Contract interpretations

The Board focuses on whether there was a rational basis for the withdrawal of Appellant’s grievance challenging his rate of pay.  This case involves a fairly complex set of pay provisions, negotiated by the Union over the course of several contracts.  After the Company denied the grievance at the initial ...

Appellant does not assert that the withdrawal of her grievance was motivated by fraud, discrimination, or collusion with management.  Nor is there any basis on the Record to suggest that any such factors influenced the handling of her grievance.  Rather, Appellant disagrees with the International Representative’s conclusion that she was ...

Appellant challenges the refusal of the Unit Bargaining Committee to permit debate at a Unit meeting regarding Appellant’s proposed bargaining demand for changes to the Local Agreement concerning overtime opportunities for the Unit Chairperson.  In rejecting Appellant’s appeal, the International Executive Board focused on the Bargaining Committee’s authority to determine ...

The International Union asserts that this case falls under the appellate limitation found in Article 33, §2(b) of the International Constitution pertaining to obviously correct interpretations of bargaining agreements.  As the PRB has concluded in past decisions, the Article 33, §2(b) limitation does not apply when complex or heavily contested ...

The UAW FCA Department’s decision to withdraw Appellant’s grievance was not devoid of a rational basis.  As the PRB has held in numerous past decisions, the Board will not overturn the grievance-handler’s interpretation of applicable agreement terms, provided the interpretation rests upon a rational basis.  Here, the UAW FCA Department ...

There was no one-year agreement permitting Rosa to be laid off, so that his request for a grievance in October 2002 protesting the Company’s failure to recall him after one year had no contractual basis and was untimely.

A charge that a committeeperson exercised poor judgment in the handling of a grievance should not be submitted to a trial committee, absent a claim that the accused acted out of malice or willful and wanton disregard of the charging party’s interest. The difficult task of sorting out the respective ...

The job description of the “PPM” position that was posted in January 6, 1998, clearly stated that the job was in the maintenance classification. No one challenged employee Durbin’s right to accrue seniority in the maintenance classification when he was awarded the “PPM” position in 1998. The 1999 document that ...

We are not confronted with the question whether the Union could have persuaded an arbitrator to enforce Morgan’s right to bump into the Packer/Stocker position over Management’s objection. The record supports the conclusion that but for the Local President’s intervention Morgan would have been allowed to bump into the Packer/Stocker ...

The Local presented Patterson’s arguments to the Company, but it was not persuaded to change its position. The Local Union’s determination that the Company’s position could not be successfully challenged was based on the experience of former Committeemen and the established past practice. Patterson’s claim that the Union’s decision to ...