A labor union cannot continue litigating the validity of an arbitration award concerning a contract that no longer controlled the parties’ relationship, an Arkansas federal district court has held. In 2006, the plaintiff corporation became the successor in interest to a collective bargaining agreement that had been entered into in 2005 with the defendant labor union. This 2005 CBA was scheduled to terminate in February 2008. After a dispute arose over the plaintiff’s right to oppose the defendant’s attempts to organize employees, the defendant filed a grievance with an arbitrator, who upheld the grievance in July 2007. The plaintiff subsequently moved in federal district court to vacate the arbitration award. While the litigation was pending, the 2005 CBA expired. In the interim, the parties had entered into a new collective bargaining agreement which did not contain the same limitations on the plaintiff’s right to oppose employee organization that had been contained in the 2005 CBA. The plaintiff, therefore, sought to dismiss the case as moot, which the defendant opposed, requesting that the court confirm the arbitration award. In its ruling, the court sided with the plaintiff, and dismissed the case as moot. The court noted that judicial economy counseled against confirming an arbitration award where it would not effect the present relations of the parties, and that the arbitration award conflicted with the now-controlling 2008 CBA. Windstream Corp. v. Communication Workers of America, AFL-CIO, Case No. 07 CV 1158 (USDC E.D. Ark. May 9, 2008).
This post written by Brian Perryman.