Court Opinion

ID: 9464160
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:26:40.062001+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:29.491590
License: Public Domain

LAY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority opinion misconstrues the limited incursion into the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C. § 104, authorized by Boys Markets v. Retail Clerks Union, 398 U.S. 235, 90 S.Ct. 1583, 26 L.Ed.2d 199 (1970). As explained in Buffalo Forge Co. v. Steelworkers, 428 U.S. 397, 402, 96 S.Ct. 3141, 49 L.Ed.2d 1022 (1976), the limited authority which Boys Markets granted to a federal court to enjoin a strike in violation of a no-strike clause within a collective bargaining agreement is applicable only when the strike is over the arbitrable dispute. In the present case the record is clear that the dispute which led to the refusal to arbitrate is not related to the alleged violation of the no-strike clause. Rather, the dispute arises from the inability of the company and the union to agree on the proper grievance procedures.
The fundamental grievance involved in the present case relates to the discharge of an employee who is a union representative. The union is willing to submit this issue to the grievance and arbitration procedures set forth under the contract. Tangentially, there now exists a grievance over the implementation of a petty work rule requiring, inter alia, employees to sign in and out when going to the bathroom. The union is willing to submit this dispute to grievance and arbitration procedures as well. The company has indicated that it is willing to submit these issues to arbitration but refuses to negotiate grievances with the union if the discharged union representative is present. The union insists that the union representative be present; thus the parties have reached an impasse.1 It should be plain enough that refusal to arbitrate in this ease is not related to the enforcement of the work rule, or to the employees’ refusal to follow the work rule, or to the company’s suspensions for violation of the same. The impasse reached relates to the procedural steps to be followed in implementation of the grievance and arbitration procedures under the contract. At issue is a matter of contract interpretation, and although a procedural question is presented it is now well-settled that procedural issues as well as substantive questions are exclusively for the arbiter. See John Wiley & Sons v. Livingston, 376 U.S. 543, 557, 84 S.Ct. 909, 11 L.Ed.2d 898 (1964); Drivers Local No. 120 v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 535 F.2d 1072, 1075 (8th Cir. 1976). Although the majority agrees with this premise, it finds a violation of the no-strike clause of the contract resulting from the employees’ non*1079compliance with work rules and thus encroaches upon the arbiter’s exclusive jurisdiction. Cf. Buffalo Forge Co. v. Steelworkers, supra. In thus interpreting the contract the majority ignores the decisions of this court and other courts which have uniformly held that the interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement lies within the exclusive domain of the arbiter. See e. g. Drivers Local No. 120 v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. supra, at 1075.
Relying upon John Wiley & Sons v. Livingston, supra, the majority finds that the union’s insistance on following the procedural steps set out in the contract cannot be a bar to arbitration over the disputes. As valid as this view may be, it does not follow from Wiley, as the majority concludes, that the procedural impasse reached necessarily grows out of the arbitrable dispute authorizing injunctive relief pending arbitration. Wiley clearly does not come close to holding this. This view ignores the fact that the union is ready and willing to submit the issue over the discharge (or anything else) to the grievance and arbitration procedure under the contract. What the union refuses to do is to acquiesce in the company’s interpretation of the grievance clause as to the procedure to be followed. The Wiley decision does provide the solution for the present case. The district court should limit its order to require the parties to submit the procedural issue and at least the related issue of the discharge to arbitration.
Both Anheuser-Busch, Inc. v. Teamsters Local No. 633, 511 F.2d 1097 (1st Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 875, 96 S.Ct. 148, 46 L.Ed.2d 109 (1975), and Buffalo Forge indicate that the court may order arbitration without issuing a plenary injunction affecting the no-strike clause. In AnheuserBusch the court made clear in its conclusion that the union was willing to arbitrate and no limited order was necessary. In Buffalo Forge the Court explicitly acknowledged that the employer was entitled to an order requiring the union to arbitrate if the union refused to do so. However, as the Court observed:
[I]t does not follow that the District Court was empowered not only to order arbitration but to enjoin the strike pending the decision of the arbitrator, despite the express prohibition of § 4(a) of the Norris-LaGuardia Act against injunctions prohibiting any person from “[cjeasing or refusing to perform any work or to remain in any relation of employment.”
428 U.S. at 410, 96 S.Ct. at 3148.
Here, the district court should stay the issuance of its injunction as it relates to enforcing the work rule pending arbitration and resolution of the procedural issue involved.
The majority decision allows the federal court to intervene in a breach of contract case and violate the narrow jurisdictional basis afforded the court in Boys Markets. As Mr. Justice White stated in Buffalo Forge:
If an injunction could issue against the strike in this case, so in proper circumstances could a court enjoin any other alleged breach of contract pending the exhaustion of the applicable grievance and arbitration provisions even though the injunction would otherwise violate one of the express prohibitions of § 4. The court in such cases would be permitted, if the dispute was arbitrable, to hold hearings, make findings of fact, interpret the applicable provisions of the contract and issue injunctions so as to restore the status quo or to otherwise regulate the relationship of the parties pending exhaustion of the arbitration process. This would cut deeply into the policy of the Norris-LaGuardia Act and make the courts potential participants in a wide range of arbitrable disputes under the many existing and future collective-bargaining contracts, not just for the pur-, pose of enforcing promises to arbitrate, which was the limit of Boys Markets, but for the purpose of preliminarily dealing with the merits of the factual and legal issues that are subjects for the arbitrator and of issuing injunctions that would otherwise be forbidden by the Norris-LaGuardia Act.
*1080428 U.S. at 410-11, 96 S.Ct. at 3148-3149 (footnotes omitted).
Even assuming injunctive relief might be authorized under the Boys Markets case, which I dispute, such relief still should be denied because the employer has failed to demonstrate irreparable harm. See Detroit Newspaper Publishers Association v. Detroit Typographical Union No. 18, 471 F.2d 872 (6th Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 411 U.S. 967, 93 S.Ct. 2149, 36 L.Ed.2d 687 (1973). Here the so-called strike or slow down was created by the employer’s own conduct in suspending employees for violation of a work rule. There exists no parallel decision authorizing injunctive relief under similar circumstances. In my judgment, AnheuserBusch is directly controlling. As Chief Judge Coffin observed:
Although the district court’s findings on injury make reference to the fact that the plant was effectively shut down, an employer cannot be permitted to qualify for injunctive relief simply by responding to minor employee infractions in a way that brings serious and irreparable damage upon himself by causing a shutdown.
511 F.2d at 1099.
The company is willing to suspend enforcement of the work rule pending arbitration; that is, it is willing to suspend enforcement of the rule as long as the union adopts its procedural interpretation of the contract. This in itself should be sufficient to show a lack of irreparable harm. Since the company can prevent the harm by its own conduct, it is incredible to me that the harm is found to be irreparable by the majority. Anheuser-Busch, Inc. v. Teamsters Local No. 633, 511 F.2d at 1099.
In any event, the company’s willingness to suspend the work rule pending arbitration makes it clear that if this court would order the parties to arbitrate the grievance involved, injunctive relief as to the enforcement of the work rule would not be necessary. It seems to me that this is a much better solution than authorizing a federal court to exercise its jurisdiction in an area where it is both undesirable and unlawful.2

. The company is willing to suspend the work rules if the union is willing to acquiesce in the company’s proposed grievance procedure. I think the obvious inference follows that the implementation of the work rule by the company was in retaliation to the union’s refusal to arbitrate without the discharged union representative present.

. As the Court indicated in Boys Markets:
Our holding in the present case is a narrow one. We do not undermine the vitality of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. We deal only with the situation in which a collective-bargaining contract contains a mandatory grievance adjustment or arbitration procedure. Nor does it follow from what we have said that injunctive relief is appropriate as a matter of course in every case of a strike over an arbitrable grievance.
398 U.S. at 253, 90 S.Ct. at 1594. (emphasis added).