Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_07-cv-02443/USCOURTS-caed-2_07-cv-02443-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Amerisourcebergen Corporation
Defendant
Teamsters Local 150
Plaintiff

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1

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

TEAMSTERS LOCAL 150, No. 2:07-cv-02443-MCE-GGH

Plaintiff,

v. MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

AMERISOURCEBERGEN CORPORATION

and DOES I through IX,

inclusive,

Defendants.

----oo0oo----

Plaintiff Teamsters Local 150 (“Plaintiff” or “Union”)

brings the present Motion to Compel Arbitration on grounds that

one of its members, Dennis Kipker, an employee of

AmerisourceBergen Corporation (“Defendant”) was removed from his

position with Defendant in violation of a Collective Bargaining

Agreement to which both Plaintiff and Defendant were parties. 

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 Because oral argument will not be of material assistance, 1

the Court orders this matter submitted on the briefs. E.D. Cal.

Local Rule 78-230(h). 

2

In response to the subsequent grievance and request for

arbitration under the terms of the CBA, Defendant argued that a

side agreement with Plaintiff exempted Kipker’s grievance from

arbitration. As set forth below, the Court disagrees and will

accordingly grant Plaintiff’s Petition.1

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Teamsters Local 150 and Defendant

AmerisourceBergen Corporation are parties to a Collective

Bargaining Agreement (“CBA”) for employees of Defendant’s

Sacramento facility. (Notice of Removal, Ex. A.) Article 10 of

the CBA addresses the grievance procedure and arbitration. The

CBA directs employees to attempt to settle a grievance first with

the Warehouse Superintendent or Division Manager, then with the

Management and Union Grievance Board, and finally through an

American Arbitration Association arbiter. Id. Article 13.1

addresses seniority, requiring that “the last employee hired

shall be the first employee laid off, and in rehiring, the last

employee laid off shall be the first employee rehired, until the

list of former employees is exhausted.” Id. 

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3

On August 31, 2006, and January 29, 2007, Plaintiff Union

filed two grievances concerning the use of temporary agency

employees at Defendant’s Sacramento facility. The parties

reached a compromise, memorialized in a May 4, 2007 side

agreement (“Agreement”). Id. Defendant agreed to post five

inventory positions, one shipping position, four OVS positions,

three so-called “slot info” positions, two janitor positions, and

one tote induction position. Id. Defendant further pledged to

notify union employees who had been laid off between August 2006

and May 4, 2007 of these sixteen open positions. Id. Defendant

agreed to consider these former employees before “utilizing

outside recruiting.” Id. Paragraph two of the Agreement

nonetheless states that the positions enumerated above “will be

awarded by aptitude, performance, and overall qualifications and

will not [be] subject to seniority,” and that “[t]he selection of

candidates and awarding of these positions will not be subject to

the grievance and arbitration process.” Id. A footnote at the

end of the Agreement makes it clear, however, that already

existing slot info positions would remain subject to the

provisions of the CBA, stating as follows:

To clarify, the existing three slot info position[s]

will remain in the bargaining unit and will be awarded

on the basis of qualifications and seniority. In the

event that qualifications are equal seniority will

prevail. Any additional slot info positions that may

be added in the future will be awarded based on

qualifications.

Id.

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4

Dennis Kipker has been an AmerisourceBergen Corporation

employee since June 3, 1991. He was awarded a slot info position

in September 2006, well before the May 4, 2007 Agreement was

signed. Mr. Kipker was removed from his slot info position on

August 27, 2007, and he filed a grievance with Plaintiff the same

day. (Skjelstad Decl. Ex. F.) He claimed his seniority rights

had been violated.

In a letter dated September 6, 2007, Terry Skjelstad,

Plaintiff’s business representative, requested that the

Management and Union Grievance Board convene under Article 10.2

of the CBA to address Mr. Kipker’s grievance. (Howie Decl. Ex.

C.) In a September 7, 2007 letter, Ken Howie, Defendant’s Human

Resource Manager, declined Plaintiff’s requests to convene a

meeting of the Union Grievance Board and to arbitrate. (Howie

Decl. Ex. D.) The letter indicates this decision was based on

Defendant’s understanding of the Agreement. Id.

Plaintiff filed a Petition to Compel Arbitration on October

2, 2007 in Sacramento County Superior Court. Defendant removed

the case to the United States District Court for the Eastern

District of California on November 9, 2007. Plaintiff’s

previously filed Petition was thereafter renoticed before this

Court.

STANDARD

When a contract contains an arbitration clause, there is a

presumption that the matter will be submitted to arbitration. 

AT&T Techs., Inc. v. Comm’s. Workers of Am., 475 U.S. 643, 650 (1986).

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5

 “An order to arbitrate . . . 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.” United Steelworkers of Am. v. Warrior & Gulf

Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 582-83 (1960). Any doubts should

be resolved in favor of arbitration. Id. at 583. In making this

determination, a court looks only at whether the parties agreed

to arbitrate the claim, not to the merits of the claim itself. 

AT&T Techs. Inc., 475 U.S. at 649-50.

ANALYSIS

Plaintiff and Defendant entered the Agreement “[i]n an

effort to reach a compromise . . . concerning the use of

[temporary] agency employees.” (Notice of Removal Ex. A.) 

Defendant agreed to post sixteen new positions and advertise them

to union employees who had been laid off from August 2006 through

May 4, 2007. Id. The open posts included five inventory

positions, one shipping position, four OVS positions, three slot

info positions, two janitor positions, and one tote induction

position. Id. At the time of the Agreement, no union members

occupied the inventory, shipping, OVS, janitor, and tote

induction positions. (Pl.’s Reply Br. 6:18-19.).

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 Both the Agreement (Notice of Removal Ex. A) and 2

Plaintiff’s Reply Brief (Pl.’s Reply Br. 6:22-23) indicate that

three slot info positions were in existence as of May 4, 2007. 

Mr. Kipker’s grievance, however, states that four people worked

on the slot information crew as of August 22, 2007. (Skjelstad

Decl. Ex. F.) It is unclear whether the fourth slot info

position was in existence as of May 4, 2007 and inadvertently

omitted in the Agreement, or whether the position was added

between May 4 and August 22. For the purposes of this analysis,

it matters only that Mr. Kipker occupied one of the slot info

positions before May 4, 2007.

6

Dennis Kipker was one of three incumbents who occupied the

slot info positions at the time of the Agreement. (Pl.’s Reply

Br. 6:22-24.) The footnote to the Agreement, as enumerated

above, explains how the Agreement would affect the three existing

slot info positions, which union members already occupied, as

opposed to the thirteen other posted positions, which union

members did not already occupy.

A plain reading of the footnote also indicates that its

terms apply to future slot info hires and not to the three union

members already occupying those positions at the time of the

Agreement. The first sentence of the footnote states that the

three existing slot info positions “will remain in the 2

bargaining unit.” Although “bargaining unit” is not specifically

defined, it unquestionably refers to the CBA. In short, the

terms of the CBA would continue to govern those three slot info

positions, and anyone hired to fill them in the future. The use

of the future tense (“will remain in the bargaining unit and will

be awarded on the basis of qualifications and seniority”)

suggests that the terms of the Agreement apply only to employees

replacing Mr. Kipker and the other existing slot info incumbents

at some point in the future.

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7

Arguably, a closer question is whether the parties, in

stating that the three existing slot info positions were to

“remain in the bargaining unit,” intended those positions to

continue to be subject to all terms of the CBA (including the

grievance and arbitration process) or just to the terms of the

CBA not in conflict with the Agreement (excluding the grievance

and arbitration process). The use of a conjunction (“will remain

in the bargaining unit and will be awarded on the basis of

qualifications and seniority”), however, answers this question in

favor of the first interpretation. Any future employees to be

placed in the existing slot info positions will be subject to the

provisions of the CBA, including the award of such positions

based on “qualifications and seniority.” With regard to the

existing three slot info positions, if the reference that such

positions “will remain in the bargaining unit” is to have any

meaning in relation to the fact that the positions “will be

awarded on the basis of qualifications and seniority,” the first

phrase must indicate that the three existing slot info positions

are subject to grievance and arbitration.

Even if the footnote’s language is ambiguous as to the terms

of employment for future union members occupying the three

existing slot info positions, which the Court does not believe to

be the case, nothing in the Agreement suggests it altered the

incumbents’ terms of employment. As noted, the use of the future

tense implies that the footnote applies only to future occupants

of the three slot info positions. 

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8

Mr. Kipker was awarded a slot info position in September 2006 –

eight months before the parties executed the Agreement - and is

therefore not a future occupant of the position.

The use of the term “candidate” in paragraph two further

suggests that Mr. Kipker is not subject to the terms of the

Agreement. Paragraph two states that “[t]he selection of

candidates and awarding of these positions will not be subject to

the grievance and arbitration process.” “Candidate” suggests

either a new employee or a current employee in another position

considered for one of the sixteen named positions. Mr. Kipker

was neither; he was already an employee on the slot information

crew at the time of the Agreement.

Moreover, the Agreement does not prevent an employee removed

from one of the three existing slot info positions from partaking

in the grievance and arbitration process. The Agreement requires

only that the “selection of candidates,” “awarding of positions,”

and “hiring procedure set forth in paragraph three” not be

subject to grievances and arbitration. Mr. Kipker’s complaint

focuses not on his appointment to the slot info position, but on

his removal. “I was notified today . . . that I would lose my

bid position on the slot information crew.” (Skjelstad Decl.

Ex. F.) The terms of the Agreement are therefore not even

applicable to his particular circumstances.

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9

Defendant contends that “accepting the Union’s obtuse

interpretation of paragraph two and the asterisk would force the

court to render completely meaningless the parties’ agreed-upon

language that ‘[t]he selection of candidates and awarding of

these positions will not be subject to the grievance and

arbitration process.’” (Def.’s Mem. P. & A. in Opp’n to Pet.

5:20-23.) Finding that the incumbents occupying slot info

positions may still partake in the grievance and arbitration

process does not render the quote from paragraph two meaningless. 

As discussed, the use of a conjunction in “will remain in the

bargaining unit and will be awarded on the basis of

qualifications and seniority” indicates not only that future

employees occupying the existing slot info positions would be

awarded the positions based on “qualifications and seniority,”

but also that some additional CBA provisions, distinguishable

from those under paragraph two, must apply. Contrary to

Defendant’s assertion, finding that the grievance and arbitration

process is still available to the slot info incumbents renders

both paragraph two and the footnote meaningful.

Finally, any remaining doubts as to the meaning of paragraph

two and the footnote should be resolved in favor of arbitration.

“An order to arbitrate . . . 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.” United Steelworkers of Am. v. Warrior & Gulf

Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 582-83 (1960). 

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10

That it can by no means be said with “positive assurance” that

paragraph two and the footnote expressly prohibit Mr. Kipker and

the other slot info position incumbents from participating in the

grievance and arbitration process is yet another reason why the

instant dispute is properly subject to arbitration.

CONCLUSION

Dennis Kipker was awarded his slot info position eight

months before the parties entered the Agreement, and neither the

second paragraph of the Agreement nor the footnote suggest that

employees occupying the slot info positions at the time of the

Agreement are precluded from partaking in the grievance and

arbitration process. Moreover, it cannot be said with positive

assurance that paragraph two and the footnote are “not

susceptible of an interpretation that covers the asserted

dispute.” Id. Thus, the presumption that the matter should be

submitted to arbitration applies. For these reasons, Plaintiff’s

Petition to Compel Arbitration is granted.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: May 1, 2008

_____________________________

MORRISON C. ENGLAND, JR.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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