Lattimer-Stevens Co. v. United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO, Dist. 27, Sub-Dist. 5

• Decision Date: 13 September 1990
• Docket Number: SUB-DISTRICT,AFL-CI,DISTRICT,LATTIMER-STEVENS,No. 88-4015,88-4015
• Citation: 913 F.2d 1166
• Parties: 135 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2573, 116 Lab.Cas. P 10,297 TheCOMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA,27,5, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 1166

913 F.2d 1166

135 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2573, 116 Lab.Cas. P 10,297

The LATTIMER-STEVENS COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO, DISTRICT 27, SUB-DISTRICT 5, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 88-4015.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued Oct. 12, 1989.

Decided Sept. 13, 1990.

J. Michael Cooper (argued), W. Eugene Rutledge & Associates, Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiff-appellant.

David Goldman (argued), Rudolph L. Milasich, Pittsburgh, Pa., Stewart R. Jaffy, Stewart & Jaffy, Columbus, Ohio, for defendant-appellee.

Before: MARTIN and BOGGS, Circuit Judges, and ZATKOFF, District Judge. ^*

ZATKOFF, District Judge.

Plaintiff-appellant Lattimer-Stevens Company (hereinafter "Company") appeals from the summary judgment of the district court in favor of defendant-appellee United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO (hereinafter "Union"). In granting the summary judgment, the district court affirmed an arbitrator's decision in favor of the Union. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

The Company and the Union entered into a three-year Collective Bargaining Agreement (hereinafter "CBA") effective September 12, 1984. The CBA had a broad grievance procedure that culminated in binding arbitration. Following the execution of the 1984 CBA, a member of the Union employed by the Company filed a grievance raising an issue of contract interpretation concerning a longevity pay increase provided for in the contract. That grievance was eventually submitted to arbitration, and the arbitrator issued an Opinion and Award on January 30, 1986 resolving the matter in favor of the Union.

The dispute in this case concerns the arbitrator's interpretation of Article XXIV of the 1984 CBA, which reads as follows:

In addition to the pay increases described herein, all Tier 1 employees shall receive a longevity increase of 15cents per hour, payable as follows: Tier 1 employees who have been employed by the Company for more than three years as of September 12, 1984, shall receive said longevity increase on the first anniversary date of their employment following the effective date of this contract. Tier 1 employees who have been employed by the Company for less than three years as of the effective date of this contract longevity increases shall be payable on the anniversary date of their employment when they have been employed by the Company for three years.

According to the arbitrator's Opinion and Award, "the issue for the arbitrator to decide was the interpretation of [Article XXIV] as to when longevity wage increases are to be paid." The arbitrator determined that Article XXIV, quoted above, called for annual longevity wage increases of 15cents per hour for those employees who had been employed by the Company for more than three years. In making this decision, the arbitrator noted that the CBA, as adopted in 1975, contained a significant difference in contractual language that expressly limited longevity increases to triennial payments. The language of the 1975 CBA was as follows:

In addition to the pay increases described herein, all employees shall receive a longevity increase of 12cents per hour, payable as follows: employees who have been employed by the Company for more than three years as of April 1, 1975, shall receive said longevity increase on the first anniversary date of their employment following the effective date of this contract, and shall receive a longevity increase thereafter, at three year intervals. For employees who have been employed by the Company for less than three years as of the effective date of this contract, longevity increases shall be payable on the anniversary date of their employment when they have been employed by the Company for three years. Thereafter, such employees shall receive longevity increases at three year intervals.

The arbitrator further noted that collective bargaining resulted in a new CBA in 1978, in which the above-underscored passages were deleted. The CBAs between the Company and the Union in 1978 and 1981 contained language on longevity increases that was virtually identical to that in the 1984 CBA.

The arbitrator found that after the adoption of the 1984 CBA, the Union "recognized then that the language specifically called for annual increases, whereby over the past eight years, the increase had been paid in three-year intervals." The Company insisted that it was required to pay longevity increases only at three-year intervals.

The arbitrator concluded that the contract language unambiguously called for annual pay increases. The fact that the parties to the contract had not insisted upon such performance previously did not preclude the Union from insisting that the 1984 contract language required the Company to act differently than it had in the past. The arbitrator, therefore, sustained the grievance of the Union and directed that Article XXIV be applied and enforced according to its terms, retroactive to September 12, 1984.

The Company advances a number of arguments for vacating the arbitrator's opinion and award. First, the Company contends that the arbitrator's award has no rational relation to the language of the CBA or to the CBA as construed by prior shop practice. The Company also argues that the arbitrator improperly found that the existence of annual longevity increases was an "undisputed fact." Finally, the Company argues that the arbitrator's award should be vacated because the arbitrator decided a matter not submitted to him. We find that all of these arguments are without merit.

A.

As pointed out by this Court in International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 429 v. Toshiba America, Inc., 879 F.2d 208 (6th Cir.1989):

Arbitration as a means of dispute resolution is highly favored and courts have long refrained from involving themselves in the merits of an arbitration award. When the grievance procedure has been exhausted, the courts have nothing left to do but enforce the award. Courts are bound by the arbitrator's findings of fact and do not function as appellate courts or courts of review, but serve only to enforce the arbitrator's award.

Id. at 209 (citations omitted).

When courts are called on to review an arbitrator's decision, the review is very narrow; one of the narrowest standards of judicial review in all of American jurisprudence.

The question of interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement is a question for the arbitrator. It is the arbitrator's construction which was bargained for; and so far as the arbitrator's decision concerns construction of the contract, the courts have no business overruling him because their interpretation of the contract is different from his.

United Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car. Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 599, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960).

The Supreme Court reexamined the role of the courts in enforcing arbitration awards in United Paperworkers' Int'l Union v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 108 S.Ct. 364, 98 L.Ed.2d 286 (1988). In Misco, the Supreme Court stated:

To resolve disputes about the application of a collective bargaining agreement, an arbitrator must find facts and a court may not reject those findings simply because it disagrees with them. The same is true of the arbitrator's interpretation of the contract. The arbitrator may not ignore the plain language of the contract; but the parties having authorized the arbitrator to give meaning to the language of the agreement, the court should not reject an award on the ground that the arbitrator misread the contract. (Citation omitted)....

The arbitrator's award settling a dispute with respect to the interpretation or application of a labor agreement must draw its essence from the contract and cannot simply reflect the arbitrator's own notions of industrial justice. But as long as the arbitrator is even arguably construing or applying the contract and acting within the scope of his authority, that a court is convinced he committed serious error does not suffice to overturn his decision.

108 S.Ct. at 370-71.

We agree with the district court that the arbitrator's decision in this case is immune from judicial review. The arbitrator clearly focused on the language of the CBA in interpreting Article XXIV. His decision was rational and was made in regard to the language in the CBA. See e.g. National Post Office, Mailhandlers, Watchman, Messengers, and Group Leaders Division, Laborers Int'l Union of North America v. U.S. Postal Services, 751 F.2d 834, 840 (6th Cir.1985). There is no indication that the arbitrator disregarded unambiguous terms in the contract. The arbitrator's decision, therefore, draws its essence from the CBA.

At oral argument, counsel for the Union raised the case of Electrical Workers, Local 429 v. Toshiba America, Inc., supra, decided by this Court on July 7, 1989. He raised the case in order to point out that it is factually distinguishable from the case at bar. In Electrical Workers, we held that the arbitrator's action amounted to a total disregard of the plain language of the contract. In that case, five employees of Toshiba were discharged for participating in a wildcat strike. The arbitrator ordered Toshiba to reinstate the five discharged employees. In making his decision, the arbitrator noted that because the employees violated the no-strike clause of the CBA, Toshiba had the right to immediately discharge or discipline them pursuant to article 4, section 2 of the CBA. Nonetheless, the arbitrator ordered the five employees reinstated.

In the Electrical Workers case, article 4, section 2 of the CBA clearly provided that the sole issue for the arbitrator was whether or not the employees had engaged in conduct in violation of the no-strike clause. Any disciplinary action, including discharge, could not be amended by the arbitrator. Therefore, once the Union stipulated that their employees engaged in an illegal walkout, the arbitrator was required to enforce the...