Opinion ID: 200756
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Arbitration under the CBA

Text: 14 The district court held that the officers' FLSA claims are barred from federal court because they are essentially contract claims for unpaid overtime, and contract claims are subject to the CBA's mandatory grievance and arbitration procedures. On appeal, the officers argue that their statutory and contractual rights are distinct, and that nothing in the CBAs waives their statutory right to a judicial forum for their FLSA claims. They also contend that even if such a waiver were present, it would be unenforceable under the Supreme Court's decision in Barrentine v. Arkansas-Best Freight Sys., Inc., 450 U.S. 728, 737-46, 101 S.Ct. 1437, 67 L.Ed.2d 641 (1981) (holding that a collective bargaining agreement cannot prospectively bind employees to arbitrate FLSA claims). 15 The officers' first contention suffices to resolve this issue. Rights conferred by Congress are conceptually distinct from those created by private agreement, and there is no authority for the proposition that rights under the FLSA merge into contractual ones whenever the two overlap. 12 The distinctly separate nature of these contractual and statutory rights is not vitiated merely because both were violated as a result of the same factual occurrence. Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 50, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974) (involving rights under Title VII); see Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U.S. 20, 34-35, 111 S.Ct. 1647, 114 L.Ed.2d 26 (1991) (reiterating that statutory rights are independent of rights created under CBAs); Morales-Vallellanes v. Potter, 339 F.3d 9, 17 (1st Cir.2003) (remedies under Title VII and CBAs are independent); LaChance v. Northeast Publ'g, Inc., 965 F.Supp. 177, 184 (D.Mass.1997). 16 This leaves the question whether the officers were required to submit their FLSA claims to arbitration under either of the collective bargaining agreements. They were not. Neither CBA contained a clear and unmistakable waiver of the officers' right to a judicial forum for FLSA claims. Wright v. Universal Mar. Serv. Corp., 525 U.S. 70, 79-80, 119 S.Ct. 391, 142 L.Ed.2d 361 (1998). In Wright, the Supreme Court noted the obvious[] ... tension in its arbitration jurisprudence between older cases holding that CBAs can never prospectively bind employees to arbitrate federal statutory claims, see Barrentine, 450 U.S. at 745-46, 101 S.Ct. 1437 (FLSA claims); Gardner-Denver, 415 U.S. at 51-52, 94 S.Ct. 1011 (Title VII claims), and more recent cases holding that employees can be compelled to submit some federal statutory claims to arbitration pursuant to a valid arbitration clause in a bilateral employment contract, see, e.g., Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 532 U.S. 105, 122-24, 121 S.Ct. 1302, 149 L.Ed.2d 234 (2001); Gilmer, 500 U.S. at 27-29, 111 S.Ct. 1647. See 525 U.S. at 76, 119 S.Ct. 391. The Wright Court declined to resolve this tension, holding that even assuming a CBA can waive an employee's right to a federal forum, any such waiver must at a minimum be clear and unmistakable. Id. at 79-81, 119 S.Ct. 391; see also id. at 80, 119 S.Ct. 391 ([W]hether or not Gardner-Denver's seemingly absolute prohibition of union waiver of employees' federal forum rights survives Gilmer, Gardner-Denver at least stands for the proposition that the right to a federal judicial forum is of sufficient importance to be protected against less-than-explicit union waiver in a CBA.). 17 No such clear and unmistakable waiver appears in the CBAs in this case. The arbitration provision in each agreement applies only to grievances, which in turn are defined as allegations that the Town violated the CBA. Not a single reference appears to arbitration of statutory claims, let alone a clear and unmistakable waiver of a judicial forum for such claims. Indeed, the patrol officers' CBA affirmatively suggests that union members can bring statutory claims in a judicial forum. In contrast to the arbitration section of the agreement, which makes no reference to statutory claims, the paragraph governing workplace discrimination bars the Town from discharging or discriminating against any officer because he or she filed or processed any grievance under this agreement or instituted any proceeding under the State or Federal statutes relating to wages, hours, or conditions of employment  (emphasis added). The CBA juxtaposes grievances, which are subject to arbitration, with claims under [f]ederal statutes relating to wages, hours, or conditions of employment, of which the FLSA is among the most prominent. This is a far cry from a clear and unmistakable waiver of the officers' right under the FLSA to a judicial forum. See Wright, 525 U.S. at 81, 119 S.Ct. 391 (finding no clear and unmistakable waiver of a federal forum in language in the CBA purporting to cover all matters affecting wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment); Quint v. A.E. Staley Mfg. Co., 172 F.3d 1, 8-9 (1st Cir.1999) (CBA lacking any express reference to federal anti-discrimination statutes did not include a clear and unmistakable waiver of an employee's right to bring a statutory discrimination claim in federal court). 13 18 We conclude that the grievance and arbitration procedures in the CBAs did not bar the officers from filing their FLSA claims directly in federal court. 14 19