Court Opinion

ID: 9461490
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:15:52.470872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:05.561200
License: Public Domain

FAIRCHILD, Chief Judge
(concurring).
I agree that, absent an unequivocal waiver by the union, the Company’s discharge of the Local 14321 employees for engaging in the concededly protected activity of observing another union’s picket line, was violative of § 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act.
The “no strike” commitment present in the instant collective bargaining agreement does not specifically waive the right to engage in a sympathy strike. Accordingly, the Company is essentially arguing for the implication of such a term into the agreement’s general proscription. Such protected rights should not be deemed waived by implication of law unless it is clear that the parties actually intended such a result.
I do not find Inland Steel Co. v. Local 1545, United Mine Workers of America, 505 F.2d 293 (7th Cir. 1974) controlling in the present case. As the court makes clear, the implication of a no-sympathy-strike agreement in Inland was founded upon an “exceptionally broad” and all-inclusive arbitration agreement. In the Gary-Hobart contract, the express no strike commitment does not specifically include a promise not to honor the picket line and the arbitration provisions are of narrower scope and application than those in Inland. I agree that the Board’s order should be enforced.