Court Opinion

ID: 9476278
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:52:04.481532+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:13.653917
License: Public Domain

*754CLARK, Chief Judge,
dissenting:
I perceive the issue which divides the parties here is the identical issue presented in AT & T Technologies v. Communications Workers: Did the “collective bargaining agreement create a duty for the parties to arbitrate the particular grievance”? I agree with Judge Williams, as the district court did, that the resolution of this issue does not turn on the merits of Hildabridle’s “discharge.” (If the merits of the discharge were pertinent, all are in agreement that it would have presented a matter which should have been submitted to the arbitrator.) Rather, the issue turns on whether the back-to-work agreement between OCAW and Petrofina excluded Hildabridle’s discharge from the arbitration provision of the new collective bargaining agreement.
The district court found that in the back-to-work agreement the parties specifically agreed to disagree over whether Hildabridle’s grievance was arbitrable. The court concluded that therefore the parties could not have agreed to arbitrate the grievance. Because the panel majority declines to affirm the district court’s proper legal determination of the parties’ agreement — an inquiry clearly vested in that court under AT & T Technologies — I respectfully dissent.