Court Opinion

ID: 9450075
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:34:24.553184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:08.396698
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent.
It is the duty of the courts to interpret the arbitration provisions of collective bargaining agreements according to the intention of the parties as they have expressed it and in light of the circumstances surrounding the negotiations between the parties and the execution of the agreement. United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 584-585, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409 (1960); Atkinson v. Sinclair Refining Co., 370 U.S. 238, 241-242, 82 S.Ct. 1318, 8 L.Ed.2d 462 (1962).
The Supreme Court has admonished us that in the absence of an express provision excluding from arbitration a particular grievance, “only the most forceful evidence of a purpose to exclude the claim from arbitration can prevail.” United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., supra, 363 U.S. at 585, 80 S.Ct. at 1354. I believe that General Electric has adduced such forceful evidence that its right to subcontract work was not subject to the general arbitration clause embodied in the collective bargaining agreement.
The agreement contains no express provision with respect to subcontracting. However, Part Four of the 1955-60 Settlement Agreement provides that the agreement is “intended to be and shall be in full settlement of all issues which were, or which the Union, the Locals, or the Company had by law the right to make, the subject of collective bargaining in negotiations between them preceding the execution of this Agreement.” These words gather meaning from the context of the negotiations which immediately preceded the execution of the agreement. During the negotiations in 1954 the union presented to management a series of demands, among them a demand that the company “cease the farming out of work which could be done in GE plants.” The company rejected this demand, and no contractual provision relating to subcontracting was included in the agreement.
That the union itself recognized that the issue of subcontracting had been excluded from the collective bargaining agreement is apparent from the events that followed. The Settlement Agreement provided for a reopener in 1958 to discuss “proposals for contracting with regard to any question directly relating to employment security which *494may be submitted by either the Union or the Company.” In 1958 the union in fact proposed alterations in the bargaining agreement, in light of its objection to the company’s “subcontracting work that properly belongs in the bargaining unit.” The union argued that “This provision should be incorporated in our agreement and the manner in which subcontracting may be carried on should be spelled out.” The company rejected this demand, and the agreement was left intact in this regard. Again in 1960 the union sought to have incorporated in the bargaining agreement a provision concerning subcontracting, and once again the company rejected this demand.
All of these facts taken together lead me to the conclusion that there was no agreement to arbitrate any dispute arising out of the company’s subcontracting for plant expansion work.
The company’s reasons for refusing to agree to arbitration regarding subcontracting are quite apparent from the events which triggered this dispute. Much of the work to be performed in the renovation and remodelling of the plant and the installation of new machinery, estimated to cost $1,750,000, could not be done by General Electric employees. When the company suggested to its subcontractor, Gellatly Construction Company, that General Electric workers might do some of the work, Gellatly pointed out that this was practically impossible inasmuch as its employees were members of a rival union and would not work alongside of members of the International. Under the majority’s decision, General Electric cannot safely subcontract with any one not in its employ to do anything unless it first secures the consent of the union or is willing to submit to the uncertainties of arbitration in an area normally left entirely to management. While the company might, of course, have agreed to this strait-jacket, it seems absurd to suppose that either the union or the company could think it had done so in light of its persistent refusal to accept the union’s demands that it do so.
Surely the parties did not agree to arbitrate every conceivable claim. But by the reasoning of the majority we are pretty close to the point of holding that every claim must be arbitrated because at the very least it involves the question whether by some process of reasoning the claim may involve tangentially some provision in the agreement. We do a grave disservice to the salutary cause of arbitration when we compel a company to arbitrate under such circumstances. We defeat our national labor policy when we leave to management as its sole source-of self-protection against arbitration of all disputes insistence upon the recital in the bargaining agreement of a multitude of matters which are not to be arbitrated, or, more likely, refusal to agree to arbitration about anything lest it unwittingly be required to arbitrate everything. With unions constantly seeking the inclusion of more matters in their written labor agreements, the majority ruling would seem to open up a-one-way street for the benefit of the union. In my view, where there is no persuasive reason to believe that the parties-could have thought that certain matters might in the future be the subject of arbitration under the terms of an agreement then governing their relations, we-should hold that there was no agreement to arbitrate.
It is not our proper business to rewrite a labor agreement which is the-result of long and hard-fought negotiations between management and labor. It is as much our duty, after careful scrutiny of the agreement, to reject arbitration where the parties never intended it to be applicable as it is to. require arbitration where the parties have seen fit to provide for this form of adjudication. The record here establishes that arbitration of disputes regarding subcontracting was never intended by the parties.
I would reverse the judgment of the district court and grant the company’s, motion for summary judgment.