Court Opinion

ID: 9472198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:52:26.039809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:47.731176
License: Public Domain

FLETCHER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The majority holds that White Pine may discharge any or all of its laid-off employees at any time, without regard to seniority. Its interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement *1388ignores the contract’s declaration that “[a]ll employees shall have the right to work in the order of their seniority provided they are competent. Any employee who is laid off shall be returned to work at his regular status when operations are resumed.” By discharging laid-off workers, White Pine could destroy arbitrarily the workers’ contractual right to be rehired in order of seniority. It could also rehire these same employees in the future without the other benefits of seniority for which they bargained, such as the right to be laid off in order of seniority and the right of a senior employee to “bump” a less senior employee in another department if there were a cutback in the more senior employee’s department. The majority’s interpretation eliminates significant rights upon which the parties have agreed.
The Supreme Court has recognized that “in common parlance and in industrial parlance” a discharge is quite different from a lay-off, which occurs “when the slackening of work require[s] a reduction in forces.” Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corp., 328 U.S. 275, 286-87, 66 S.Ct. 1105, 1111-12, 90 L.Ed. 1230 (1946). The only sensible interpretation of the contract which gives all of its terms meaning is one which recognizes the distinctive treatment the agreement and the contracting parties give to each of these situations. Provisions relating to “discharge,” including Article VIII, which gives the employer the exclusive right to hire and discharge employees, and Article XIV, section G(2), which provides that an employee who is discharged forfeits seniority, refer only to the discharge of an employee who is actively working for the employer. The employer’s right to discharge in this situation does not unreasonably conflict with seniority rights because it can be assumed that the employer will not arbitrarily terminate the competent workers it needs to keep its business going. Further, grievance procedures are provided for any such discharged employee who feels himself unjustly dealt with. The same assumption does not apply to the termination of laid-off employees for whom the employer has no immediate need, as the employer’s conduct in this ease demonstrates. The contract is specific that laid-off employees have an absolute right to be rehired in order of seniority, subject only to the express limitation that they be competent. Because the employer has violated the collective bargaining agreement by discharging laid-off employees, I would reverse.