Court Opinion

ID: 9466428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:15:13.854524+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:43.366618
License: Public Domain

HENLEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the arbitrator’s interpretation of the term “just cause” draws its essence from the collective bargaining agreement. Although it is arguable that the use of the term “just cause” may in some contexts provide an employee with an opportunity to explain his actions prior to dismissal,1 the present collective bargaining agreement specifically reads out of the term “just cause” any requirement of procedural due process prior to termination for particular types of discharges.
Article 7, Section 1 of the agreement provides in pertinent part:
The Employer shall not discharge, suspend or take other disciplinary action with respect to any employee without just cause. In disciplinary matters at least one warning notice of the complaint against the employee shall be given to the employee . . . PROVIDED, no warning notice need be given to an employee before discharge if the cause of the discharge is dishonesty .
Because the employee in the present case was discharged for dishonesty, the arbitrator was thus compelled by the clear language of the collective bargaining agreement to allow the employer to terminate the employee without notice.
While some sort of pre-discharge hearing might have been desirable, the arbitrator was not free to dispense his own brand of industrial justice and read into the express language of the collective bargaining agreement something that is not there. In such circumstances, we should vacate the arbitration award. United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 597, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960).

. See Getman, Labor Arbitration and Dispute Resolution, 88 Yale L.J. 916, 921 (1979). But see Summers, Individual Protection Against Unjust Dismissal: Time for a Statute, 62 Va.L. Rev. 481, 504 (1976).