Baldwin-Montrose Chem. Co. v. INT. U., UR, C., L., & PW OF A.

• Decision Date: 22 September 1967
• Docket Number: No. 17547.,17547.
• Citation: 383 F.2d 796
• Parties: BALDWIN-MONTROSE CHEMICAL COMPANY, Inc., Appellant, v. INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED RUBBER, CORK, LINOLEUM AND PLASTIC WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

383 F.2d 796 (1967)

BALDWIN-MONTROSE CHEMICAL COMPANY, Inc., Appellant, v. INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED RUBBER, CORK, LINOLEUM AND PLASTIC WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO, Appellee.

No. 17547.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

September 22, 1967.

Leslie W. Fleming, Detroit, Mich., for appellant, Butzel, Eaman, Long, Gust & Kennedy, Detroit, Mich., of counsel.

Theodore Sachs, Detroit, Mich., for appellee, Rothe, Marston, Mazey, Sachs & O'Connell, Detroit, Mich., on the brief.

Before WEICK, Chief Judge, PECK, Circuit Judge, and CECIL, Senior Circuit Judge.

JOHN W. PECK, Circuit Judge.

The general question presented in this case involves an award made by an arbitrator appointed and acting under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement. The parties hereto, hereinafter usually referred to as the "Company" and the "Union" respectively, entered into such an agreement July 1, 1963. A provision of that contract established the conditions for eligibility and the amount of compensation to be paid to Company employees for vacation benefits. The critical Article thereof provided, "to be eligible for vacation pay, an employee must be an employee of the Company on June 1, 1964, and must have actually worked for thirty (30) pay periods between the dates of June 1, 1963, and June 1, 1964." The Company advised the Union on November 4, 1963, that it intended to terminate its operation at its Pontiac, Michigan, plant effective December 1st, and such termination followed. All employees had been laid off by February 14, 1964, and none were employed on June 1, 1964. In the weeks following November 4th some employees worked long enough to accumulate thirty pay periods within the dates specified in the agreement; other employees did not.

When the Union made a claim for vacation pay under the contract, it was refused by the Company on the ground that no one for whom pay was claimed was "an employee of the Company on June 1, 1964," and that some of them had not worked the required thirty pay periods. The issues thus created (plus two not here involved) were the subject of arbitration, and the arbitrator found both categories of employees (i. e., those who had worked thirty pay periods, and those who had not) to be entitled to compensation. The Company does not contest the arbitrator's authority to make the portion of the award relating to the employees with thirty weeks' accumulation but refused to comply with the award to employees without such an accumulation. As a result, the Union instituted an action in the District Court for specific performance of the arbitrator's award and the Company filed a complaint seeking vacation of the portion of the award in disagreement. The two actions were consolidated, and crossed motions for summary judgment resulted in such judgment being entered for the Union. The Company perfected this appeal from that judgment.

The provision of the collective bargaining agreement under which the arbitration was conducted contained this provision: "The impartial arbitrator shall have no power to add to, subtract from, or modify any provision of this agreement. * * * Pointing out that the Union makes no claim of ambiguity, the Company vigorously contends that after finding that "the parties treated thirty weeks worked as a condition of eligibility" for the vacation pay in question the arbitrator proceeded to go beyond the provisions of the agreement, in violation of its specific terms and of the injunction against dispensing "his own brand of industrial justice" proclaimed by the Supreme Court. United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel and Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L. Ed.2d 1424 (1960). In response to this contention, in his oral opinion from the bench District Judge Talbot Smith stated, "We have the problem here of whether or not the arbitrator's award did in fact add to or...