AMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS, ETC. v. CROSS BROTH. MP, INC.

• Decision Date: 20 July 1973
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 72-2223.
• Parties: AMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS & BUTCHER WORKMEN OF NORTH AMERICA, LOCAL 195, AFL-CIO v. CROSS BROTHERS MEAT PACKERS, INC.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

362 F. Supp. 127

AMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS & BUTCHER WORKMEN OF NORTH AMERICA, LOCAL 195, AFL-CIO v. CROSS BROTHERS MEAT PACKERS, INC.

Civ. A. No. 72-2223.

United States District Court, E. D. Pennsylvania.

July 20, 1973.

Howard J. Casper, Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff.

Richard S. Meyer, Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

BECHTLE, District Judge.

This is an action by a local union requesting an order vacating an arbitrator's decision awarding the defendant-employer $14,826.43 for damages caused by the local's breaching of the no-strike provision of a collective bargaining agreement.¹

After the local replied to a counterclaim included in defendant's answer to the complaint, the defendant filed a motion, now before this Court, for judgment on the pleadings. The motion seeks, in addition to the dismissal of the complaint, the enforcement of the arbitrator's award and the relief demanded in the counterclaim.

On July 1, 1971, the day after their collective bargaining agreement had expired, the employees struck and picketed the facility of their employer, Cross Bros. Hotel Supply, Inc., a purveyor of meat and meat products to hotels and other institutional users. The facility was located at 3550 North Front Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Some of these same employees also picketed the entranceways to defendant's meat processing and packing plant at 3600 North Front Street, less than a city block away. For our purposes, defendant's employees at the latter plant are divided into at least two groups for bargaining purposes. One is the slaughtering division; the other the boning division. The slaughtering division was covered by a bargaining contract known as the "Slaughter House Agreement," while the employees of the boning division were covered by the terms and conditions of a collective bargaining between the local and the Boneless Meat Dealers Association of Philadelphia and vicinity, of which Cross Bros. Hotel Supply, Inc., was not a member. As a result of the "picketing" of the meat plant, defendant made a claim for damages against the local for an alleged violation of the no-strike clause of the Slaughter House Agreement. The tenth provision, entitled "Strikes, Lockouts, Grievances and Arbitrations," of that agreement, entered into by the parties on April 17, 1971, effective through April 21, 1974, set forth the three steps for resolving any differences between the parties as to the interpretation or application of the agreement. The first two steps provide that if no adjustment is reached in either of them then the third is to be followed. Since no adjustment was reached concerning its claim against the local in the first two steps of that provision, defendant submitted its claim for damages to arbitration under the rules of the American Arbitration Association ("AAA"). Paragraphs 5 and 6 of defendant's counterclaim, respectively, aver:

"5. Pursuant to the rules of the AAA, the parties mutually selected Professor Emanuel Stein to arbitrate the dispute.

"6. Prior to the arbitration hearing, Local 195 neither filed any protest or objection to the jurisdiction of the AAA or of the arbitrator, nor did it seek to enjoin or refuse to go forward with the arbitration hearing."

These averments are denied in the local's reply to the...