Opinion ID: 288960
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Longshore Work — Locals 1418 and 1419

Text: 10 1. Longshore labor includes all men who move cargo direct from the point of rest on the wharf or from a rail car to shipside or ship's hatches (and vice versa), as well as men who work cargo direct from barge to ship (and vice versa). It also includes the fitting of ships for grain, livestock and explosives, shoring of cargo, lashing and securing of ship's cargo aboard vessels, loading, unloading and sacking of grain in bulk aboard vessels. 11 In order to make the case understandable, it is necessary to describe the vessel and its projected load which was involved at the time of the work stoppage. There seems to be no dispute as to these basic facts. This vessel is commonly referred to as a LASH-type vessel, and this, the trial court found, is apparently the first time in the history of the Port of New Orleans that a LASH-type vessel had come to that port. It differs from a regular freight vessel in the respects indicated in the following: The vessel is 43,000 tons, 860 feet long, and 107 feet wide; it does not have the traditional holds and hatches into which cargo is loaded from the adjacent wharves or from barges moored alongside in the water; it normally carries aboard 73 separate barges (it is actually capable of holding 80 barges), each of which is loaded with cargo. While the normal capacity of a traditional freighter is approximately 10,000 tons, the LASH-type vessel carries about 29,000 tons. The traditional freighter, with a normal cargo capacity, uses an average of 4 or 5 gangs, each of which consists of 18 men, who consume three 24-hour days to complete loading operations. A LASH-type vessel uses only one gang, consisting of 14 men, to complete the loading operation in between 24 to 36 hours. 12 The defendants simply argue that the language in the Deep Sea Agreement, which defines cargo, supra, is not susceptible of any construction which would embody these separate barges which are to be placed aboard ship, and that the words longshore labor cannot possibly be construed as including such labor as is required to lift these barges aboard a LASH-type vessel. They contend, therefore, that in submitting this question to arbitration, the companies caused the arbitrator to violate that part of Article XVII(C), which provides, The arbitrator shall have no authority to render decisions which have the effect of adding to, subtracting from, or otherwise modifying the terms of this agreement. 13 The appellants, on the other hand, take the position that the appellees are required to construe the terms cargo and longshore labor in order to determine that they do not respectively comprehend the barges to be loaded or the men who are to move such barges, and that, therefore, under the well-known doctrines established by the three cases, United Steel Workers of America v. American Manufacturing Co., 1960, 363 U.S. 564, 80 S.Ct. 1343, 4 L.Ed.2d 1403; United Steel Workers of America v. Warrier and Gulf Navigation Co., 1960, 363 U.S. 574, 80 S. Ct. 1347, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409; and United Steel Workers of America v. Enterprise Wheel and Car Corp., 1960, 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424, the courts have no jurisdiction to re-interpret these clauses and substitute their judgment for that of the arbitrator. In short, the appellants contend that the trial court, in dismissing the complaint, fell into the error warned against by this court in Local Union No. 787, International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers v. Collins Radio Co., 5 Cir., 1963, 317 F.2d 214, and quoted subsequently by us in Oil Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union v. Southern Union Gas Co., 1967, 5 Cir., 379 F.2d 774, at page 776: 14 Therefore, as with a traditional dispute, whether the contract requires arbitration is a question for judicial determination. But in the judicial ascertainment of this threshold problem, the Court must persistently and conscientiously resist the tempting process of determining, first, that the asserted grievance is palpably unfounded on its own intrinsic merits, so therefore it cannot be concluded that the parties agreed to arbitrate such a dispute. Such approach is indispensable for a scheme which assumes that for their own good reasons, the parties have bargained for a determination of controversies by an arbiter rather than a court. 15 Here the trial court went to considerable lengths in considering the differences between the so-called barges, which were to be lifted aboard this vessel, and more normal types of cargo, whether broken up individually into separate pieces or palletized or taken from wharves and piers or lifted from barges. The trial court, it seems clear to us, simply undertook to construe the language of the contract in which cargo is defined as including, but is not limited to, certain articles which do not include separate barges, and the court concluded that the parties did not intend the term cargo to include the barges here involved. 16 Similarly, the trial court went to some length to differentiate between the work performed by longshore labor normally, and that which would be involved in lifting the barges onto this particular vessel. The trial court concluded that it was so clear that the definition of longshore labor did not comprehend this operation; that it felt that to construe it differently would, in effect, violate the prohibition against adding to or otherwise modifying the term of the agreement. 17 The dispute between the parties, as we have stated above, is whether the term cargo, as used in the contract, could reasonably be found by an arbitrator to include the barges that were lying alongside the Acadia Forest for loading, and whether the term longshoreman, as used in the contract, could be construed by an arbitrator as including men whose duty it was to lift these barges aboard the vessel. These questions are for the arbitrator, not the court, to decide. 18 The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.