Court Opinion

ID: 9475873
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:41:20.294666+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:00.151662
License: Public Domain

JAMES HUNTER, III, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
I agree with the majority that the district court’s interpretation of the contract is correct; I also agree that our scope of review of a labor arbitrator’s decision is very narrow. I believe, however, that there is a limit to the deference we owe to the arbitrator's decision, and that “the award may not stand if it does not meet the test of fundamental rationality.” Swift Industries, Inc. v. Botany Industries, Inc., 466 F.2d 1125, 1131 (3d Cir.1972). Because I detect no rational basis to the arbitrator’s decision, I cannot join in the judgment of the court.
As an initial matter, I note that the arbitrator’s opinion takes a position that was urged by neither party to the arbitration. Roberts & Schaefer urged that the plain language of the National Coal Mine Construction Agreement of 1981 (“the Agreement”) should control. The Union argued that a signatory to the Agreement is required to use UMW-affiliated subcontractors on any construction project for a coal mine operator that has signed a collective bargaining agreement with the UMW. The arbitrator ruled, however, that a signatory to the Agreement is required to use UMW-affiliated subcontractors on all construction projects. Thus, the arbitrator’s unprecedented expansion of the Agreement gives the UMW more than it had prior to the Amax decision. There is not a scintilla of evidence in support of this interpretation. In fact the Union did not even suggest such a construction. This omission itself is significant and indicative of the irrationality of the arbitrator’s decision.
The Union’s interpretation of the enabling clause is equally unsupportable; there is no doubt that it is discordant with the plain language of the clause. Further, after the Amax decision, signatories to the 1978 National Coal Mine Construction Agreement were not required to use UMW-affiliated subcontractors unless specifically required to do so by the coal mine operator. In other words, Roberts & Schaefer’s construction of the enabling clause described the status quo just prior to the formation of the Agreement. Since the Agreement merely carried forward the language from the 1978 Mine Construction Agreement, one must conclude that the parties to the Agreement intended to maintain the status *887quo. This conclusion is inescapable in light of the history of the negotiations leading to the Agreement. The undisputed evidence shows that on no less than five occasions UMW negotiators offered amendments to the enabling clause that would have made the plain language of the clause consistent with the interpretation that the Union urged at the arbitration. The negotiator for Roberts & Schaefer rejected all five amendments, and the language from the 1978 Mine Construction Agreement was carried forward. I simply cannot fathom how any rational factfinder could conclude that Roberts & Schaefer implicitly agreed to that which it repeatedly and consistently rejected.
The only evidence urged in support of the Union’s position is the testimony of Willard Esselstyn, a UMW representative. Esselstyn testified that during the Agreement negotiations, he tried on numerous occasions to get the negotiators for Roberts & Schaefer and the other contractors to agree to an amendment to the enabling clause. When such attempts failed, Esselstyn stated, “Look, you don’t want to buy a bunch of trouble, a bunch of labor unrest.” The opposing negotiator responded, “No, we don’t want that. We want to get a settlement.” From this exchange of truisms, we are to infer mutual assent to language that was repeatedly rejected and that does not appear in the Agreement. In my view, a reasonable person could not make such an inference.
In sum, the arbitrator gave to the Union that which it could not obtain in a fair negotiation. While the scope of our review is narrow, I do not believe that we are powerless to correct such a clear abuse. I would affirm the order of the district court.