Opinion ID: 552463
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Acceptance

Text: 24 The Company argues that the period in question, after the parties had reached a bargaining impasse, was one of confrontation, not contract, and in support of this contention points out that the Union or its membership rejected the Company's February 20 offer on three different occasions. Also, the Union leadership repeatedly characterized the offer as unfair in its communications with the membership. As a result, the Company claims, it is contrary to the evidence to interpret the Union's behavior as accepting any offer from the Company. 25 Again, the Company confuses its February 20 offer for a new, three-year bargaining agreement, with the modified offer for interim employment unilaterally imposed by the Company on March 6. The Union or its membership rejected three different times the February 20 offer for a new, three-year bargaining agreement and characterized the February 20 offer as unfair. This conclusion by no means precludes the district court's finding, however. When the Company decided to implement unilaterally a modified version of its final offer, the Union and the Union-represented employees were still faced with the decision of whether to accept the offer of interim employment and to continue working or to strike. We have no conceptual difficulty in understanding that an employment arrangement that was unacceptable as a permanent, formal agreement might still be acceptable as a temporary, stop-gap measure. 26 We conclude that the uncontroverted evidence in the record establishes acceptance of the Company's offer of interim employment. On this score, the uncontradicted 6 affidavit of Union negotiator Langham says that on the first occasion the Company announced its intention to implement the modified February 20 offer, the Union negotiators stated that the Union-represented employees would continue to work on an interim basis and that no strike would be called without a ten-day notice. During the entire period of interim employment, from March 6 to March 17 (when the lockout was imposed), the Union-represented employees continued to work; and the Union never called for a work stoppage. The conduct of the Union and Union-represented employees was sufficient to manifest acceptance of the unilaterally imposed terms of employment. See generally NLRB v. Haberman Construction Co., 641 F.2d 351, 356 (5th Cir.1981) (conduct manifesting intention to be bound is enough). 27 The Company offers some legal authority supporting its position that the Union's conduct did not manifest an acceptance of the interim offer of employment; most closely on point factually are United Food & Commercial Workers Int'l Union v. Gold Star Sausage Co., 897 F.2d 1022 (10th Cir.1990); and Milwaukee Typographical Union v. Madison Newspapers, 444 F.Supp. 1223 (W.D.Wis.1978), aff'd without opinion, 622 F.2d 590 (7th Cir.1980). But both cases are distinguishable. 28 In Gold Star, the Tenth Circuit rejected an argument by a union that certain employee grievances were arbitrable under the terms of the employer's unilaterally implemented final offer, finding that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the claim because the Company's last offer is not a contract between the parties. Gold Star, 897 F.2d at 1026. The Gold Star court made clear, however, that the Union does not even allege that the Company's last offer is, in some sense, a contract between the parties, much less point to any facts in the record that might support such an assertion. Id. The Union here has not only alleged that the evidence illustrates a binding contract; but, as detailed above, the Union pointed to uncontroverted evidence to support its assertion. 29 The Gold Star court did consider it relevant, however, that [t]he stipulated facts show that the Union has never agreed, even tentatively, to the major provisions of the Company's last offer. Id.; see also International Union v. Big Horn Coal Co., 916 F.2d 1499, 1501-1502 (10th Cir.1990). In a similar way, the district court in Milwaukee Typographical attaches importance to the union's rejection of the substance of the implemented offer, when it was submitted to the union not as an offer of interim employment, but as an offer for a new, long-term agreement. See Milwaukee Typographical, 444 F.Supp. at 1227. 30 To the extent that these opinions suggest that a union's response to a proposal for a formal, long-term agreement can be borrowed out of context to demonstrate the union's rejection of a similar offer for interim employment, we disagree with this approach. More important, the unions pressing for arbitration in these other cases had neither alleged nor shown the same facts that are presented in this case to support the union's acceptance of the offer for interim employment. Along these lines, the Tenth Circuit opinions can be cited for the proposition that such additional evidence of union acceptance does establish an interim contract created by an implemented final offer: 31 Employer implementation of a last and final offer is, by itself, insufficient to invoke jurisdiction absent some manifestation of acceptance of the offer sufficient to create a contract .... The contract between the parties required for jurisdiction need not be a written, signed collective-bargaining agreement, but may exist as any informal agreement between the parties significant to the maintenance of labor peace between them. It suffices that the parties' intent to abide by the agreed-upon provisions of any such informal agreement is in some manner manifest. 32 Big Horn, at 1501-1502 (emphasis added) (citing Gold Star, 897 F.2d at 1026; United Paperworkers v. Wells Badger Industries, 835 F.2d 701, 704 (7th Cir.1987)). 33 In Taft Broadcasting Co. v. NLRB, 441 F.2d 1382 (8th Cir.1971), the Eighth Circuit addressed the legal significance of an employer's letter to Union-represented employees outlining the employer's planned unilateral implementation of its final offer after a bargaining impasse. The Taft court suggested that no conduct is required by the union or the employees it represents to bind the employer to its final offer as an interim agreement to arbitrate unresolved grievances. Id. at 1385. The court noted that, 34 In this context the letter can properly be regarded as offering, at the same time, to continue, at least for a while, certain practices. While in one breath Taft asserts that the letter could not ripen into a contract unless the union formally accepted it, in the next it says, quite correctly, that '[t]he letter calls for no response on the union's part, either by action or by reply.' ... [W]e conclude that the Board could properly find that the union's inaction was, contractually, just what was called for. 35 Id. 36 The Seventh Circuit, in United Paperworkers v. Wells Badger Industries, 835 F.2d 701 (7th Cir.1987), also held that an employer was bound to the terms of its unilaterally implemented final offer, including the obligation to arbitrate grievances arising after the expiration of the previous bargaining agreement. Though the employer in Wells Badger had offered more specific assurances about grievance resolution than International Paper had here, we think it is equally justified to conclude that [t]he assurance of the company and the reliance thereupon by the employees is certainly sufficient under the facts and the circumstances of this case upon which to determine objectively the intentions of the parties. Id. at 704.