Opinion ID: 181299
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Express Exclusion from Arbitration

Text: The Company argues the CBA's arbitration clause and the CBA's definition of grievance expressly exclude the Union's claim from arbitration. We disagree. According to the Company, because the CBA does not specifically address whether an employee may be laid off when he reaches the § 13.01 requirements, the Union has not alleged that the Company violated an express provision of the CBA. And because a grievance must claim a violation of an express term of the CBA, the Union's claim is not a grievance. The arbitration clause applies to grievances, the argument goes, so we should apply the interpretive rule of inclusio unius est exclusio alterious (the inclusion of one is the exclusion of another) to show the arbitration clause expressly excludes the Union's claim. But to articulate this argument is to recognize its absurdity: mere failure to address a type of dispute is not necessarily an express exclusion of that type. A rule of construction that implies exclusion is irrelevant to the question of express exclusion. Moreover, if we were to accept this argument, the arbiter's interpretive domain would be a null setlimited to disputes for which a plain reading of the CBA clearly determines the outcome. Finally, to accept this argument would be to conclude that §§ 13.01 and 6.02 of the CBA do not require the Company to provide the supplemental Thirty and Out benefit to employees who are laid off when they meet the relevant age and seniority requirements. This conclusion would be a ruling on the merits of the Union's claim, and we have no business making such a ruling. AT & T Techs., 475 U.S. at 649-50, 106 S.Ct. 1415. The Company's express exclusion argument also fails for a more fundamental reason: the argument distorts the Union's claims. The Union alleges the Company violated express terms of the CBA, namely §§ 13.01 (Thirty and Out) and 6.02 (Seniority), by denying the Thirty and Out benefit to employees who had met the § 13.01 requirements while on layoff and who had not lost seniority under § 6.02. [1] The Company tries to characterize the grievance as a dispute about the meaning of termination in the Pension Plan. It claims there is no dispute about any express term in the CBA because the Company agrees with the Union that laid-off employees satisfy all conditions of § 13.01's Thirty and Out provision and retain seniority under § 6.02. But the Union does not claim that the Company has misinterpreted the CBA; rather, it claims that the Company has violated the terms of the CBA and that the CBA provides for arbitration of precisely such claims.