Court Opinion

ID: 9454250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:40:53.088401+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:02.326567
License: Public Domain

DUFFY, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting) .
I respectfully dissent. I think the Labor Board should do something more than to give lip service to deferring to arbitration where the labor contract in question provides for arbitration, and such arbitration procedure is in process, as was the case here.
*859Pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement involved in this case, the discharges of Pagels and Schultz were submitted to arbitration. The arbitration hearing lasted two' days. By the labor contract, the parties were bound to comply with the arbitration award or subject themselves to legal and economic consequences. At the arbitration hearing, the parties stipulated that the award was to be final and binding. There is no claim here by anyone that the arbitration proceeding was improperly or unfairly conducted.
During the period in question, respondent had a serious problem in maintaining insurance coverage. In February 1965, the Company was informed that its coverage, due to expire in April, would not be renewed. Thereafter, Carroll, an insurance broker, was able to secure a policy from Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company. The policy was conditioned on the institution of a “loss control program.” The principal aspect of this program was an evaluation of each driver’s record.
The Union and the Company signed an agreement that three employees, including Pagels, would be given fifteen days to obtain their own insurance. On November 22, the respondent furnished Pa-gels with information on insurance coverage. Fifteen days later Pagels was discharged after the Company ascertained he had not taken out insurance.
The majority opinion criticizes Hribar for not adequately cooperating with the insurer; yet, it supports the Board’s decision herein because Hribar required Pagels to obtain his own insurance which was in accord with the arbitrator’s decision and also with the agreement made with the Union.
In a brief filed by the Labor Board in another case pending in this Court,1 the Board states that “In general, the Board will decline to make a finding of an unfair labor practice violation and will defer to arbitration where the parties have already obtained an arbitrator’s decision, or are in the process of obtaining such a decision, and where it is ‘reasonably probable that an arbitrated settlement of the contract dispute would also put at rest the unfair labor practice controversy in a manner sufficient to effectuate the policies of the Act.’ ”
In the case before us, the arbitration proceeding was pending and was decided before the Labor Board’s decision. It seems to me the Labor Board gives only lip service to deferring to arbitration proceedings. If it does not fully agree with what an arbitrator decides, the Board seems ready to hold that such a proceeding did not “put at rest the unfair labor practice controversy in a manner sufficient to effectuate the policies of the Act.”
In my view, the Board’s order with respect to alleged violations of Sections 8 (a) (1) and 8(a) (3) of the Act should not be enforced.

. Unit Drop Forge Division, Eaton, Yale & Towne, Inc. v. N.L.R.B., No. 16942.