Dillon v. American Brass Co.

• Decision Date: 14 July 1948
• Citation: 135 Conn. 10,60 A.2d 661
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: DILLON et al. v. AMERICAN BRASS CO. et al.

135 Conn. 10

60 A.2d 661

DILLON et al.

v.AMERICAN BRASS CO. et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 14, 1948.

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Wynne, Judge.

Application by George Dillon, and others, against the American Brass Company, and others, to vacate an arbitration award brought to the Superior Court. From the court's action granting a motion of defendant union that the application be dismissed, plaintiffs appeal.

No error.

Thomas R. Robinson, of New Haven, for appellants.

David R. Lessler, of Bridgeport, for appellee Union.

William J. Larkin, 2d and William J. Larkin, both of Waterbury, for appellee American Brass Co.

Before MALTBIE, C. J., and BROWN, JENNINGS, ELLS and DICKENSON, JJ.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

The plaintiffs are employees of the named defendant, and a union of its employees is the other defendant. The plaintiffs made an application to vacate an arbitration award in which it was determined that they were members of the union and that the defendant company was bound, under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, to make a deduction from their wages and remit the money so deducted to the union; and the plaintiffs also sought a temporary injunction to restrain any action under the award until the court should make a further order. On motion of the union the application was dismissed and the plaintiffs have appealed. The application was made under § 5850 of the General Statutes, which provides that the Superior Court ‘upon the application of any party’ to an arbitration shall vacate the award if the arbitrators ‘shall have exceeded their powers.’ The ground upon which the application was dismissed was that the plaintiffs were not ‘aggrieved parties, giving them a standing in court.’

The appeal must be decided upon the basis of the allegations of the complaint. From these it appears: On June 10, 1947, the defendant company entered into a written agreement, to be effective for two years and subject to renewal or cancellation, with a union as the authorized representative of the employees of the company, with respect to pay, hours of labor, and other conditions of employment. One paragraph of the agreement provides: ‘For the life of this Agreement, the Company agrees to deduct from the pay of Union members employed on jobs in the Bargaining Unit an amount not to exceed One Dollar and Fifty Cents ($1.50) for any one month. In addition, the Company will deduct from the wages of such employees who subsequently become members of the Union, an initiation fee or reinstatement fee of not more than Five Dollars ($5.00). The Company will remit these amounts collected to the Financial Secretary of the Union once each month.’ Another paragraph, so far as material to the issue before us, provides that, if there should be any difference of opinion between the company and the union as to the interpretation or application of any clause in the agreement, either party may submit the matter for arbitration to an impartial arbitrator to be selected by the parties, and that the decision of the arbitrator shall be final and binding on both parties.

The complaint further states: The plaintiffs were not members of the union. A dispute arose between the company and the union as to whether the company was obliged to withhold a portion of the plaintiffs' wages and pay the money to the union. As the company and the union could not agree, four arbitrators were appointed, but they could not agree and the matter was submitted to a fifth arbitrator. The plaintiffs appeared as witnesses and asserted that they were not and never had been members of the union, and they claimed that the question whether they were members of the union was not a proper subject of arbitration under the agreement. The fifth arbitrator found that they were members of the union, that their wages were subject to deduction and that the portion withheld should be paid to the union.

The National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 453, 29 U.S.C.A. § 159(a), provided that the duly selected representative for collective bargaining in a unit shall be the exclusive representative ‘of all the employees in such unit for the purposes of collective bargaining in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment’; and this language is repeated in the 1947 amendments. 61 Stat. 143, 29 U.S.C.A. § 159(a). The bargaining agency represents all the employees of a unit whether or not they are members of the union ‘as to matters which are properly the subject of collective bargaining,’ provided it treats all fairly and without improper discrimination. Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U.S. 192, 200, 65 S.Ct. 226, 231, 89 L.Ed. 173; Crowell v. Palmer, 134 Conn. 502, 508, 58 A.2d 729. The basis of that representation is that all the employees have a common interest in the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement. But a provision in such an...