Opinion
4-487, CIVIL ACTION CAUSE NUMBER 2:00-CV-0214-J
September 17, 2001
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
This is a declaratory judgment action brought to vacate three labor arbitration awards ordering the reinstatement of three union members to their former jobs with Plaintiff Pioneer Natural Resources USA, Inc. The union local requests summary judgment affirming and enforcing the awards, while the employer requests summary judgment declaring the awards unenforceable. For the following reasons the union's motion is granted, Pioneer's motion is denied, and all three arbitration awards are upheld.
Factual Background
Pioneer is an oil and natural gas exploration and production company that operates the Fain Gas Plant located 25 miles north of Amarillo, Texas. The gas plant employs 23 persons and runs 24 hours a day. During 1998 and 1999 union members Kent Logan, Bobby Maldonado, and Grover Harris were operators employed at the plant.
In early 1998 company management discovered that some gas plant employees were drinking beer on company property while they were working. Management officials held meetings to advise their employees that drinking and/or possession of alcoholic beverages was forbidden by company rules and that if any employee was caught he would be terminated. Management elected not to discipline anyone at that time. Employees asked management where they could put their beer and the plant superintendent advised them that they could do whatever they wanted as long as it was off company property. There was an understanding reached that a beer box for the purpose of icing beer be located outside the gas plant by the company-maintained road leading into the plant.
In the summer of 1999 an investigation was conducted by Pioneer's Corporate Security unit as the result of an altercation between Grover Harris and another employee at a company golf outing. During the investigation some of the hourly employees who were interviewed for the investigation stated that a number of management and hourly employees were drinking or were in possession of alcohol on company property and while on the job. As a result of the investigation Logan, Maldonado and Harris were terminated for violation of company's policy forbidding unapproved possession alcohol on company property and/or drinking while on the job. No management officials were disciplined. The senior investigator conducting the investigation either did not look into or did not investigate in depth on the job drinking or on-premises possession of alcohol by management officials.
Article VII, Part C, Section 3 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between Pioneer and the union deals with conflict resolution and post-grievance arbitration procedures. That section states that "Arbitrators have no power to add to, subtract from, change, modify or amend any of the terms of" the CBA. It further states that the arbitrator agreed to by the parties "shall have no authority in disciplinary cases to modify the penalty imposed by the Company unless the penalty imposed is so unreasonable or disproportionate to the offense as to shock the conscience of a reasonable arbitrator." Further, "[a]ll decisions made by an arbitrator within the arbitrator's authority as defined in [the CBA] shall be final and binding on the Company, the Union and the employees covered by this Agreement."
The union local grieved the discharges pursuant to the terms of the CBA then in force. Reaching no agreement in the grievance process, the union and Pioneer submitted the discharges to binding arbitration before approved NLRB arbitrators. After concluding separate arbitration hearings before three different arbitrators the employees' grievances were upheld in part and they were ordered reinstated with no loss of seniority but with some loss of pay. The arbitrators basically found that it shocked their consciences that alcohol-related misdeeds by management employees were treated differently than similar actions by some hourly employees in an employment situation where local management had impliedly condoned and/or facilitated beer drinking by company employees.
After arbitration proceedings were completed and each of the arbitration awards became final, the NLRB decertified the union on September 18, 2000. The union is no longer the collective bargaining representative for Pioneer employees at the gas plant, and the CBA is no longer in effect.
Summary Judgment Standards
The Court may terminate litigation by rendering a summary judgement where no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgement as a matter of law. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2552, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) (initial burden is on movant to show entitlement to summary judgment with competent evidence). A material fact issue is one that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law.Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). The substantive law governing the case will identify which facts are material. Id., 477 U.S. at 249, 106 S.Ct. at 2510. The party opposing judgment must point the Court to "specific facts with sufficient particularity to meet all the elements necessary to lay a foundation for recovery, including those necessary to negate the defense" offered by movant. Brown v. Texas A M University, 804 F.2d 327, 333 (5th Cir. 1986)./
Accord Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); Celotex Corp., 477 U.S. at 323-25, 106 S.Ct. at 2553; Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. at 247-48, 106 S.Ct. at 2510. The nonmoving party must designate specific facts showing there exists a genuine issue of material fact on those elements sought to be negated by the movant.Ibid.
Discussion and Analysis
"Review of an arbitration proceeding is narrowly limited." Exxon Corp. v. Baton Rouge Oil and Chemical Workers Union, 77 F.3d 850, (5th Cir. 1996). A court will not disturb an award if it "draws its essence from the collective bargaining agreement" and is not based on the arbitrator's "own brand of industrial justice." United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 597, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 1361, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960). Federal courts may not reconsider an award based on alleged errors of fact or law or misinterpretation of the contract. United Paperworkers Int'l Union v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 36, 108 S.Ct. 364, 369-70, 98 L.Ed.2d 286 (1987).However, courts may scrutinize the award to ensure that the arbitrator complied with the jurisdictional prerequisites of the collective bargaining agreement, E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. v. Local 900 of Int'l Chemical Workers Union, 968 F.2d 456 (5th Cir. 1992), or the parties own stipulations regarding the issues to be submitted to their chosen arbitrator. A district court may vacate an arbitrator's award if the arbitrator exceeded its arbitral authority provided for in the parties' agreements. Id. All doubts regarding sustainability of an award are resolved in favor of the arbitration process. Six Flags Over Texas, Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 116, 143 F.3d 213, 214-15 (5th Cir. 1998).
Review of the each of the arbitration awards reveals that they draw their essence from the express terms of the collective bargaining agreement at issue. None of the awards are based on the arbitrator's own brand of industrial justice. The arbitrators' announced reasoning is based upon their knowledge of labor arbitration decisions, a through, careful and thoughtful review of the stipulated issues or the issues as reasonably framed by the arbitrator pursuant to the express language of Article VII, Part C, Section 3, application of Section 3 and other relevant provisions of the CBA itself, and the evidence and testimony presented in each proceeding. This court will not vacate any arbitrator's award because it has not been shown that any of the three arbitrators exceeded their arbitral authority as provided for in the parties' agreements and because all doubts regarding the sustainability of each of the three awards are to be resolved in favor of the arbitration process.
Under the very deferential review afforded to arbitration awards that derives from the Steelworkers' Trilogy (United Steelworkers of America v. American Mfg. Co., 363 U.S. 564, 80 S.Ct. 1343, 4 L.Ed.2d 1403 (1960); United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409 (1960); United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel and Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960)), and the cases that follow it,/ federal courts "have no business weighing the merits of the grievance," Steelworkers v. American Mfg. Co., 363 U.S. at 568, 80 S.Ct. 1343. This court may not do so, therefore the awards are upheld.
This trilogy stands for the propositions that industrial peace is best preserved by supporting collective bargaining agreements, that arbitration procedures are an integral part of CBA's, and that intrusive review of arbitration awards by the courts would undermine the federal policy favoring labor arbitration and would destroy the bargained-for finality of arbitration.
Conclusions
Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment is denied.
Defendant's motion for summary judgment is granted.
All three arbitration awards are upheld and will not be modified, vacated, or set aside.
Final judgment in the Defendant Union's favor will be entered in accordance with this opinion.
It is SO ORDERED.