Opinion ID: 2641881
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The ban on subcontracting to any entity

Text: In any case, FairPoint struggles to identify precisely how the panel's decision on subcontracting veered over the line separating interpretation and modification. In sum, FairPoint forwards two arguments in support of its claim. First, it notes that the CBA grants it an express right to manage its business subject [only] to the limitations contained in [the CBA]. By restricting subcontracting, FairPoint asserts that the arbitrator wrongly subtract[ed] from this right by add[ing] additional restrictions not clear on the CBA's face. Second, it argues that the CBA's specific restrictions on subcontracting certain plant jobs imply that the parties knew how to explicitly limit subcontracting and would have done so for sales jobs if so desired. Moreover, interpreting the Limitation on Transfer of Jobs provision to create a blanket ban on subcontracting would render these provisions superfluous, in violation of a basic rule of contract 3 We would be hard-pressed to identify an instance in which an interpretation that in fact disregarded express contract terms, or created additional terms from thin air, would be found plausible. -12- interpretation. FairPoint contends, therefore, that the panel clearly disregard[ed] these specific provisions and impermissibly add[ed] an overly broad restriction to the CBA. Certainly, the narrow nature of our review does not amount to a blank check. United Steelworkers of Am. v. Enter. Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 597 (1960) ([A]n arbitrator is confined to interpretation and application of the collective bargaining agreement; he does not sit to dispense his own brand of industrial justice.). Yet, considering these arguments in turn, we are unable to identify any instance in which the panel exceeded the bounds of its interpretative powers. As to the management rights provision, we see no contradiction between its terms and the arbitrator's interpretation of the Limitation on Transfer of Jobs provision. The former provision grants FairPoint control over all management decisions, save those limited by other provisions of the CBA. The panel interpreted the latter provision, in a manner not expressly foreclosed by anything in the CBA, as one such limitation. In reaching this conclusion, the panel neither disregarded [] the lack of restrictions on FairPoint's ability to subcontract nor added subcontracting restrictions. It simply read one provision as creating an exception to another that, by its terms, allowed for just such exceptions. This is not the stuff of which vacated arbitral awards are made. -13- On a review of the record, neither can we agree that the arbitral panel manifestly disregarded the other CBA provisions limiting subcontracting for particular plant jobs. The panel explicitly stated that it would be possible to interpret the [] two [specific restrictions] as exceptions to the broad jobs prohibition of the [CBA].4 It also directly considered the inconsistency between the Limitation on Transfer of Jobs provision and the agreement letter, but ultimately concluded that it could not disregard the plain language of the [CBA]. In reaching this conclusion, the panel relied heavily on the parties' apparent intent. It highlighted the parties' extended negotiations regarding the Limitation on Transfer of Jobs provision, during which they undisputedly deleted the 0.7% cap and removed other language that had previously been interpreted as restricting only transfers between Verizon-owned entities. While finding it hard to fathom why this letter was executed as written, the panel reasoned that the parties' bargaining history made clear their intent to construct a more 4 The provisions in question are indeed worded so as to plausibly create exceptions to an otherwise total ban. For instance, one provision states that under the following conditions work may be contracted out, while the other states that [t]he Company will maintain its established policies as to assignment of work in connection with the installation and maintenance of communications facilities. Both, therefore, could be interpreted as granting a greater power to subcontract in certain specific instances than was permitted under the more general Limitation on Transfer of Jobs provision. While perhaps this was not the best interpretation, neither can we deem it a wholly implausible one. -14- comprehensive ban on job transfers than that of the pre-amendment CBA. In light of this mutual intent, the panel was unwilling to allow a letter -- incorporated into the CBA but apparently based erroneously on a since-amended version of its text5 -- to prevail over the express terms of the current provision. Ideally, the panel's discussion of these points would have been more robust, and we are not untroubled by its contention that a more thorough attempt to harmonize these provisions would be rash. Still, we are not tasked with reviewing the intricacies of these provisions anew, but only with determining if the panel's resolution supplants express contract terms with [its] own brand of industrial justice. Id. On the whole, the panel's decision that these apparent inconsistencies could not overwrite the plain meaning of the phrase any entity -- bolstered as it was by the parties' bargaining history and apparent intent -- does not appear wholly contrary to either basic reason or rules of contract interpretation. See Smart v. Gillete Co. Long-Term Disability Plan, 70 F.3d 173, 178 (1st Cir. 1995) (stating that contract interpretation looks first to the text's plain meaning and, if ambiguity exists, then to the parties' intent). 5 We express no conclusive opinion as to whether, in fact, the parties simply erred by not updating this letter, but we note that its text also includes reference to the December 2000 bargaining sessions. Because the Union and FairPoint's negotiations occurred in 2008, this lends plausibility to the panel's suggestion that the text mistakenly referenced the prior CBA. -15- Ultimately, FairPoint's arguments in regard to subcontracting express disagreement with the panel's interpretation of the CBA, suggesting an alternative interpretation that it believes is more appropriate. These arguments do not establish, however, that the panel's interpretation was either implausible or in excess of its authority.