Court Opinion

ID: 9537123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:12:52.192247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:05.548981
License: Public Domain

ERWIN, Justice
(concurring).
I concur with the view expressed by the majority that appellees’ letter of October 5, 1973, did not operate to terminate in their entirety the contractual relations between the parties, and that the 1973 amendment imposing a three-year moratorium on negotiations for increased wage and related benefits continued to be binding upon the parties after the October 5 notice had opened negotiations on the balance of the contract. I feel it necessary, however, to voice my concern that our decision today not be interpreted to imply that questions arising in connection with the construction and enforcement of collective bargaining agreements are always to be resolved through a simple application of principles of ordinary contract law. A proper analysis of such issues requires an appreciation of the rather unique and distinctive character of such agreements, and I consequently feel constrained to call attention to some general considerations which I find relevant to our decision today.
The Supreme Court of the United States has taken the position that collective bargaining agreements must be differentiated from ordinary contracts. In United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co. it opined that
[a collective bargaining agreement] is more than a contract; it is a generalized code to govern a myriad of cases which the draftsmen cannot wholly anticipate.1
The Court then went on to observe that such an agreement is designed to cover the “whole employment relationship” and consequently calls into existence “a new common law — the common law of a particular industry”2 to define the contextual parameters within which the agreement is to be implemented.
A collective bargaining agreement differs from an ordinary contract in that it represents a broad-based and generalized attempt at commercial self-government. Of necessity, therefore, its scope encompasses such a vast array of people, potential conflicts, and unforeseen contingencies as to make its conformance with the analytical mold of ordinary contracts difficult if not impossible; to make the words of the agreement the exclusive source of the rights and duties of the parties is to ignore this fact.3 It may consequently be said that a collective bargaining agreement does not define a consensual relationship in the same sense as do most contracts. It defines, rather, the general contours of the labor relationship itself and anticipates— notwithstanding specific provisions — a continuing interaction in the expectation that there will be some eventual agreement as to particular rights and duties of the parties.
In United Steelworkers, the Supreme Court made the following observation:
A collective bargaining agreement is an effort to erect a system of industrial self-government. When most parties enter into contractual relationship they do so voluntarily, in the sense that there is no real compulsion to deal with one another, as opposed to dealing with other parties. This is not true of the labor agreement. The choice is generally not *710between entering or refusing to' enter into a relationship, for that in all probability pre-exists the negotiations. Rather it is between having that relationship governed by an agreed-upon rule of law or leaving each and every matter subject to a temporary resolution dependent solely upon the relative strength, at any given moment, of the contending forces. The mature labor agreement may attempt to regulate all aspects of the complicated relationship, from the most crucial to the most minute over an extended period of time. Because of the compulsion to reach agreement and the breadth of the matters covered, as well as the need for a fairly concise and readable instrument, the product of negotiations (the written document) is, in the words of the late Dean Shulman, “a compilation of diverse provisions: some provide objective criteria almost automatically applicable; some provide more or less specific standards which require reason and judgment in their application; and some do little more than leave problems to future consideration with an expression of hope and good faith.” Gaps may be left to be filled in by reference to the practices of the particular industry and of the various shops covered by the agreement. Many of the specific practices which underlie the agreement may be unknown, except in hazy form, even to the negotiators.4
Consistent with this paradigm it has. been recognized that the old common law concepts which control ordinary private contracts should not govern a collective bargaining agreement since such an agreement is not an ordinary contract for the purchase of goods and services.5 Consequently, not only should a collective bargaining agreement be read as a whole and in light of the law relating to it when made,6 the court must in interpreting it be particularly mindful that it does not lose sight of the broad contextual underpinnings which support the instrument.
In our role of developing a meaningful body of law to govern the interpretation and enforcement of collective bargaining agreements, we think special heed should be given to the context in which collective bargaining agreements are negotiated and the purpose which they are intended to serve.7
In the instant case I am persuaded that the history of the negotiations between the parties as well as the contextual setting attendant at the adoption of the 1973 amendment are supportive of the construction adopted by the majority opinion. Such a construction gives logical effect to the obvious purpose of the amendment as revealed by what I find to be a clear bilateral intent that a bargained-for three-year moratorium on wages was to be a condition for all other negotiations for that period. It moreover explains what would otherwise be an essentially meaningless and irrational concession by appellees under the circumstances; a provision which specifically excepts an area of negotiated agreement from normal durational limitations becomes self-contradictory if construed to be subject to renegotiation by operation of that same durational limitation. It may well be that appellees’ October 5 notice was less than artfully drawn, but it cannot be said that it evinced an intent to waive or surrender the benefit of appellees’ bargain or to voluntarily resubject wages to negotiation after only one year had expired. As observed by the majority our decision today assures that each party receives exactly what it bargained for.

. 363 U.S. 574, 578, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1351, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409, 1415 (1960).

. Id. at 579, 80 S.Ct. at 1351, 4 L.Ed.2d at 1415; accord John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Livingston, 376 U.S. 543, 550, 84 S.Ct. 909, 11 L.Ed.2d 898, 905 (1964).

. 363 U.S. at 579, 4 L.Ed.2d at 1416.

. Id. at 580-81, 80 S.Ct. at 1351, 4 L.Ed.2d at 1416.

. Transportation-Communication Employees Union v. Union Pac. R. R. Co., 385 U.S. 157, 160-61, 87 S.Ct. 369, 17 L.Ed.2d 264, 268 (1966).

. Mastro Plastics Gorp. v. NLRB, 350 U.S. 270, 76 S.Ct. 349, 100 L.Ed. 309 (1956).

. United Steelworkers of America v. American Mfg. Co., 363 U.S. 564, 567, 80 S.Ct. 1343, 1346, 4 L.Ed.2d 1403, 1406-07 (1960).