*The HONORABLE THOMAS M. REAVLEY, United States Circuit Judge

for the Fifth Circuit, sitting by designation.

 The HONORABLE HENRY WOODS, United States District Judge for 1

the Eastern District of Arkansas.

___________

No. 95-2093

___________

International Brotherhood of *

Teamsters, Chauffeurs, *

Warehousemen, and Helpers of *

America, Local 878, *

* Appeal from the United States

Plaintiff - Appellee, * District Court for the

* Eastern District of Arkansas.

v. *

*

Commercial Warehouse Company, *

*

Defendant - Appellant. *

___________

 Submitted: January 10, 1996

 Filed: May 24, 1996

___________

Before LOKEN, REAVLEY, and HANSEN, Circuit Judges. *

___________

LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

Teamsters Local 878 (the "Union") brought this action under § 301 of

the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185, to enforce an

arbitrator's award in favor of Charles Keller against his former employer,

Commercial Warehouse Company ("CWC"). The arbitrator found that CWC had

just cause to discharge Keller but awarded three months back pay for CWC's

failure to follow proper discharge and grievance procedures. CWC appeals

the district court's decisions to enforce the arbitrator's award and to

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deny CWC's motion to join Keller in the lawsuit. We affirm.
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I.

On September 26, 1992, Keller suffered an on-the-job accident that

damaged CWC property, his second such accident in eight months. Keller was

suspended pending a drug test. CWC learned on October 2 that he had tested

positive for cocaine metabolites and immediately informed Keller that he

would be discharged. Article 5 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement

("CBA") between CWC and the Union provided:

[CWC] shall not discharge or take any other disciplinary action

as respects any employee without just cause . . . . No

[written] warning needs to be given to an employee prior to

discharge if the cause of such discharge is . . . [being] under

the influence of . . . drugs while on duty . . . . Discharge

must be by proper written notice. 

On October 8, the Union wrote CWC, asking that Keller be reinstated

and requesting the chain of custody for the urine sample that had tested

positive for cocaine. CWC responded with a written notice of termination

to Keller and a letter to the Union that neither disclosed the chain of

custody nor specified the reason for the discharge. On October 16, CWC and

the Union submitted Keller's grievance to arbitration. Despite repeated

Union inquiries, not until the January 1993 arbitration hearing did CWC

disclose the chain of custody documentation and clarify that Keller was

fired because of the drug test rather than the property damage. 

Following the hearing, the arbitrator upheld Keller's discharge,

finding sufficient evidence of a dischargeable drug offense despite

Keller's evidence of two later negative drug tests. However, the

arbitrator also found that CWC had violated the CBA because "[t]he Company

was needlessly resistant and uncooperative in facing up to its duty to

cooperate with the Union in processing the grievance and arbitration."

CWC's "procedural irregularities" "impeded the proper preparation of

[Keller's] case up to the very
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day of the arbitration hearing." Therefore, the arbitrator awarded Keller

back pay from the date of discharge to January 15, 1993, when the

arbitration hearing began. The Union sued to enforce that award, and CWC

moved to join a claim against Keller for the property damage resulting from

the accident. CWC now appeals the district court's adverse rulings. 

II.

Federal labor law favors resolving disputes arising under a

collective bargaining agreement through arbitration. To promote this

policy, federal courts defer to an arbitrator's interpretation of the

agreement so long as the arbitrator has not ignored its plain language.

See United Paperworkers Int'l Union v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 36-38

(1987). Thus, the scope of our review of the arbitrator's back pay award

is limited to determining whether that award "draws its essence" from the

CBA. International Woodworkers v. Weyerhaeuser Co., 7 F.3d 133, 135 (8th

Cir. 1993) (quotation omitted), cert. denied, 114 S. Ct. 2135 (1994).

The arbitrator construed Article 5 of the CBA as requiring notice to

the Union of CWC's reasons for discharge and cooperation with the Union in

processing the resulting grievance through arbitration. The arbitrator

found a breach of these duties. This decision was clearly within his power

to resolve the discharge grievance before him. A grievance is expressly

defined in the CBA as a dispute "about the meaning, application, or

compliance with the provisions of this Agreement," and we have long

recognized that "just cause" discipline provisions "may imply procedural

as well as substantive requirements." Chauffeurs Local Union No. 878 v.

Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 613 F.2d 716, 719 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 446

U.S. 988 (1980).

Although CWC suggests that the arbitrator erred in finding that CWC

breached contractual duties to cooperate with the Union --
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a contention we reject as totally without merit -- CWC primarily argues

that the arbitrator lacked authority to award Keller back pay for CWC's

"procedural irregularities." First, CWC argues that the award is not

compensatory and therefore violates the rule that punitive awards must be

expressly authorized by the CBA. See International Ass'n of Heat & Frost

Insulators, Local 34 v. General Pipe Covering, Inc., 792 F.2d 96, 100 (8th

Cir. 1986). However, this was not a punitive award -- the arbitrator

compensated Keller because CWC's breach of the CBA "impeded the proper

preparation of [Keller's] case up to the very day of the arbitration

hearing." 

When a party's procedural recalcitrance unjustifiably increases the

costs of litigation, federal courts may award an aggrieved party the

reasonable expenses thereby incurred, whether or not those expenses were

in fact paid by the aggrieved party's attorneys, or even an absent

stakeholder. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(4), (b)(2). Likewise, in this

arbitration under the federal labor laws, it was appropriate to award such

monetary relief in favor of the grievant, Keller, even if the Union as

Keller's representative in the grievance and arbitration process incurred

the increased costs resulting from CWC's recalcitrance. Moreover, to the

extent CWC's "procedural irregularities" delayed the arbitration process,

Keller's work status remained in limbo. CWC does not contend that back pay

from the date of Keller's discharge to the arbitration hearing was an

unreasonable approximation of the real -- albeit hard to measure and rather

limited -- damages caused by CWC's breach of its procedural obligations

under the CBA. We conclude that the arbitrator made a legitimate attempt

to fashion a compensatory remedy that must therefore be enforced.

CWC also contends that the award should not be enforced because the

arbitrator improperly reduced CWC's discipline for Keller's violation of

a "well-defined and dominant public policy" against on-the-job drug abuse.

Union Pacific R.R. Co. v. United Transp. Union, 3 F.3d 255, 261 (8th Cir.

1993), cert. denied, 114
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S. Ct. 881 (1994). We disagree. The arbitrator did not order Keller

reinstated nor suggest that discharge was an inappropriate sanction for

drug-impaired operation of CWC's equipment. Thus, CWC's reliance on St.

Louis Theatrical Co. v. St. Louis Theatrical Bhd. Local 6, 715 F.2d 405

(8th Cir. 1983), is misplaced because the arbitrator did not exceed his

authority by second-guessing CWC's decision that Keller's drug abuse

warranted discharge. Rather, the arbitrator awarded limited compensation

for CWC's separate procedural violations of the CBA, not the sort of

retrospective approval of Keller's conduct that would violate the nation's

public policy against on-the-job drug abuse. See Exxon Corp. v. Baton

Rouge Oil & Chem. Workers Union, 77 F.3d 850, 856 (5th Cir. 1996). The

award must be enforced.

III.

CWC also appeals the denial of its motion to join Keller in the

lawsuit so that CWC could assert its property damage claim against him.

Joinder of an additional party is mandatory only in the circumstances

described in Fed. R. Civ. P. 19(a). Neither subpart of that Rule is

applicable here. Failure to join Keller does not prevent complete relief

between the Union and CWC on the Union's suit to enforce the arbitrator's

award. See Gwartz v. Jefferson Memorial Hosp. Ass'n, 23 F.3d 1426, 1428

(8th Cir. 1994) (the focus of Rule 19(a)(1) "is on relief between the

parties and not on the speculative possibility of further litigation

between a party and an absent person"). And Keller's absence neither

impairs his ability to protect his interests nor exposes CWC to the risk

of multiple or inconsistent obligations. See Rule 19(a)(2).

Because Keller's joinder was not mandatory, the district court did

not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to join. Although CWC's

property damage claim may well be subject to arbitration under the CBA, the

agreement did not require CWC to present this claim in the Union's

arbitration on behalf of Keller,
 We reject the Union's contention that CWC has waived or is

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collaterally estopped to pursue its claim against Keller for

damaging CWC property. The property damage claim was not a defense

to the Union's arbitration claim, CWC did not present this claim to

the arbitrator, and property damage issues were not decided. Nor

did CWC withhold information relevant to the fashioning of an

appropriate remedy for the Union's grievance, as the employer did

in United Food & Commercial Workers Local 100A v. John Hofmeister

& Son, Inc., 950 F.2d 1340, 1344-45 (7th Cir. 1991). 

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and the arbitrator's award did not affect the property damage claim. In 2

these circumstances, the fact that CWC would belatedly like to link these

potentially offsetting claims does not override the federal labor policy

favoring expeditious enforcement of valid arbitration awards. CWC's

joinder motion was properly denied.

The judgment of the district court is affirmed. The Union's request

for attorney's fees for a bad faith appeal is denied. 

A true copy.

Attest:

CLERK, U. S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.