Tenney Engineering, Inc. v. United Elec., R. & M. Wkrs.

• Decision Date: 07 July 1959
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 716-52.
• Citation: 174 F. Supp. 878
• Parties: TENNEY ENGINEERING, INC., a New Jersey corporation, Plaintiff, v. UNITED ELECTRICAL, RADIO & MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA (UE), LOCAL 437, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

174 F. Supp. 878

TENNEY ENGINEERING, INC., a New Jersey corporation, Plaintiff, v. UNITED ELECTRICAL, RADIO & MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA (UE), LOCAL 437, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 716-52.

United States District Court D. New Jersey.

July 7, 1959.

Ralph N. Solodar, Orange, N. J., for plaintiff Sidney O. Raphael, New York City, of counsel.

Gross, Goldberger & Stavis, by Morton Stavis, Newark, N. J., for defendants.

HARTSHORNE, District Judge.

The plaintiff Company has brought this suit for damages against defendant Union under Section 301 of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 185, charging the defendant with having caused the plaintiff's employees to strike or engage in work stoppages, in violation of the no-strike clause contained in the collective bargaining agreement in effect between the parties. On being served with the summons and complaint, defendant immediately moved for an order to stay the action pending arbitration, pursuant to 9 U.S.C. § 3. This Court, by a different branch, denied the motion, and the defendant took an appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 3 Cir., 1953, 207 F.2d 450. That court held that 9 U.S.C. § 3, embodying the stay provisions of the Federal Arbitration Act, "applies to all contracts for arbitration which may be involved in suits properly brought in the federal courts * * *." 207 F.2d at pages 453, 454. The case was remanded to this Court, in the following language:

"We conclude that the defendant is entitled to a stay of proceedings under Section 3 of title 9, United States Code, if the collective bargaining agreement between the parties, properly construed and applied, provides for arbitration of the issues raised by the complaint and if the defendant is itself not in default in proceeding with such arbitration." ibid.

Accordingly, the first question to be determined is whether or not the arbitration clause in the collective bargaining agreement, properly construed and applied, calls for arbitration of a claim by the Company against the Union for damages arising out of an alleged breach by the Union of its undertaking not to cause a strike. Section 52 of the collective bargaining agreement in question, in dealing with arbitration, provides:

"All differences, disputes and grievances between the parties that are not satisfactorily settled after following the procedure set forth above dealing with grievance machinery shall, at the request of either party, be promptly submitted to arbitration. The parties shall select an arbitrator by mutual agreement. If no agreement is reached within three (3) days from the date of the request for arbitration, the arbitrator shall be selected by N. J. Board of Mediation." Brackets this Court's.

Note that the Company and the Union thereby agree to arbitrate "all differences, disputes and grievances between the parties" italics this Court's, provided same have not been satisfactorily settled under previously stated procedure. Certainly no clearer language could be used to indicate that the parties intended not only that grievances should be arbitrated, but that all their differences and disputes under the collective bargaining contract should be arbitrated. Furthermore, the provisions as to this preliminary procedure provide:

"Section 50. All differences, disputes and grievances that may arise between U. E. and the employer shall be taken up as follows: * * *."

Then follow provisions for (a) a reference to the department steward and the department foreman, thereafter (b) to the shop committee and the plant superintendent, and thereafter (c) to the U. E. representative and the shop committee, on the one hand, and the employer's representative on the other. This Section concludes:

"If no satisfactory settlement is reached, then the difference, dispute or grievance shall be submitted to arbitration, as hereinafter provided." As above.

Of course, a department steward and a department foreman are hardly appropriate to determine the issues arising on a general strike allegedly called by the Union, nor, presumably, would be the shop committee and the plant superintendent, since the Union, as distinguished from its members, would not then be represented. On the other hand, the preliminary consideration under (c) supra, by "the U. E. representative and the shop committee, on the one hand, and the employer's representatives on the other" would represent all involved, including the Union, the member employees and the Company. In other words, this procedure preliminary to arbitration would be applicable, at least in part, to the determination of the issues arising on the violation of a no-strike clause. Thus the allusion in the arbitration clause (Section 52, supra) to the fact that, previous to arbitration, these preliminary procedures should be resorted to, would not indicate that a violation of the no-strike clause was not an issue intended to be included in the "all differences, disputes and grievances between the parties", which should "be promptly submitted to arbitration."

True, the no-strike clause provision is stated in a separate section,¹ which does not additionally refer to arbitration or these preliminary procedures. But the violation of the no-strike clause by the Union, as alleged in the complaint filed by the Company, together with the Union's answer, as given at pretrial, that it had nothing to do with this strike or work stoppage, clearly creates one of the "differences" or "disputes" between the parties, all of which both the Union and the Company agreed to have arbitrated. This construction of the language of the collective bargaining agreement, entered into by both the Company and the Union, is particularly appropriate in the light of (1) the recommendation of the Congress to both labor and industry to resort to "a method agreed upon by the parties" for the settlement of their disputes, Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 29 U.S.C.A. § 173(d) and (2) the much more favorable attitude of the courts toward enforcing arbitration agreements at present than was the case in past years. Textile Workers Union of America v. Lincoln Mills, 1957, 353 U.S. 448, 458, 77 S.Ct. 912, 1 L.Ed.2d 972; see also Kulukundis Shipping Co., S/A v. Amtorg Trading Corp., 2 Cir., 1942, 126 F.2d 978.

Indeed, such was the very construction applied to a similar collective bargaining agreement by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the recent case of Signal-Stat Corporation v. Local 475, etc., 2 Cir., 1956, 235 F.2d 298, certiorari denied 1957, 354 U.S. 911, 77 S.Ct. 1293, 1 L.Ed.2d 1428, rehearing denied 1957, 355 U.S. 852, 78 S.Ct. 7, 2 L.Ed.2d 61. In upholding the arbitrability under a collective bargaining agreement of a dispute relating to the alleged breach of a no-strike clause, the court in Signal-Stat said 235 F.2d 301:

"We think the broad arbitration clause in the collective bargaining agreement here involved covers a dispute relating to an alleged breach of the no-strike clause. Under the agreement, `All disputes, grievances or differences' are arbitrable. We can hardly imagine more broadly inclusive language. This phraseology distinguishes the instant case from Markel Electric Products, Inc. v. United Electric, Radio & Machine Workers, supra 2 Cir., 202 F.2d 435. To the extent that the other cases cited by plaintiff require a contrary result, we think them erroneous. United Electric, Radio and Machine Workers of America v. Miller Metal Products, 4 Cir., 215 F.2d 221; International Union United

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