Opinion ID: 397075
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Board's Deference Criteria

Text: 30 As will be seen below, the only substantive issue we find it necessary to reach in this case is whether the Board abused its discretion in declining to defer to the arbitrator's award. 31 In furtherance of the national labor policy goal of encouraging the voluntary settlement of industrial disputes through arbitration, the National Labor Relations Board announced in 1955 that it would defer, as a matter of discretion, to an arbitrator's award pursuant to the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement in cases in which the proceedings appear to have been fair and regular, all parties had agreed to be bound, and the decision of the arbitration panel is not clearly repugnant to the purposes and policies of the (National Labor Relations) Act. Spielberg Manufacturing Co., supra, 112 N.L.R.B. at 1082. This policy of deference-the Spielberg doctrine-obtained Supreme Court sanction in Carey v. Westinghouse Corp., 375 U.S. 261, 270-72, 84 S.Ct. 401, 408-09, 11 L.Ed.2d 320 (1964). 32 Over the years, the number and nature of the criteria applied to deference decisions have changed. The concept of clearly repugnant, for example, has proved elusive, with the Board and courts viewing it sometimes as a test of whether the arbitrator's award was palpably wrong, see, e. g., International Harvester Co., 138 N.L.R.B. 923, 929 (1962), enf'd sub nom. Ramsey v. NLRB, 327 F.2d 784 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 1003, 84 S.Ct. 1938, 12 L.Ed.2d 1052 (1964); or not consistent with Board law, see, e. g., Kansas City Star, Inc., 236 N.L.R.B. 866, 869 (1978) (Member Truesdale, concurring); or arguably ... not inconsistent with Board policy, see NLRB v. Pincus Brothers, Inc.-Maxwell, 620 F.2d 367 (3d Cir. 1980). 2 33 In addition, the Board has followed an on-again, off-again requirement that the arbitrator have clearly decided the statutory issues involved in the unfair labor practice charge as well as the purely contractual issues presented under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. One of the union's principal arguments is that this case presents a classic example of an Arbitrator's refusal to address himself to the issues raised by the unfair labor practice case. The arbitrator, the union asserts, completely failed to pass on the statutory issue, to wit, that the salesmen can no longer enjoy the same prompt delivery for C.O.D. sales and credit sales without assuming the added burdens of a collection agent; and whether the employers by unilateral action, improperly placed such added burdens on the salesmen in violation of the statute. 34 The idea that an arbitration award meriting deference must have considered and resolved statutory as well as contractual issues was elaborated in the Board's decision in Raytheon Co., 140 N.L.R.B. 883 (1963), enforcement denied on other grounds, 326 F.2d 471 (1st Cir. 1964). In Raytheon, a case involving alleged discrimination in violation of sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3) of the NLRA, the Board implicitly added a fourth criterion to the three set forth in Spielberg: it refused to defer to an arbitration award where the arbitrator did not, and was advised that he could not, even consider evidence that protected concerted and union activities were possible causes for the discharges that had been the subject of the arbitration. Id. at 886. The Raytheon rule was extended in Airco Industrial Gases, 195 N.L.R.B. 676 (1972), to cases in which the arbitration award simply gives no indication that the arbitrator ruled on the unfair labor practice issue, id. at 677, even if the award contained no express indication that the arbitrator had not considered the statutory issue. The Board went a step further in Yourga Trucking, Inc., 197 N.L.R.B. 928 (1972), holding that the party seeking deference to an arbitrator's award bore the burden of adduc(ing) proof regarding the scope of matters presented in the arbitration proceeding. Id. 35 Two years later, the Board reversed itself in Electronic Reproduction Service Corp., 213 N.L.R.B. 758 (1974). Expressly overruling Airco and Yourga, the Board asserted that henceforth it would assume that an award resolved statutory as well as contractual issues except where unusual circumstances are shown which demonstrate that there were bona fide reasons, other than a mere desire on the part of one party to try the same set of facts before two forums, which caused the failure to introduce such evidence at the arbitration proceeding. Id. at 762 (footnote omitted). In Stephenson v. NLRB, 550 F.2d 535, 539 (9th Cir. 1977), a panel of the Ninth Circuit, while acknowledging the Board's laudable goal, characterized Electronic Reproduction Service as an unjustifiable extension of its deferral policy. Stephenson adopted instead the position taken by the District of Columbia Circuit Court in Banyard v. NLRB, 505 F.2d 342, 348 (D.C.Cir.1974), adhering to the requirement that the arbitrator have clearly decided the issue on which it is later urged that the Board should give deference. 36 Acknowledging the criticism in Stephenson and similar decisions, the Board reversed itself once again in Suburban Motor Freight, Inc., 247 N.L.R.B. No. 2, 103 L.R.R.M. 1113 (Jan. 8, 1980), overruling Electronic Reproduction Service and returning to the standards set forth in Airco and Yourga. The Board announced that we will no longer honor the results of an arbitration proceeding under Spielberg unless the unfair labor practice issue before the Board was both presented to and considered by the arbitrator. 103 L.R.R.M. at 1114. We assume that Suburban Motor Freight validly and accurately describes the Board's current view on this question and is applicable here.