Court Opinion

ID: 8925942
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 06:39:28.950463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:09:23.824112
License: Public Domain

SPROUSE, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in what Judge Butzner has written except that I would interpret the master contract to require that arbitration on containerization issues be conducted under the procedures created pursuant to the master contract. Neither the master contract nor the Hampton Roads local contract specifically addresses the problem of possibly conflicting grievance procedures. Disputes concerning containerization, however, have long plagued the shipping industry. Because the industry and the unions responded to these disputes by creating in the master contract a specific and comprehensive grievance device, it appears to me that they intended this device to be a vehicle for resolution of all containerization disputes.
I feel, therefore, that the district court committed error when it enjoined the unions from violating the no-strike clause of the local union agreement because, in my opinion, the local agreement did not govern the underlying issue. As the parties are in the process of resolving their dispute under the grievance provisions of the master contract, and I agree that there was an implied no-strike clause in the master contract, I concur in the opinion.