Opinion ID: 1619261
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: context of federal labor law

Text: The issue in this case is narrow: we are asked to decide whether the strike vote of plaintiff's union, effectively the culminating step under the contractual grievance procedure, is plaintiff's sole and exclusive mode of legal redress, thus barring him from maintaining a breach-of-contract suit against defendant. Although this might appear to be a simple, routine case on the surface, its resolution brings into play a broad spectrum of complex Federal labor relations law. [4] An essential reason for this legal complexity is that the contract grievance procedure at issue is quite uncommon in the context of labor relations law. [5] According to one reputable estimate, 96 percent of the collective bargaining contracts in the United States include comprehensive contract grievance procedures culminating in final and binding arbitration; [6] most legal questions pertaining to the finality of a culminating step of a grievance procedure therefore revolve around the finality of arbitration decisions. Thus in the instant case we must interpret Federal law with respect to a relatively unique issue, an issue which, we note, has never been directly decided by the United States Supreme Court. Because of the legal complexities involved, we believe it necessary, as an initial measure, to briefly discuss and define the applicable context of Federal labor law in which the issue arises. In Smith v Evening News Ass'n, 371 US 195; 83 S Ct 267; 9 L Ed 2d 246 (1962), the United States Supreme Court declared that under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act individual employees have the right and standing to sue on collective bargaining contracts negotiated between their union and their employer. [7] Subsequent to Smith, the Court circumscribed this broadly stated right of employees to sue under § 301. Accordingly, in Republic Steel Corp v Maddox, 379 US 650; 85 S Ct 614; 13 L Ed 2d 580 (1965), the Court determined that an individual employee is precluded from suing under § 301 unless he first attempts to exhaust the remedial procedure of the collective bargaining contract. [8] However, under the Maddox rule, initially procedural in nature, certain consequences ensue with respect to the merits of the aggrieved employee's complaint once he has exhausted the contract grievance procedure to its final step. For example, if an employee exhausts a grievance procedure which has as its culminating step final and binding arbitration, the strong and established Federal labor law policy pronounced by the Court in the famous Steelworkers trilogy [9] comes into play. As the Supreme Court recently reiterated in Hines v Anchor Motor Freight, Inc, 424 US 554; 96 S Ct 1048; 47 L Ed 2d 231 (1976): Collective-bargaining contracts, however, generally contain procedures for the settlement of disputes through mutual discussion and arbitration. These provisions are among those which are to be enforced under § 301. Furthermore, Congress has specified in § 203(d), 61 Stat 153, 29 USC 173(d), that `[f]inal adjustment by a method agreed upon by the parties is declared to be the desirable method for settlement of grievance disputes   '. This congressional policy `can be effectuated only if the means chosen by the parties for settlement of their differences under a collective-bargaining agreement is given full play.' United Steel Workers v American Mfg Co, 363 US 564, 566 (1960). Courts are not to usurp those functions which collective-bargaining contracts have properly `entrusted to the arbitration tribunal.' Id, at 569. They should not undertake to review the merits of arbitration awards but should defer to the tribunal chosen by the parties finally to settle their disputes. Otherwise `plenary review by a court of the merits would make meaningless the provisions that the arbitrator's decision is final, for in reality it would almost never be final.' United Steel Workers v Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp, 363 US 593, 599 (1960). In addition, the Court, in General Drivers, Warehousemen & Helpers, Local Union No 89 v Riss & Co, Inc, 372 US 517; 83 S Ct 789; 9 L Ed 2d 918 (1963). extended the ambit of the Steelworkers trilogy rationale to encompass the final and binding decision of a joint committee, holding such a decision enforceable under § 301 like an arbitration award. The effect of the Steelworkers trilogy and Riss is, therefore, that an individual employee is barred from maintaining a § 301 suit on the merits of his grievance after exhausting a grievance procedure to the final step of a procedure culminating in either a final and binding arbitration decision or a final and binding joint committee decision. This is, essentially, what the Court has characterized as the finality rule. See Hines v Anchor Motor Freight, Inc, 424 US 554.