Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co.

Last updated

Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co.
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 5, 1973
Decided February 19, 1974
Full case nameAlexander v. Gardner-Denver Co.
Docket no. 72-5847
Citations415 U.S. 36 ( more )
94 S. Ct. 1011; 39 L. Ed. 2d 147
Case history
PriorSummary judgment granted, 346 F. Supp. 1012 (D. Colo. 1971); affirmed, 466 F.2d 1209 (10th Cir. 1972); cert. granted, 410 U.S. 925(1973).
SubsequentOn remand, 519 F.2d 503 (10th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1058(1976).
Holding
An employee's statutory right to trial de novo under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is not foreclosed by prior submission of his claim to final arbitration under the nondiscrimination clause of a collective bargaining agreement.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Warren E. Burger
Associate Justices
William O. Douglas  · William J. Brennan Jr.
Potter Stewart  · Byron White
Thurgood Marshall  · Harry Blackmun
Lewis F. Powell Jr.  · William Rehnquist
Case opinion
MajorityPowell, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36 (1974), is a US labor law case, concerning arbitration with collective agreements for labor rights.

Contents

Facts

Mr Harrell Alexander, Sr., an employee at the Gardner-Denver Co. and member of the United Steelworkers filed a grievance claiming he had been wrongfully terminated for race discrimination under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The arbitrator held that he was terminated for poor work performance.

The District Court granted summary judgment to the employer, based on the grievance procedure. [1] The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld the District Court's ruling. [2]

Judgment

The Supreme Court held that the case should have been re-evaluated afresh.

Arbitral procedures, while well suited to the resolution of contractual disputes, make arbitration a comparatively inappropriate forum for the final resolution of rights created by Title VII. This conclusion rests first on the special role of the arbitrator, whose task is to effectuate the intent of the parties rather than the requirements of enacted legislation. Where the collective-bargaining agreement conflicts with Title VII, the arbitrator must follow the agreement. To be sure, the tension between contractual and statutory objectives may be mitigated where a collective-bargaining agreement contains provisions facially similar to those of Title VII. But other facts may still render arbitral processes comparatively inferior to judicial processes in the protection of Title VII rights. Among these is the fact that the specialized competence of arbitrators pertains primarily to the law of the shop, not the law of the land. United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co. , 363 U.S. 574, 581—583, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1352—1353, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409 (1960). [3] Parties usually choose an arbitrator because they trust his knowledge and judgment concerning the demands and norms of industrial relations. On the other hand, the resolution of statutory or constitutional issues is a primary responsibility of courts, and judicial construction has proved especially necessary with respect to Title VII, whose broad language frequently can be given meaning only by reference to public law concepts.

Moreover, the factfinding process in arbitration usually is not equivalent to judicial factfinding. The record of the arbitration proceedings is not as complete; the usual rules of evidence do not apply; and rights and procedures common to civil trials, such as discovery, compulsory process, cross-examination, and testimony under oath, are often severely limited or unavailable. See Bernhardt v. Polygraphic Co. , 350 U.S. 198, 203, 76 S.Ct. 273, 276, 100 L.Ed. 199 (1956); Wilko v. Swan , 346 U.S., at 435—437, 74 S.Ct., at 186 188. And as this Court has recognized, '(a)rbitrators have no obligation to the court to give their reasons for an award.' United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp. , 363 U.S., at 598, 80 S.Ct., at 1361. Indeed, it is the informality of arbitral procedure that enables it to function as an efficient, inexpensive, and expeditious means for dispute resolution. This same characteristic, however, makes arbitration a less appropriate forum for final resolution of Title VII issues than the federal courts.

... the federal policy favoring arbitration of labor disputes and the federal policy against discriminatory employment practices can best be accommodated by permitting an employee to pursue fully both his remedy under the grievance arbitration clause of a collective-bargaining agreement and his cause of action under Title VII. The federal court should consider the employee’s claim de novo. The arbitral decision may be admitted as evidence and accorded such weight as the court deems appropriate.

See also

Related Research Articles

Arbitration, in the context of the law of the United States, is a form of alternative dispute resolution. Specifically, arbitration is an alternative to litigation through which the parties to a dispute agree to submit their respective evidence and legal arguments to a third party for resolution. In practice, arbitration is generally used as a substitute for litigation. In some contexts, an arbitrator has been described as an umpire. Arbitration is broadly authorized by the Federal Arbitration Act. State regulation of arbitration is significantly limited by federal legislation and judicial decisions applying that law.

Dispute resolution or dispute settlement is the process of resolving disputes between parties. The term dispute resolution is conflict resolution through legal means.

Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong. A collective agreement reached by these negotiations functions as a labour contract between an employer and one or more unions, and typically establishes terms regarding wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs. Such agreements can also include 'productivity bargaining' in which workers agree to changes to working practices in return for higher pay or greater job security.

The duty of fair representation is incumbent upon Canadian and U.S. labor unions that are the exclusive bargaining representative of workers in a particular group. It is the obligation to represent all employees fairly, in good faith, and without discrimination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards</span> International treaty within the UN framework

The Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, commonly known as the New York Convention, was adopted by a United Nations diplomatic conference on 10 June 1958 and entered into force on 7 June 1959. The Convention requires courts of contracting states to give effect to private agreements to arbitrate and to recognize and enforce arbitration awards made in other contracting states. Widely considered the foundational instrument for international arbitration, it applies to arbitrations that are not considered as domestic awards in the state where recognition and enforcement is sought.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arbitration clause</span> Contract clause requiring parties to resolve disputes via arbitration

In contract law, an arbitration clause is a clause in a contract that requires the parties to resolve their disputes through an arbitration process. Although such a clause may or may not specify that arbitration occur within a specific jurisdiction, it always binds the parties to a type of resolution outside the courts, and is therefore considered a kind of forum selection clause.

International arbitration can refer to arbitration between companies or individuals in different states, usually by including a provision for future disputes in a contract or between different states qua states.

Pendulum arbitration, otherwise known as final offer arbitration or baseball arbitration, is a type of interest arbitration in which the arbitrator chooses one of the parties' proposals on each disputed issues. For example, in the case of labor collective bargaining, a trade union may demand a wage increase of 7% and the management may offer 3%. The arbitrator's decision has to choose between awarding a 3% or a 7% increase. This procedure is opposed to conventional interest arbitration, in which the parties present evidence and the arbitrator acts as fact-finder and crafts an award. In disputes over labor contracts, this dispute resolution procedure is known to be a common type of contract arbitration. Perhaps the most well-known instance is salary arbitration in Major League Baseball, where a certain class of players may elect to arbitrate their salary instead of accepting their team's salary offer. Final-offer arbitration is widely used to determine public union contracts in the United States, either as a substitute for collective bargaining or as a mechanism to determine the contract when bargaining has failed.

The National Academy of Arbitrators (NAA) is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) honorary and professional organization of labor arbitrators in the United States and Canada that was founded in 1947. Its avowed purpose was "to foster the highest standards of integrity, competence, honor and character among those engaged in the arbitration of industrial disputes." Under the Academy’s stringent rules, only the most active and well-respected practitioners can be elected to membership, along with scholars who have made significant contributions to the field of labor law and relations. The Academy’s roughly 600 members cannot serve as advocates or consultants in labor disputes, associate with firms that perform those functions, or serve as expert witnesses on behalf of labor or management. Their interest is in the betterment of a fair and impartial arbitration process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arbitration</span> Method of dispute resolution

Arbitration is a formal method of dispute resolution involving a third party neutral who makes a binding decision. The third party neutral renders the decision in the form of an 'arbitration award'. An arbitration award is legally binding on both sides and enforceable in local courts, unless all parties stipulate that the arbitration process and decision are non-binding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arbitral tribunal</span> Panel convened to resolve a dispute by way of arbitration

An arbitral tribunal or arbitration tribunal, also arbitration commission, arbitration committee or arbitration council is a panel of unbiased adjudicators which is convened and sits to resolve a dispute by way of arbitration. The tribunal may consist of a sole arbitrator, or there may be two or more arbitrators, which might include a chairperson or an umpire. The tribunal usually consists of an odd number of arbitrators. Members selected to serve on an arbitration panel are typically professionals with expertise in both law and in friendly dispute resolution (mediation). Some scholars have suggested that the ideal composition of an arbitration commission should include at least also one professional in the field of the disputed situation, in cases that involve questions of asset or damages valuation for instance an economist.

A side letter, or side agreement, is a collective bargaining agreement that is not part of the underlying or primary collective bargaining agreement (CBA) but is used by the parties to the contract to reach agreement on issues that the CBA does not cover, to clarify issues in the CBA or to modify the CBA. One may distinguish side letters from "side settlements", or "settlement agreements", which settle a dispute arising from the underlying CBA. In rare cases, bargaining parties may use a side letter to adjust the focus of the contract if the parties are not yet ready or willing to adapt the contract formally.

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR), or external dispute resolution (EDR), typically denotes a wide range of dispute resolution processes and techniques that parties can use to settle disputes with the help of a third party. They are used for disagreeing parties who cannot come to an agreement short of litigation. However, ADR is also increasingly being adopted as a tool to help settle disputes within the court system.

A labor dispute is a disagreement between an employer and employees regarding the terms of employment. This could include disputes regarding conditions of employment, fringe benefits, hours of work, tenure, and wages to be negotiated during collective bargaining, or the implementation of already agreed upon terms. It could further concern the association or representation of those who negotiate or seek to negotiate the terms or conditions of employment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whistleblower protection in the United States</span>

A whistleblower is a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public. The Whistleblower Protection Act was made into federal law in the United States in 1989.

14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett, 556 U.S. 247 (2009), is a United States labor law case decided by the United States Supreme Court on the rights of unionized workers to sue their employer for age discrimination. In this 2009 decision, the Court decided that whenever a union contract "clearly and unmistakably" requires that all age discrimination claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) be decided through arbitration, then employees subject to that contract cannot have those claims heard in court.

Wilko v. Swan, 346 U.S. 427 (1953), is a United States Supreme Court decision on the arbitration of securities fraud claims. It had originally been brought by an investor who claimed his broker at Hayden Stone had sold stock to him without disclosing that he and the firm were the primary sellers. By a 7–2 margin the Court held that the provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 barring any waiver of rights under that statute took precedence over the Federal Arbitration Act's (FAA) requirement that arbitration clauses in contracts be given full effect by federal courts. It reversed a decision to the contrary by a divided panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Executive Order 10988 is a United States presidential executive order issued by President John F. Kennedy on January 17, 1962 that granted federal employees the right to collective bargaining. This executive order was a breakthrough for public sector workers, who were not protected under the 1935 Wagner Act.

The Arbitration Fairness Act of 2011 is a proposed law in the US Congress to reverse the effects of 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett and AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion. Both judgments held, 5 judges to 4 dissenting justices, that employees and consumers were not entitled to claim for rights in public courts if they had agreed to arbitration in a collective or individual agreement. The result has been negation of statutory rights by contract.

United Steelworkers v Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co363 US 574 (1960) is a US labor law case, concerning arbitration over collective agreements for labor rights.

References

  1. ↑ Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 346F. Supp.1012 (D. Colo.1971).
  2. ↑ Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 466F.2d1209 (10th Cir.1972).
  3. ↑ See also Gould (1969). "Labor Arbitration of Grievances Involving Racial Discrimination". University of Pennsylvania Law Review . 118 (1): 40–68 [pp. 47–48]. doi:10.2307/3311125. JSTOR   3311125;Platt (1969). "The Relationship between Arbitration and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964". Georgia Law Review . 3 (2): 398–410. Significantly, a substantial proportion of labor arbitrators are not lawyers. See "Note : The NLRB and Deference to Arbitration". Yale Law Journal . 77 (6): 1191–1222 [p. 1194 n. 28]. 1968. doi:10.2307/794887. JSTOR   794887. This is not to suggest, of course, that arbitrators do not possess a high degree of competence with respect to the vital role in implementing the federal policy favoring arbitration of labor disputes.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.