INTERNATIONAL UNION, UA, A., & AI WKRS. v. WM Chace Co.

• Decision Date: 21 December 1966
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 28320.
• Citation: 262 F. Supp. 114
• Parties: INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AEROSPACE, AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA (UAW) LOCAL 985, AFL-CIO, Petitioner, v. W. M. CHACE COMPANY, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

262 F. Supp. 114

INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AEROSPACE, AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA (UAW) LOCAL 985, AFL-CIO, Petitioner, v. W. M. CHACE COMPANY, Respondent.

Civ. A. No. 28320.

United States District Court E. D. Michigan, S. D.

December 21, 1966.

Bernard F. Ashe, Stephen I. Schlossberg, John A. Fillion, Jordan Rossen, Michael S. Friedman, Detroit, Mich., for petitioner.

Frederick B. Schwarze, Leonard A. Keller, Detroit, Mich., for respondent.

OPINION

FREEMAN, District Judge.

This suit is brought by the petitioner Union pursuant to section 301 of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185, to enforce an award stemming from an arbitration proceeding conducted in accordance with the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement between the parties.

Respondent Company manufactures thermostatic bimetals used in heating control instruments. Petitioner is the exclusive bargaining agent of respondent's employees. A strike of several months' duration at respondent's Detroit plant ended in April, 1965. During the strike, respondent had transferred some of its operations from Detroit to Puerto Rico. While these functions had been performed in Michigan, a group of women had been employed to carry them out. In the course of recalling laid-off employees after the strike concluded, respondent ordered to return to work a number of men who had less seniority than ten of these women. The ten females then took steps to invoke the grievance procedure described in the contract. The dispute eventually went to arbitration, at the conclusion of which the arbitrator made the following award:

"The grievants, in order of their seniority, shall receive the opportunity to perform eight jobs enumerated in the Opinion, pursuant to Article IV, Section 5 of the collective bargaining agreement. If they perform satisfactorily, they shall receive back pay from June 14, 1965 to date of reinstatement, less any compensation otherwise earned."

Respondent's refusal to abide by this award precipitated the present suit.¹ Petitioner filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings; respondent countered with a motion to dismiss on the ground that Michigan statutory law and public policy make the award unenforceable. Both motions are the subject of this opinion.

The starting point of this discussion is United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel and Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 597, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 1361, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960), in which the Court held that an arbitrator's award must be enforced as long as it "draws its essence from the collective bargaining agreement." The pertinent portion of the instant collective bargaining agreement is Article IV, Section 4, which provides:

"(a) Seniority shall entitle an employee to preference over employees with later seniority dates in layoffs and reinstatement after layoffs.

"(b) Employees in the classifications of Electrician, Maintenance, Skilled Machine Hand, and Toolmaker, will not be able to exercise their seniority to displace employees in any other classification in connection with layoff, recall from layoff, job opening, temporary transfer, etc.

"(c) Employees in other classifications will not be able to exercise their seniority to displace employees in the above named classifications in connection with any layoff, recall from layoff, job opening, temporary transfer, etc.

"(d) A female employee in the Fabricating classification shall be able to exercise her seniority to displace an employee in the classifications named in (c) above, in connection with any layoff, recall from layoff, job opening, temporary transfer, etc., where lifting and weight factor restrictions do not apply.

"(e) As new jobs are created or present jobs are changed where the requirements to perform the full duties of these jobs are not prohibited by law, female employees as well as male employees will be permitted to occupy them." (Emphasis supplied)

It is not apparent whether the arbitrator's award was based on subsection (d), subsection (e), or a combination of both. However, it is clear from his opinion that he discussed the possibility that "lifting and weight factor restrictions" or the following statute prohibited female employees from holding certain jobs claimed for them by the petitioner.

The pertinent statutory language is found in M.S.A. § 28.824, C.L.1948, § 750.556 P.A.1962, No. 37:

"Any employer of labor in this state, employing both males and females, who shall discriminate in any way in the payment of wages as between sexes who are similarly employed, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. No female shall be assigned any task disproportionate to her strength, nor shall she be employed in any place detrimental to her morals, her health or her potential capacity for motherhood. Any difference in wage rates based upon a factor other than sex shall not violate this section." (Emphasis supplied.)²

In addition to the legislation, reference is made in the arbitrator's opinion and in the briefs of counsel to a news release, dated June 17, 1942, issued by the Michigan Department of Labor and Industry. This provides in part:

"Women shall not be required to lift more than 35 pounds in the course of their regular work, nor shall they be required to carry more than 20 pounds while ascending or descending stairs."

The arbitrator decided that this release did not have the binding force of law. His conclusion is supported by a letter, attached to petitioner's brief, from what is now the Michigan Department of Labor, in which the Assistant Director of the Bureau of Safety and Regulation indicates that his organization does not consider the contents of the release as law. The Court need not give its opinion on this point at this time.

The arbitrator discussed four different types of jobs. Only three kinds are important now because he found that the Union was not entitled to claim on behalf of a female employee one such job type. The remaining jobs are in the Metal Straightener (Strip) Department, the Metal Straightener (Coil) Department, and the Shipping and Receiving Department.

Briefly, petitioner grounds its argument for judgment on the pleadings on the following reasoning. The collective bargaining agreement, in Article IV, Section 4, subsections (d) and (e), says in effect that no woman should be given a job which she is prohibited from holding because of either the law or "lifting and weight factor restrictions." The arbitrator considered both the abovequoted statute and the aforementioned press release and concluded that neither the law contained in the statute nor the restrictions set out in the release prevented his making an award in favor of the Union. Therefore, the arbitrator based his award on the collective bargaining agreement as he understood it, with the result that this Court has no choice, in light of the teaching of Enterprise Wheel, but to enforce the award.

The difficulty with this argument is that it fails to take account of a question not presented in Enterprise Wheel but of crucial significance here. The threshold issue in this case is not whether the award was premised upon the essence of the agreement, but rather whether this Court can summarily order a party to arbitration to follow the dictates of the arbitrator when to do so may require him to commit the misdemeanor described in M.S.A. § 28.824. While it may be that as far as the construction of the collective bargaining agreement is concerned, the arbitrator was perfectly justified in finding that the hiring of the women grievants is not prohibited by law, i. e., the law insofar as it was expressly incorporated into the agreement, it does not follow that his finding makes it unnecessary for the Court to look beyond his opinion when confronted with a question of Michigan law—which, of course, this Court must respect if it is not in conflict with federal law—as it exists apart from the contract.³ In looking beyond the opinion, the Court is not attempting to second-guess the arbitrator. It is actually concerned with the lawfulness of its enforcing the award and not with the correctness of the arbitrator's decision.

Although neither party has cited a case presenting a situation totally analogous to that here,⁴ it is too plain for argument that no court will order a party to do something, if in order to comply with the court's directive, he must commit a crime. This is so despite any protestations that the party contracted to do what it is said that he should be ordered to do. On the limited facts presented to the Court in connection with these motions, it is impossible to hold that respondent's assigning the work mentioned in the arbitrator's opinion to female employees does not as a matter of law constitute a violation of M.S.A. § 28.824. This proposition is valid without any reference to the 35-pound weight restriction mentioned in the Labor Department's press release; for, even if this release does not state the law, the statute does; and in order to determine whether the statute is prohibitive in this instance, the Court must know more about the nature of the employment of which the arbitrator's opinion speaks. Indeed, it may be necessary to consider the individual physical characteristics of the grievants in order to decide whether a particular occupation would require any of them to perform tasks which are, in...