AMALGAMATED ASSOCIATION, ETC. v. Greyhound Corp.
| Citation | 231 F.2d 585 |
| Decision Date | 18 April 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 15772.,15772. |
| Parties | AMALGAMATED ASSOCIATION OF STREET, ELECTRIC RAILWAY AND MOTOR COACH EMPLOYEES OF AMERICA, DIVISION 1326, Appellant, v. The GREYHOUND CORPORATION, Florida Greyhound Lines Division, Appellee. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit) |
Edwin C. Coffee, Jr., Coffee & Coffee, Jacksonville, Fla., for appellant.
Wayne K. Ramsay, A. Y. Milam, Jacksonville, Fla., for appellee, Milam, McIlvaine, Carroll & Wattles, Jacksonville, Fla., of counsel.
Before TUTTLE, CAMERON and JONES, Circuit Judges.
The sole question presented by this appeal is whether under the collective bargaining agreement entered into between the parties the employer has the right to lay off a group of janitorial employees covered by the agreement and hire the services of an independent contractor in their place. The issue was submitted to the district court on motions for summary judgment made by both the company and the union, supported by several exhibits and the affidavits of the company's president and the union's president. Concluding that there is no implied prohibition in the agreement against the company's subcontracting the work in question, the district court granted the company's motion for the declaratory relief prayed. We are of the view that the judgment must be affirmed.
The evidence shows that on August 19, 1953, the company and the union entered into a collective bargaining agreement covering the company's bus drivers and nonmanagerial terminal employees at terminals in eleven Florida cities. The agreement by its terms is to remain in effect until June 30, 1956, with automatic annual extensions thereafter except where either party gives 60-day written notice of termination. The agreement expressly recognizes the union as the sole collective bargaining representative for both drivers and terminal employees, and further classifies the latter as ticket agents, starters, information clerks, baggage and express clerks, and porters and maids.
On November 11, 1954, the company entered into a contract with Floors, Inc., an independent contractor, whereby the latter was to perform janitorial and maid services at the company's Jacksonville terminal, which is covered by the agreement. On the next day it notified the porters and maids at the terminal that effective November 28, 1954, the date that Floors, Inc. was to commence working under the contract, they would be laid off. The union thereupon notified the company that if the porters and maids were laid off and the work given to Floors, Inc., it would treat the lay-off as a breach of the collective bargaining agreement, releasing it from the no-strike clause included therein; and further, that in the event of such a lay-off, it would call a strike of both the drivers and the terminal employees. The company then, pursuant to prior agreement with Floors, Inc., postponed the effective date of the contract between these two parties, and brought the present action for a judgment declaring its rights under the collective bargaining agreement.
The agreement is silent on the precise question in issue. It provides for the exercise of seniority rights in case of "reduction in forces," but nowhere defines this term or declares when such reductions are justified. On the other hand, there is no provision in the contract which may be construed as an explicit authorization for this action on the part of the employer.
The company argues that the contracting out of some of its work is one of the rights which an employer possesses as inherent in the managerial function, and that although these inherent rights may be contracted away by the company, it retains them in the absence of any express provision to that effect. It also urges that the inclusion of certain provisions in the contract granting rights to employees in situations roughly analogous to this one is inconsistent with the union's argument that there is an implied term in the agreement not to contract out any of the work covered by it. Thus, the provision that where any buses which the company rents are already manned by drivers, union drivers will accompany...
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