Court Opinion

ID: 9861499
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:07:23.412681+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:28:35.785975
License: Public Domain

The following opinion was filed January 5, 1960:
Per Curiam
(on motion for rehearing). The brief of the appellant union, in support of its motion for rehearing, contends that federal labor law controls the instant case and not state law, because of the fact that the employer is substantially engaged in interstate commerce. We find it unnecessary to pass on this contention because several of the authorities relied upon in our opinion are federal cases. The United States supreme court has not yet spoken on the principal point decided. When it does, we can perceive of no reason why the same policy considerations which *277aare discussed in our original opinion, and which caused us to reach the result we did, should not carry equal weight with that court.
The second point advanced by the union in support of its motion for rehearing is that our original decision interferes with the union’s rights derived from the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, as amended, to be the exclusive collective-bargaining agent for the plantiff employees in matters affecting their seniority rights. In support of such contention Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman (1953), 345 U. S. 330, 73 Sup. Ct. 681, 97 L. Ed. 1048, is cited. That case dealt with preferential seniority rights of employees, who had been in military service, arising under a collective-bargaining contract negotiated by the union as the collective-bargaining agent. The argument now advanced seems to be this: Because the union in the first instance could have negotiated a contract with the employer giving the plaintiff employees unfavorable seniority rights, the union can accomplish the same result in the arbitration proceeding.
We deem the foregoing to be a fallacious argument. Once the rights of employees have become fixed in the collective-bargaining contract, the union does not possess the right to barter them away before an arbitrator. The cases of Estes v. Union Terminal Co. (5th Cir. 1937), 89 Fed. (2d) 768, and Primakow v. Railway Express Agency (D. C. Wis. 1943), 56 Fed. Supp. 413, deal with rights arising under the National Railway Labor Act. Those cases hold that employees have vested seniority rights under their collective-bargaining contract, which entitle them to notice of, and the right to participate in, an arbitration proceeding instituted to pass on such rights. We do not deem that *277bseniority rights negotiated under the Labor Management Relations Act, and embodied in a collective-bargaining contract, should be accorded any lesser protection.
The motion for rehearing is denied without costs.