UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS
UNION, AFL-CIO,
Plaintiff,
v. Civil Action 04-01404 (HHK)
UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE,
Defendant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
This case is before the Court on remand from a decision of the D.C. Circuit. Am. Postal
Workers Union v. U.S. Postal Serv., 550 F.3d 27 (D.C. Cir. 2008). Before the Court is the
question of whether a particular finding in an award resulting from arbitration between the
American Postal Workers Union (“Union”) and the United States Postal Service (“USPS”) is
enforceable. See id. at 32. The parties have fully briefed the question. Upon consideration of
the briefs and the record of this case, the Court concludes that the finding is unenforceable and
summary judgment should be entered in favor of USPS.
I.
The facts of this case are set out in a previous opinion of this Court, Am. Postal Workers
Union v. U.S. Postal Serv., 422 F. Supp. 2d 240, 242-45 (D.D.C. 2006), and in the Circuit
Court’s opinion, Am. Postal Workers Union, 550 F.3d at 28-30. The remaining issue concerns
the Address Management System (“AMS”) Specialist position, a job within the USPS that has
not been held by members of the Union, as well as the work AMS Specialists perform.
The Circuit Court determined that an arbitrator’s award found that both the AMS
Specialist position and the work AMS Specialists do were within the Union’s bargaining unit.
Id. at 30-31.1 The National Labor Relations Board (“Board”), however, has determined that the
AMS Specialist position is outside the bargaining unit, and the parties do not dispute that,
consequently, the portion of the arbitration award finding otherwise is unenforceable. Cf. Carey
v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 375 U.S. 261, 272 (1964) (“Should the Board disagree with arbiter,
by ruling, for example, that the employees involved in the controversy are members of one
bargaining unit or another, the Board’s ruling would, of course, take precedence.”). This Court is
now charged with determining whether the finding that the work performed by AMS Specialists
is within the bargaining unit is enforceable. Am. Postal Workers Union, 550 F.3d at 32.
II.
An arbitration award is unenforceable if it “is in ‘explicit conflict’ with ‘other laws and
legal precedents.’” Am. Postal Workers Union, 550 F.3d at 32 (quoting United Paperworks Int’l
Union v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29, 43 (1987)). In remanding this case, the Circuit Court noted
that “[i]t is not immediately apparent whether the transfer of AMS Specialist duties to the
bargaining unit would be an unlawful accretion under Board precedent,” and cited two Board
opinions relevant to the question: Kaiser Foundation Hospital, 343 N.L.R.B. 57 (2004), and
Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems, 331 N.L.R.B. 1407 (2000). Id.
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Specifically, the portion of the arbitration award the Circuit Court interpreted
states that “the ‘Address Management System Specialist’ position is a part of the [Union]
bargaining unit and that it is a violation of Article 1.2 of the [Collective Bargaining Agreement]
to exclude the position and the disputed work from the bargaining unit.” Am. Postal Workers
Union, 550 F.3d at 30 (emphasis and first alteration in original) (internal quotation mark
omitted).
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The Union argues that this case is more like Lockheed Martin, in which the Board held
that the transfer of certain employees into a bargaining unit following a determination that their
work was within that unit was not an unlawful accretion in violation of the National Labor
Relations Act (“Act”), 29 U.S.C. §§ 151-69. Lockheed Martin, 2000 WL 1283044, at *1-3.
USPS argues this case is more like Kaiser Foundation Hospital, in which the Board held that
movement of a class of employees into a bargaining unit did violate the Act. Kaiser Found.
Hosp., 343 N.L.R.B. at 57-58. The Court agrees with USPS.
The facts of this case are similar to those in Kaiser Foundation Hospital and different
from those in Lockheed Martin in the same two “critical respects” in which the Board
distinguished Lockheed Martin in making its ruling in Kaiser Foundation Hospital. Id. at 57.
First, the Board noted that in Lockheed Martin, there was no suggestion that the union was
adding an “historically excluded classification” to the bargaining unit, whereas in Kaiser
Foundation Hospital, there was such a suggestion. Id. at 57-58. Like in Kaiser Foundation
Hospital, in the case before this Court, the Union has not disputed USPS’s assertion that the
AMS Specialist position has historically been excluded from the bargaining unit. Second, the
Kaiser Foundation Hospital opinion noted that in Lockheed Martin, the employees in question
were transferred into the relevant bargaining unit based on individual assessments of their job
responsibilities, whereas in Kaiser Foundation Hospital, the employees were transferred as a
group with no such individualized consideration. Id. at 58. Here, the arbitrator’s award defines
the work he found to be within the bargaining unit as the work of AMS Specialists, not as
particular tasks AMS Specialists may or may not currently perform. Based on these similarities
to Kaiser Foundation Hospital, the Court concludes that the Union’s enforcement of the portion
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of the arbitrator’s award regarding the work of AMS Specialists would constitute an unlawful
accretion to the bargaining unit.
Moreover, USPS has pointed to a case that further undercuts the Union’s insistence that
the arbitrator’s finding relates to work responsibilities and therefore is not in conflict with the
Board’s conclusion as to a job classification. Although the Union is correct that the two can be
distinct, see Carey, 375 U.S. at 263 (noting that a dispute can be “a controversy as to whether
certain work should be performed by workers in one bargaining unit or those in another; or . . . a
controversy as to which union should represent the employees doing particular work”), the Board
previously has rejected a union’s argument that a dispute about all of the work of a particular
class of employees is not a question of whether that class is within a bargaining unit, see
Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers Local 776, 305 N.L.R.B. 832, 833-34. The Board held in
Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers Local 776 that in attempting to transfer the work of a group of
employees into the bargaining unit where those employees’ positions were outside the bargaining
unit, the union was unlawfully “seeking to apply its collective-bargaining agreement to
employees whom the Board [had] already determined to be outside the bargaining unit.” Id. at
834, 835.
Applying the reasoning of Kaiser Foundation Hospital and Chauffeurs, Teamsters &
Helpers Local 776 here, the Court can only conclude that because the Board has determined that
the AMS Specialist position is outside the bargaining unit, the arbitrator’s finding that the work
of AMS Specialists is within it is in “explicit conflict” with “legal precedents.” Am. Postal
Workers Union, 550 F.3d at 32 (quoting United Paperworks Int’l Union, 484 U.S. at 43) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, the award is unenforceable and USPS is entitled to
summary judgment.
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III.
For the foregoing reasons, USPS’s motion for summary judgment [#53] shall be granted.
An appropriate order accompanies this memorandum opinion.
Henry H. Kennedy, Jr.
United States District Judge
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