Opinion ID: 181299
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Pension Plan's Dispute Resolution Procedure and Retirement Committee

Text: Citing a single Sixth Circuit decision, the Company argues that the Pension Plan's dispute resolution procedure demonstrates most forceful evidence the parties intended to exclude the Union's grievance from arbitration. This argument suffers from two serious flaws. First, in the case the Company cites, United Steelworkers of Am. v. Commonwealth Aluminum Corp., 162 F.3d 447 (6th Cir. 1998), the court did not find most forceful evidence of an intent to exclude the relevant grievance from arbitration. Rather, it held the CBA expressly excluded the grievance from arbitration by specifically incorporating the company's entire medical plan, including the plan's dispute resolution procedure. Second, and more importantly, this court has held that a mere passing reference to an ERISA plan in a CBA does not incorporate the plan into the CBA. Local 232, Allied Indus. Workers v. Briggs & Stratton Corp., 837 F.2d 782, 786-87 (7th Cir.1988); Nabisco, 833 F.2d at 105. The Commonwealth Aluminum court only held that the medical plan's dispute resolution procedure expressly excluded arbitration because the court found the relevant CBA had incorporated the entire medical plan. Here, the only arguable incorporation of the Pension Plan's dispute resolution procedure is a passing reference to the Pension Plan [the Pension Plan] shall continue in effect for the term of the CBA. We do not find this language incorporates the Pension Plan's dispute resolution procedure, so Commonwealth Aluminum is neither dispositive nor particularly instructive. The Company also argues the existence of a retirement committee vested with the authority to administer the Pension Plan constitutes most forceful evidence the parties did not intend to arbitrate the Union's grievance. The only support the Company can muster for this argument is this court's decision in Nabisco. But the Nabisco court only mentions the existence of a Pension Committee in its discussion of the case's factual background. See Nabisco, 833 F.2d at 103. The court does, in its analysis, describe the pension plan as all inclusive because it provided its own grievance procedure (presumably administered by the pension committee). But this feature of the pension plan was not critical to the court's analysis. Rather, the court emphasized the absence of any terms of the pension plan in the CBA. See id. at 105 (explaining that [no] Pension Plan terms were included in the collective bargaining agreement as a result of negotiation, and that the court might have reached a different result if Nabisco and the Union had explicitly bargained over the terms of the Pension Plan and made their agreement a part of the collective bargaining agreement). The Pension Plan's dispute resolution procedure and the existence of the retirement committee may provide some evidence of an intent not to arbitrate, but certainly not the most forceful evidence required to rebut the presumption of arbitrability created by the arbitration clause. Warrior & Gulf, 363 U.S. at 584-85, 80 S.Ct. 1347.