Opinion ID: 544220
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mail Handlers' Cause of Action

Text: 12 The APWU argues first from the premise that because the Mail Handlers Union is not a party to the CBA between the APWU and the USPS, and because it has no contract of its own with the APWU, the Mail Handlers Union can have, and has, no cause of action under Sec. 1208. From this it reasons that the court lacks jurisdiction over the Mail Handlers' claims against the APWU and the USPS. APWU concedes that the USPS's cross-claim against it is viable, but contends that there is no actual case or controversy between the USPS and the Mail Handlers because the USPS, which has not taken the work away from the Mail Handlers, has given the union no cause for filing a grievance. Thus, we are told, the court properly has before it only the dispute between the APWU and the USPS (which also seeks to compel tripartite arbitration), and that dispute does not present the issue decided by the Ninth Circuit, which counsel states as whether, in a suit by the employer against two unions, which under separate collective bargaining agreements assert a claim ... to an interest in the same jobs, ... the court should order tripartite arbitration at the behest of the plaintiff employer. In order to accept the premise of this argument, however, we would have to hold that Sec. 1208 does not enable a non-party union to compel tripartite arbitration under a CBA that provides only for two-party arbitration. In effect, however, that would require us to resolve the merits of the case already decided by the Ninth Circuit. 13 The Ninth Circuit, while noting that [t]he Mail Handlers could not actually invoke the arbitration procedures under its agreement until the work was taken from its jurisdiction, held that the Mail Handlers' attempt to intervene in the arbitration was essentially an invocation of its agreement with the USPS. 893 F.2d at 1121. The USPS, of course, had a contractual relationship with each of the unions it sued in the Ninth Circuit, whereas the plaintiff Mail Handlers Union has no contractual relationship with the defendant APWU. In this case, however, the USPS filed a cross-claim against co-defendant APWU for the same relief that the Mail Handlers sought. The result is that, as a practical matter, the alignment of parties and of issues is no different here than it was in the Ninth Circuit. 14 In these circumstances, for us to hold that the Mail Handlers Union may not sue for tripartite arbitration, for want of a cause of action, would squarely conflict with the Ninth Circuit's holding that the separate CBAs between the two unions and the USPS together supply the requisite contractual nexus ... [because] all of the parties have agreed to the arbitration of the merits of their jurisdictional grievances under the Postal Reorganization Act. Id. at 1120. That holding is binding upon the parties in this case, and the APWU's jurisdictional objection is therefore not cognizable. 15