Opinion ID: 345501
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: is this a settlement agreement?

Text: 41 Before the Board can get over the hill on either of these approaches it must have correctly held that the February 7 agreement is a settlement agreement. In characterizing that agreement as a settlement agreement, the Board takes the position that it is impossible to separate the Company's concessions from the Union's withdrawal of its charges, i. e., the Company induced the Union to withdraw the § 8(a)(5) charges by promising to bargain in good faith. Viewing the agreement as a product of negotiations to settle unfair labor practice charges, the Board considers it to be a substitute for a bargaining order. Therefore, the Board reasons, the agreement was essentially an out-of-Board settlement to which Poole, supra, and Mansour, supra, are applicable. 42 The key question is, therefore, whether the February 7 agreement is a collective bargaining contract or a settlement agreement amounting to a substitute for a bargaining order. It is not open to question that ordinarily in an 8(a)(5) settlement agreement the employer acknowledges the majority status of the Union and agrees to bargain collectively for a reasonable time. A contract, on the other hand, fixes conditions of employment. 43 The present agreement does include one indicia of a settlement agreement in that the Company continued its acknowledgement of the Union. The agreement does not, however, obligate the Company to bargain in good faith for a new collective bargaining contract. The Company obligated itself to bargain only when it desired to make changes in the agreed-upon working conditions. 44 Instead, this agreement contains specific provision as to wages, hours, and working conditions for a specified time. Although it is true the agreed-upon conditions merely continue the status quo, neither the Board nor this Court sits to, directly or indirectly, compel concessions or otherwise sit in judgment on the substantive terms of bargaining agreements or to step into the negotiations and seek to impose its own views of a desirable settlement. M. R. & R. Trucking Co. v. NLRB, 5 Cir. 1970, 434 F.2d 689, 695. 45 In addition, the parties agreed to a definite date and procedure for termination and also as to the effect of no new contract being reached after a termination notice. The words of Paragraph 5 provide only for the possibility of a new contract being negotiated following a termination notice. It does not establish a right to have bargaining take place. 46 The history of the parties themselves demonstrates that they considered this agreement to be the collective bargaining contract. At no time between February 7 and June 10 did either party indicate a desire to negotiate as to general wages, hours, or working conditions. In approving the Union's withdrawal of charges following these negotiations, the Administrative Law Judge noted that the parties have advised me that (the Company and the Union) have reached a settlement of all the issues in dispute between themselves and that the Company and Union have entered into a collective bargaining agreement (emphasis added). Also, in testimony before the Administrative Law Judge in the instant case the Union negotiator characterized the agreement as a contract. 47 The Board, in oral argument, asserts that the agreement can be a settlement agreement as well as a contract. It uses the rationale that the Company's concessions (i. e. the agreed-upon conditions of employment) were the quid pro quo for the Union's withdrawal of right to bargain charges. The inescapable fact is, however, that the Union agreed to dismiss the charges and the Administrative Law Judge accepted the dismissal because the parties had already done that which a bargaining order would have required them to do, i. e. they had bargained and, indeed, they had entered into a contract. 48 Since the February 7 agreement was, as it shows on its face, a collective bargaining contract and not a settlement agreement, we need not consider whether the certification year might properly be extended to require additional time for bargaining.