Anheuser-Busch v. LOCAL UNION NO. 133, INTERN.

• Decision Date: 12 October 1979
• Docket Number: No. 79-1083-C(3).,79-1083-C(3).
• Citation: 477 F. Supp. 742
• Parties: ANHEUSER-BUSCH, INC., Plaintiff, v. LOCAL UNION NO. 133, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, et al., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

477 F. Supp. 742

ANHEUSER-BUSCH, INC., Plaintiff, v. LOCAL UNION NO. 133, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, et al., Defendant.

No. 79-1083-C(3).

United States District Court, E. D. Missouri, E. D.

October 12, 1979.

Dennis C. Donnelly, Bryan, Cave, McPheeters & McRoberts, St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiff.

Jerome J. Duff, St. Louis, Mo., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM

FILIPPINE, District Judge.

In this action under Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 29 U.S.C. § 185, the plaintiff seeks a Boys Markets injunction¹ and an order compelling the defendants to submit various disputes to arbitration. A hearing was held on September 10, 1979, on plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction. The parties having now stipulated that, in the event the motion for the preliminary injunction is granted, they will present no further evidence in support of or opposition to the request for a permanent injunction, the Court makes its findings of fact, conclusions of law and ruling considering the plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction and complaint seeking a permanent injunction.

Plaintiff (the "Company") is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of Missouri, and has its principal place of business at 721 Pestalozzi Street, St. Louis, Missouri. Plaintiff is an employer engaged in an industry affecting commerce within the meaning of 29 U.S.C. § 152(2) and (7).

Defendants, Local Union 133 (Inter-Plant Drivers), the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; and the Brewery and Soft Drink Workers Conference-USA and Canada, International Brotherhood of Teamsters (hereinafter collectively referred to as the "Union") are unincorporated labor organizations representing employees in an industry affecting commerce within the meaning of 29 U.S.C. § 152(2) and (7). Local 133 maintains its principal office within the Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division and the Brewery Conference maintains its principal office in Chicago, Illinois.

The parties have stipulated to the following facts:

1. Duly authorized officers and agents of defendant Union are engaged in representing or acting for employee members within the Eastern District of Missouri. The members of defendant Union are too numerous to be joined herein individually as defendants, but said members are adequately represented by defendants, John J. Girard, Charles Kelting, Charles Talkington, Richard Crews, Melvin McLaughlin, Donald Woodson, Ronald Woodson, Ben Lonigro, Marty Templin, Barry Sharp, Gary Ball, Larry Declue, Frank Ladish, John Longo and Gregory Francis, all of whom are members of defendant Union, and each of whom has been joined as a party defendant in his individual capacity and as a representative of a class consisting of members of defendant Union.

2. Plaintiff and defendant Union are parties to a labor contract (the "Contract").²

3. Defendant Union represents certain employees of plaintiff at plaintiff's St. Louis, Missouri facility.

4. All of the acts referred to herein transpired within the Eastern District of Missouri.

5. On two occasions the parties have arbitrated disputes over work assignments which were claimed by the Union under Article XIX of the Contract. The first arbitration resulted in an award from Arbitrator Marshall Seidman dated July 19, 1979; the second resulted in an award by Arbitrator William Belshaw dated August 8, 1979.

6. Subsequent to the issuance of the Seidman award the parties invited Arbitrator Seidman to convene a meeting in St. Louis to discuss the interpretation and application of his decision.³

7. The plaintiff Company and the Union have met on nearly a dozen occasions subsequent to the issuance of the Seidman award attempting to resolve their differences over its interpretation and application.

8. The parties disagree concerning the interpretation and application of the Seidman award, and the Union contends that the Company has failed and/or refused to implement it.

9. Defendant Union presently has certain disputes with plaintiff concerning various work assignments and concerning the interpretation and application of Article XIX of the Contract.⁴ The parties agree that such disputes ordinarily are arbitrable pursuant to Article XV of the Contract. It is the position of the Union, however, that the parties' present disputes are not arbitrable because they are covered by the Seidman award. It is the position of the plaintiff Company, on the other hand, that the parties' present disputes are indeed arbitrable.

10. Plaintiff has both orally and in writing demanded that the Union arbitrate the disputes or differences which the Union now has over the interpretation and application of Article XIX.

11. On September 5, 1979 certain of the named defendants and other employee members of defendant Union engaged in a strike, work stoppage or refusal to work because plaintiff did not accede to the Union's position regarding the disputes referenced above. Commencing on the regularly scheduled shift at 6:00 a. m. on Wednesday, September 5, members of defendant Union refused to report for work and at 8:00 a. m. a large number of the members of defendant Union commenced a strike and work stoppage at plaintiff's St. Louis facility.

12. At approximately 9:00 a. m., September 5, 1979, plaintiff sought a Temporary Restraining Order to enjoin defendants from further engaging in any strike or work stoppage. At approximately 10:30 a. m. defendants entered into a stipulation that they would indeed refrain from their strike or work stoppage pending the Court's decision on plaintiff's Motion for a Preliminary Injunction.

13. But for the voluntary cessation of the defendants' strike or work stoppage plaintiff would have suffered irreparable harm.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

This Court has jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 185.

This action is governed by the Supreme Court's accommodation, in Boys Markets, supra, of the anti-injunction strictures of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C. § 104, to the provisions and policy of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 141 et seq., favoring arbitration. The conditions required under Boys Markets for the issuance of an injunction in a labor dispute have been defined by the Eighth Circuit as the following:

when (1) the union is engaged in a strike or other violation of a "no strike" clause of a collective-bargaining agreement, if (2) the violation was precipitated by a dispute between the parties, which dispute is (3) subject to mandatory grievance or arbitration procedures provided for in the agreement, and (4) issuance of the injunction is otherwise warranted under ordinary principles of equity.

National Rejectors Industries v. United Steel Workers, 562 F.2d 1069, 1075 (8th Cir. 1977), cert. denied 435 U.S. 923, 98 S.Ct. 1486, 55 L.Ed.2d 517 (1978).

The central issue in this action is the satisfaction of the third of these conditions. The parties' stipulations show that the Union was engaged in a strike which may be resumed and that the strike was precipitated by disputes over various work assignments and the application and interpretation of Article XIX. The stipulations also show that the plaintiff would suffer "irreparable harm" were the defendants to engage in a work stoppage; background for this stipulation was provided at the hearing by the testimony of R. Dennis Voisey, plaintiff's Manager of St. Louis Labor Relations.⁵ Thus there appears to be no question that an injunction is warranted under Boys Markets if the underlying dispute is subject to the mandatory arbitration procedures of Article XV and the plaintiff has thus demonstrated that a strike by the Union in the present circumstances would violate the no-strike provisions of Article XV.⁶

The Union's basic position is that it is not bound by Article XV to arbitrate the present disputes because the work at issue has already been awarded to the Union by Arbitrator Seidman. The Union claims to have two options at this point: institution of a court action to enforce the Seidman award, or a strike. The Union admits that the purpose of its strike was to attempt to compel the plaintiff "to comply with the terms of the Seidman Award";⁷ it claims that under the Contract, it has reserved the right to use economic power to enforce post-arbitration compliance with an award. The Union cites Buffalo Forge Co. v. Steelworkers Union, 428 U.S. 397, 96 S.Ct. 3141, 49 L.Ed.2d 1022 (1976), for the proposition that

If the Union reserves the right to resort to self-help at the conclusion of the arbitration process, that agreement must be respected. The court's power is limited by the contours of the agreement between the parties.

Id. at 425, 96 S.Ct. at 3156 (Stevens, J., dissenting).

Plaintiff maintains stoutly that it is in compliance with the Seidman award and contends that the defendants' proper and exclusive remedy for plaintiff's alleged failure to implement the award is an enforcement action. The plaintiff argues further that Section 3 of Article XV of the Contract permits resort to economic power only when neither party has demanded arbitration or when one party resists a demand for arbitration. Plaintiff's position is that this Court must determine from the Contract itself whether the current dispute over work assignments is subject to the mandatory arbitration provisions of Article XV.

Since the Steelworkers trilogy,⁸ the courts have consistently held that, in actions to enforce mandatory arbitration provisions of a collective bargaining agreement, the arbitrability of a given dispute must be determined from the terms of the contract itself.

A grievance under a particular collective bargaining agreement is deemed arbitrable "unless it may be said with positive assurance that the arbitration clause is not susceptible of an interpretation that covers the asserted dispute. Doubts should be resolved in favor of coverage." United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior &

...