Opinion ID: 1009510
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The PDS Grievance

Text: On January 12, 2000, the Union filed a grievance charging Media General had assigned bargaining-unit work to non-bargaining-unit employees. In particular, the Union alleged that Media General had breached the Agreement by assigning mailing and labeling work — 2 The CWA is not party to the Agreement. 4 WINSTON-SALEM MAILERS v. MEDIA GENERAL specifically, for the Millennium Special, K-12, and Prime-Time mailings — to Piedmont Delivery Service (PDS), a Media General subsidiary that labels and distributes advertising materials for various businesses, including Media General. The employees of PDS are not represented by the Union. The Millennium Special consisted of the December 31, 1999, and the January 1, 2000, editions of the Journal. These editions were not live editions, i.e., they were not sold on the calendar date of their printing. Instead, they were publications sold in the beginning of January 2000 to capitalize on the market for millennium memorabilia. K-1 and Prime-Time are specialty publications printed by Media General on its presses in Winston-Salem, stacked on pallets by its Mailroom employees, and then trucked to PDS for labeling and distribution by PDS employees. Although the Union was aware of this labeling and distribution system when the Agreement was negotiated, the Union never objected to it. Media General responded to the PDS grievance by insisting that it was not timely filed and that, in any event, it was not subject to arbitration because the Agreement, in a provision called the Letter of Understanding, specifically allowed Media General to assign work to PDS employees, other than work related to live editions of the Journal. Accordingly, Media General refused to arbitrate the PDS grievance.