, these

employees were offered on "a regular weekly basis, the

opportunity to work no fewer than five shifts each week"--

which means they would not know in advance their weekly

schedule. The Union filed a grievance claiming that this

change violated s 6(f)(1), which provides:

All situation holders actively working at The Post as of

April 5, 1998 as Mailers or Mailroom Helpers, and whose

names appear on the Job Security Rosters attached as

Appendices B and C, will be guaranteed regular, fulltime positions as Mailers or Helpers for the term of this

Agreement without layoff, unless they vacate the same

through retirement, resignation, death, or discharge for

cause....

The Union contended that this term-of-contract job security

provision guaranteed situations to the then-number of mailers

and helpers. It was claimed that 13 of the 22 employees

__________

1 The parties agree that a "situation" is a fixed five-day-a-week

work schedule.

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denied situations were among those covered by the guarantee

of regular employment under s 6(f)(1).

The Post refused to arbitrate the grievance, maintaining

that arbitration of the employer's determination as to the

number of situations was expressly precluded by s 13(a). It

states:

The Publisher shall determine the number of regular

situations to meet minimum production requirements;

provided, the Publisher shall take into consideration the

number of extra shifts hired at the Publisher's option due

to sickness, vacations, jury duty, compassionate leave,

and any other relevant factors. In the event of a dispute

arising under this paragraph, the Union may grieve such

dispute, but the dispute shall not be subject to arbitration.

The Union countered that the agreement allows for arbitration if a violation of a specific provision of the agreement is

alleged, and it claimed that the separate guarantee of "regular" employment in s 6(f)(1) had been violated by denying

situations to the 13 covered workers. The Union emphasized

that it was not challenging the denial of situations to the nine

helpers, designated as substitutes, who were not employed at

the time the agreement went into effect and thus not covered

by s 6(f)(1). The Union conceded that these nine employees'

situations were nonarbitrable under s 13(a) because they

were not covered by the specific provision of s 6(f)(1).

The Union brought suit in federal district court under

s 301(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 29

U.S.C. s 185(a) (1994), seeking to compel arbitration. The

parties stipulated to the facts and filed cross-motions for

summary judgment. The district court granted summary

judgment for the Post concluding that s 13(a) "unambiguously removes disputes about the number of situations from

[arbitration]." The court reasoned that whether s 6(f)(1)

guarantees a situation for the 13 covered employees might

have been arbitrable if s 13(a) did not exist. The Union

appealed.

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II.

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment

de novo. See Yamaha Corp. of Am. v. United States, 961

F.2d 245, 254 (D.C. Cir. 1992). The determination of whether

a dispute is arbitrable under a collective bargaining agreement is a question of law for the court, unless the parties

unmistakably agree to submit the issue of arbitrability to

arbitration. AT&T Techs., Inc. v. Communications Workers,

475 U.S. 643, 649, 106 S. Ct. 1415, 1418-19 (1986). But, "in

deciding whether the parties have agreed to submit a particular grievance to arbitration, a court is not to rule on the

potential merits of the underlying claims." Id. And if a

contract includes an arbitration clause, a presumption of

arbitrability arises, meaning "[a]n order to arbitrate the

particular grievance should not be denied unless it may be

said with positive assurance that the arbitration clause is not

susceptible of an interpretation that covers the asserted

dispute. Doubts should be resolved in favor of coverage."

Id. at 650, 106 S. Ct. at 1419 (internal quotation marks

omitted) (alteration in original) (quoting United Steelworkers

v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 582-83, 80

S. Ct. 1347, 1353 (1960)).

As noted, the Union seeks to compel arbitration of its

grievance that the Post violated the specific guarantee of

"regular, full-time" employment provided by s 6(f)(1) of the

agreement when it denied mark-up situations to 13 employees

covered by s 6(f)(1). The Post relies on s 13(a), which it

asserts positively excludes this dispute--relating to the number of situations--from arbitration as entirely within the

management's discretion. Section 6(f)(1) does not limit this

discretion because "regular, full-time positions" does not

mean situations.

The Post at the onset argues that the grievance did not

really allege violations of s 6(f)(1) but only challenged the

number of situations, the very decision precluded from arbitration under s 13(a). The Post relies heavily on the Union's

stipulation that the grievance "directly resulted from" and

would not have been filed "but for" the Post's decision to

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reduce the number of situations.2 But the Union did not

challenge the mark-up per se, rather its effect on the 13

employees it alleged have superior rights under s (6)(f)(1).

The Union's legal claim only arose when those 13 employees

were negatively affected. That the mark-up was an anterior

cause of the grievance is hardly reason to conclude that the

Union's legal claim is focused on the mark-up. That is

equivalent to contending that if a union member complained

about the situations in the mark-up and was fired for his

complaints, he could not grieve his dismissal under a "just

cause" provision because his dismissal stemmed from the

mark-up.

It is apparent that the underlying dispute really turns on

the interpretation of "regular, full-time positions" in s 6(f)(1).

The Union claims it means that these 13 employees are

entitled to situations; whereas the Post contends that as long

as they are offered any five days in a week that is sufficient.

It would appear that the proper interpretation of this section,

which resolves the issue in this case, goes to the merits of the

grievance and is not for us to decide. As the Supreme Court

warned, "the court should view with suspicion an attempt to

persuade it to become entangled in the construction of the

substantive provisions of a labor agreement ... when the

alternative is to utilize the services of an arbitrator." Warrior & Gulf, 363 U.S. at 585, 80 S. Ct. at 1354.

Nevertheless, the Post contends the argument to send this

dispute to the arbitrator is necessarily to give the arbitrator

authority to decide arbitrability-a question reserved for the

court in this case. To be sure, by interpreting s 6(f)(1), the

__________

2 The first grievance actually stated that it involved "the recent

helper mark-up" because "[t]his mark-up contains a total of 122 jobs

which is in violation of 'job security roster section' [6(f)(1)] in the

contract" and the second grievance stated that it concerned the

employer's violation of s 6(f)(1), which provides that the designated

mailers will be "guaranteed regular, full-time positions," because

"[a]s a result of The Post's action in establishing the new mark-up

... employees whose names are on the Job Security Rosters will be

laid off from their regular, full-time positions and reduced to

substitute status."

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arbitrator may implicitly decide the arbitrability issue, but

that outcome is inherent when the specific rights-based provision of the agreement is tied to the issue of arbitrability and

not only to the issue of rights. When such a situation occurs,

unless the issue is clearly excluded from arbitration, the

interpretation of the rights-based provision should be left to

the arbitrator. Cf. Ceres Marine Terminals, Inc. v. Int'l

Longshoremen's Ass'n, Local 1969, 683 F.2d 242, 244 (7th Cir.

1982) ("[W]here a collective bargaining agreement is ambiguous regarding the effect of its arbitration provisions, doubts

should be resolved in favor of arbitration.").

Section 13(a) is hardly an unequivocal indication that a

grievance filed regarding the meaning of s 6(f)(1) is not

arbitrable. Section 13(a) does state that "The Publisher shall

determine the number of regular situations to meet minimum

production requirements.... In the event of a dispute arising under this paragraph, the Union may grieve such dispute,

but the dispute shall not be subject to arbitration." But

s 6(f)(1) specifically provides that "[a]ll situation holders actively working at The Post as of April 5, 1998 as Mailers or

Mailroom Helpers, and whose names appear on the Job

Security Rosters attached as Appendices B and C, will be

guaranteed regular, full-time positions as Mailers or Helpers

for the term of this Agreement." These provisions undoubtedly--at least on their face--create some tension. As the

Union points out, that is so because accepting the Post's

reading of the scope of s 13(a) and its relation to s 6(f)(1)

arguably could make the guarantee provision meaningless.

See Communications Workers v. AT&T Co., 40 F.3d 426, 435

(D.C. Cir. 1994) (concluding that a dispute was arbitrable by

refusing to read one provision as rendering a conflicting

provision a nullity). Given the tension, it is certainly plausible to read s 6(f)(1) as a specific restriction overriding the

general language of s 13(a)-indeed, it may be the more

persuasive reading. Ceres Marine Terminals, 683 F.2d at

244.3

__________

3 The cases the Post cites are inapposite in this case. See, e.g.,

Local Union 1393 Int'l Bhd. of Elec. Workers v. Utils. Dist. of W.

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Even if the language were thought ambiguous, the Post

claims that the bargaining history of the agreement is forceful evidence that disputes relating to the number of situations

were not subject to arbitration. The Post points out that

under the prior collective bargaining agreement the Union

attempted to arbitrate the Post's decision to reduce the

number of situations in the mark-up. As a result, the Post's

objectives in negotiating the present agreement included "to

eliminate or narrow the Union's ability to challenge, in arbitration, The Post's exercise of its management rights" in the

areas of work assignments, hiring employees, and scheduling

employees. Accordingly, the Post obtained a revision of the

grievance and arbitration provisions to narrow the definition

of grievance and to exclude from arbitration "matters left

unrestricted by a specific provision of this Agreement or left

to the discretion of the Publisher." The Post also notes that

originally s 13(a) included "discretion" language for the purpose of making decisions concerning the number of situations

nonarbitrable, and the Union, through its representative,

"stated [its] understanding that this 'discretion' language

excluded the matter to which it referred from arbitration."

Though this language was replaced with the express statement that the section would not be arbitrable, the Union

admitted that it understood the agreed-upon language to have

the same meaning as "discretion." We are not persuaded by

the Post's resort to bargaining history. Section 6(f)(1) was

negotiated and added to the agreement after s 13(a), and the

parties did not specifically focus on the interrelation between

the two provisions.

The reasoning of the Seventh Circuit in Local 75, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. Schreiber Foods, Inc., 213

F.3d 376 (7th Cir. 2000), is instructive. There the court

determined that the union's grievance over scheduling was

__________

Ind. Rural Elec. Membership Coop., 167 F.3d 1181, 1184 (7th Cir.

1999); Gen. Drivers, Local Union No. 509 v. Ethyl Corp., 68 F.3d

80, 84-85 (4th Cir. 1995); Int'l Ass'n of Machinists and Aerospace

Workers, Progressive Lodge No. 1000 v. Gen. Elec. Co., 865 F.2d

902, 906-07 (7th Cir. 1989). The Union has presented us with an

arbitrable clause that is expressly and specifically addressed to the

grievance.

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arbitrable because, under at least one reasonable reading of

the agreement, the employer's discretion over the scheduling

was limited, restricted by another provision of the agreement

limiting scheduling to "reasonable times and frequencies."

Id. at 378-80. In this case as well, the agreement easily

bears the interpretation the Union asserts. And even the

Post conceded at oral argument that if we concluded the

arguments made by both sides as to the proper reading of the

contract were at least equally plausible then we must direct

the district court to order arbitration. It is not even certain,

then, that we must rely on the presumption of arbitrability

created by the existence of an arbitration clause to do so in

this case.4 But in any event that presumption does arise, and

therefore we think appellant easily prevails.

Having been filed under s 6(f)(1), the grievance is arbitrable and any tension between s 6(f)(1) and s 13(a), as stated,

is for the arbitrator to resolve. The decision of the district

court is reversed.

So ordered.

__________

4 The Post argues that the presumption cases are inapplicable

because they involve the construction of a "broad" arbitration

clause. We disagree. While the fact that the arbitration clause in

this case is not broad--limiting grievances to allegations of "violation of a specific provision of this Agreement"--is relevant to our

inquiry, it does not negate the presumption of arbitrability. See

Int'l Bhd. of Elec. Workers, Local 2188 v. W. Elec. Co., 661 F.2d

514, 516 n.3 (5th Cir. Unit A Nov. 1981).

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