Court Opinion

ID: 9475118
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:17:58.906886+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:31.545032
License: Public Domain

LAY, Chief Judge, dissenting, with whom HEANEY, Circuit Judge, concurs.
I dissent.
I.
Although I agree that once impasse in negotiations has been reached, an employer has the right to unilaterally institute terms and conditions of employment and in doing so is not bound to those contained in the expired agreement, the majority’s analysis completely ignores the principle that an employer may act unilaterally after impasse only if its action is reasonably comprehended within its preimpasse bargaining proposals. United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO v. Fort Pitt Steel Casting Division-Conval-Penn, Inc., 635 F.2d 1071, 1078 (3rd Cir.1980) (citing NLRB v. Cromp-ton-Highland Mills, Inc., 337 U.S. 217, 69 S.Ct. 960, 93 L.Ed. 1320 (1949)).
Despite an employer’s right to act unilaterally after impasse, it is clear that the working conditions which have characterized an employment relationship do not cease to exist on the date a collective bargaining agreement terminates. This court emphasized in Richardson v. Communication Workers of America, 443 F.2d 974, 978 (8th Cir.1971), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 818, 94 S.Ct. 38, 38 L.Ed.2d 50 (1973), that
the collective bargaining agreement is not an ordinary contract but rather, in a sense, agglomerates a variety of rights and methodology relating to the employer, the union, and the employees. ******
The expiration date of a bargaining contract does not place the employee in jeopardy of losing his job at the termination of the agreement. In fact one of the very incentives to union representation is job security. The employee, the union which represents him, the company which employs him, each contemplate [sic] a “subsisting” contractual relationship for an indefinite period of time. Cox, The Legal Nature of Collective Bargaining Agreements, 57 Mich.L.Rev. 1 (1958). Note, 61 Column.L.Rev. 1363 (1961) [sic],
******
The collective bargaining agreement in addition recognizes seniority rights, which * * * affect vacation pay, severance pay, pension rights and the expectancy not to be laid off during slack periods of work. It has been recognized that many of these rights may survive the termination of the agreement.
Richardson, 443 F.2d at 978-79 (citations omitted). The dispute involved here, whether an employee may be discharged without “just cause,” raises a continuing right vested under the contract as was the right to severance pay in Nolde Brothers, Inc. v. Local No. 358, Bakery and Confectionery Workers Union, AFL-CIO, 430 U.S. 243, 97 S.Ct. 1067, 51 L.Ed.2d 300 (1977). To hold otherwise, as the majority does, relegates all employees upon termination of the collective bargaining agreement to a status of mere employment at will. No decision of which I am aware has ever suggested such a rule until now.
*1406II.
However, there are even more persuasive reasons why this grievance should be submitted to grievance procedures. The undisputed facts of this case are distinguishable from cases which involve only the question of what terms and conditions survive an expired collective bargaining agreement after impasse. Here, CRST unilaterally implemented a schedule of wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment “consistent with its final offer.” Though the unilateral schedule described no detailed grievance procedure, the schedule did provide:
Section 2. Seniority List
******
Protest to any employee’s seniority date or position on the list must be made in writing to the employer within thirty (30) calendar days after such seniority date or position first appears, and if no protests are timely made, the dates and positions posted shall be deemed correct. Any such protest which is timely made may be submitted to the grievance procedure. (our emphasis).
In construing “the grievance procedure,” we find instructive our reasoning in Taft Broadcasting Co., WDAF AM-FM-TV v. NLRB, 441 F.2d 1382 (8th Cir.1971). In Taft, a draft collective bargaining agreement remained unsigned by the Union due to bargaining discrepancies in the version presented to it for execution. The employer then sent a letter to the union advising that it intended to unilaterally implement wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment as set forth in the draft agreement, and would continue handling grievances that arose in the future in accordance with the procedure set forth in the draft. When the union later filed a grievance on behalf of an employee discharged after this unilateral imposition of working conditions, the employer refused to arbitrate on the grounds that the duty to arbitrate arises only out of a contract and that no executed contract between the employer and the union existed. This court disagreed, noting that the NLRB had found the employer’s letter to be an interim agreement in which the ambiguous terms regarding arbitration Were to be construed against the employer as the drafter of the agreement. Taft, 441 F.2d at 1384.
The district court in its memorandum order granting summary judgment to CRST did recognize that CRST’s unilateral schedule could be seen to constitute a contract between CRST and the Union. However, in reaching its conclusion that the only grievable matters under the schedule are seniority dates and positions the district court, now joined by the majority, failed to apply the principle of judicial construction of labor contracts as articulated in Taft that ambiguities in contract provisions are to be construed against the drafter, with all reasonable doubts as to interpretation resolved in favor of the other party. See Taft, 441 F.2d at 1384; cf Ross v. Royal Globe Insurance Co., 612 F.2d 379, 381 (8th Cir.1980) (given possible conflicting interpretations of a contract provision, the district court should adopt the construction which most favors the party who had no part in preparing the contract).1
Whatever CRST’s intent, the schedule’s silence as to the submission of other issues besides seniority to the grievance procedure rendered the schedule ambiguous and compels the conclusion that the unilateral schedule did not preempt Ottaway’s discharge from being subject to grievance procedures. Cf. Johnson Controls, Inc. v. City of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 713 F.2d 370, 375 (8th Cir.1983) (court’s function in construing a contract is to determine the parties’ intent from what is said and not from what they meant to say); see also Minot Builders Supply Association v. Teamsters Local 123, 703 F.2d 324, 327-28 (8th Cir. *14071983) (discharge was arbitrable where collective bargaining agreement did not state explicitly that discharges are not subject to arbitration; doubts regarding arbitrability should be resolved in favor of coverage). It seems clear from CRST’s own reference to “the grievance procedure” in the unilateral schedule that CRST intended to retain a grievance procedure in its continuing relationship with the Union and the employees. The schedule nowhere expressly rejected the use of grievance procedures for issues other than seniority. It should be borne in mind here that while the exact grievance and arbitration procedures proposed by the Union and CRST during contract negotiations differed, the inclusion of a grievance procedure in the final contract was itself never questioned. . As in Taft, CRST’s unilateral schedule operates as an interim agreement retaining a grievance procedure for the resolution of disputes regarding terms and conditions of employment. This is especially true in a situation where impasse has been reached and the employer has unilaterally instituted a set of wages, hours and other working conditions purportedly consistent with a “final offer.” This court has previously found that a grievance or arbitration procedure is a term or condition of employment, NLRB v. Independent Stave Co., Diversified Industries Division, 591 F.2d 443, 446 (8th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 829, 100 S.Ct. 55, 62 L.Ed.2d 37 (1979) (citing Taft Broadcasting Co., WDAF AM-FM-TV v. NLRB, 441 F.2d 1382 (8th Cir.1971)).
The record is replete with references to the grievance procedure proposals advanced by both parties during negotiations. For example, the August 31, 1984 affidavit of Lawrence B. Pollard, a Director of Industrial Relations for CRST during the period in question, states that “proposals by the company spelled out grievance machinery which only included final and binding arbitration. [The union proposed a different procedure.] Neither grievance procedure was the same as that contained in the expired collective bargaining contract.” Undisputedly, CRST’s offer was never limited to a grievance mechanism applicable only to seniority issues. Contrary to the history of bargaining between the parties, the majority approves implementation of a grievance procedure limited to arbitration only of seniority rights which was not only not comprehended within CRST’s preim-passe bargaining proposals but totally contrary to the earlier collective bargaining agreement. This holding has no support in any case law of which I am aware; the majority cites no authority in support of its unprecedented analysis.
CRST plainly created a duty to submit disputes arising under the interim schedule regarding terms and conditions of employment to a grievance procedure by its representation that it was implementing working conditions consistent with its final offer to the Union. This conclusion is reinforced by the Supreme Court’s observation that:
[t]he contracting parties’ confidence in the arbitration process and an arbitrator’s presumed special competence in matters concerning bargaining agreements does not terminate with the contract. Nor would their interest in obtaining a prompt and inexpensive resolution of their disputes by an expert tribunal. Hence, there is little reason to construe this contract to mean that the parties intended their contractual duty to submit grievances and claims arising under the contract to terminate immediately on the termination of the contract; the alternative remedy of a lawsuit is the very remedy the arbitration clause was designed to avoid.
Nolde, 430 U.S. at 254, 97 S.Ct. at 1073. CRST’s reference to a grievance procedure indicates that at the time CRST implemented the unilateral schedule it contemplated that, for at least an interim period, employer-employee friction over working conditions would be resolved by a method of dispute resolution other than lawsuits.
This construction does not interfere with CRST’s right to act unilaterally after bargaining has reached an impasse, but merely holds CRST to the reasonable meaning of an ambiguous term it chose to incorporate in its unilateral schedule. The majori*1408ty’s analysis glosses over the fact that CRST did not refer in its unilateral schedule to a grievance procedure applicable only to seniority, but to “the" grievance procedure, application of which outside of seniority disputes was ambiguous. Rather than being the “clear statement showing explicitly how far CRST intended arbitration to reach” which the majority describes, the unilateral schedule’s language is precisely the sort which should be construed against CRST as the drafter. For the majority to revise CRST’s imprecise drafting by rewriting the unilateral schedule to mean what CRST now wishes it said crosses the bounds of appropriate appellate review and is contrary to the principles of labor law previously articulated by both this court and the Supreme Court.
Judicial application of legal principles often results in philosophical disagreement with the decision which precedent requires; judicial officers nevertheless must strive to uniformly apply the law as it exists.
For the reasons set forth above, I dissent.

. This court has also stated, in the context of interpreting the terms of an ERISA plan, that "where one of the parties draws a contract and the other * * * cannot vary the terms, the burden is upon the párty drawing the contract to make the meaning plain.” Landro v. Glendenning Motorways, Inc., 625 F.2d 1344, 1354 (8th Cir.1980) (citations omitted).