At&T Technologies, Inc. v. Communications Workers

Justice Brennan,

with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Marshall join, concurring.

I join the Court’s opinion and write separately only to supplement what has been said in order to avoid any misunderstanding on remand and in future cases.

The Seventh Circuit’s erroneous conclusion that the arbitrator should decide whether this dispute is arbitrable resulted from that court’s confusion respecting the “arbitra-bility” determination that we have held must be judicially made. Despite recognizing that Article 8 of the collective-bargaining agreement “is a standard arbitration clause, providing for arbitration of ‘any differences arising with respect to the interpretation of this contract or the performance of any obligation hereunder,”’ and that “there is no clear, unambiguous exclusion [of this dispute] from arbitration,” the Court of Appeals thought that “there [were] colorable arguments both for and against exclusion.” Communications Workers of America v. Western Electric Co., 751 F. 2d 203, 206-207 (1984). The “colorable arguments” referred to by the Court of Appeals were the parties’ claims concerning the meaning of Articles 9 and 20 of the collective-bargaining agreement: the Court of Appeals thought that if the Union’s interpretation of Article 20 was correct and management *653 could not order layoffs for reasons other than lack of work, the dispute was arbitrable; but if AT&T’s interpretation of Article 20 was correct and management was free to order layoffs for other reasons, the dispute was not arbitrable under Article 9. Id., at 207 . Because these were the very issues that would be presented to the arbitrator if the dispute was held to be arbitrable, the court reasoned that “determining arbitrability would enmesh a court in the merits of th[e] dispute,” ibid., and concluded that the arbitrability issue should be submitted to the arbitrator.

The Court of Appeals was mistaken insofar as it thought that determining arbitrability required resolution of the parties’ dispute with respect to the meaning of Articles 9 and 20 of the collective-bargaining agreement. This is clear from our opinion in Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U. S. 574 (1960). In Warrior & Gulf, the Union challenged management’s contracting out of labor that had previously been performed by Company employees. The parties failed to resolve the dispute through grievance procedures, and the Union requested arbitration; the Company refused, and the Union sued to compel arbitration under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 185 . The collective-bargaining agreement contained a standard arbitration clause similar to Article 8 of the AT&T/CWA contract, i. e., providing for arbitration of all differences with respect to the meaning or application of the contract. We held that, in light of the congressional policy making arbitration the favored method of dispute resolution, such a provision requires arbitration “unless it may be said with positive assurance that the arbitration clause is not susceptible of an interpretation that covers the asserted dispute. Doubts should be resolved in favor of coverage.” Warrior & Gulf, supra, at 582-583 (footnote omitted).

The Company in Warrior & Gulf relied for its argument that the dispute was not arbitrable on a “Management Functions” clause which, like Article 9 of the AT&T/CWA agree *654 ment, excluded “matters which are strictly a function of management,” 363 U. S., at 576 , from the arbitration provision. We recognized that such a clause “might be thought to refer to any practice of management in which, under particular circumstances prescribed by the agreement, it is permitted to indulge.” Id., at 584 . However, we also recognized that to read the clause this way would make arbitrability in every case depend upon whether management could take the action challenged by the Union; the arbitrability of every dispute would turn upon a resolution of the merits, and “the arbitration clause would be swallowed up by the exception.” Ibid. Therefore, we held that, where a collective-bargaining agreement contains a standard arbitration clause and the “exception” found in the Management Functions clause is general, “judicial inquiry . . . should be limited to the search for an explicit provision which brings the grievance under the cover of the [Management Functions] clause . . . .” Steelworkers v. American Mfg. Co., 363 U. S. 564, 572 (1960) (Brennan, J., concurring); Warrior & Gulf, supra, at 584. “In the absence of any express provision excluding a particular grievance from arbitration, . . . only the most forceful evidence of a purpose to exclude the claim from arbitration can prevail. . . .” 363 U. S., at 584-585.

The Seventh Circuit misunderstood these rules of contract construction and did precisely what we disapproved of in Warrior & Gulf— it read Article 9, a general Management Functions clause, to make arbitrability depend upon the merits of the parties’ dispute. As Warrior & Gulf makes clear, the judicial inquiry required to determine arbitrability is much simpler. The parties’ dispute concerns whether Article 20 of the collective-bargaining agreement limits management’s authority to order layoffs for reasons other than lack of work. The question for the court is “strictly confined,” id., at 582, to whether the parties agreed to submit disputes over the meaning of Article 20 to arbitration. Because the collective-bargaining agreement contains a standard arbitra *655 tion clause, the answer must be affirmative unless the contract contains explicit language stating that disputes respecting Article 20 are not subject to arbitration, or unless the party opposing arbitration — here AT&T — adduces “the most forceful evidence” to this effect from the bargaining history. Under Warrior & Gulf, determining arbitrability does not require the court even to consider which party is correct with respect to the meaning of Article 20.

The Court remands this case so that the court below may apply the proper standard to determine arbitrability. The Court states that “it is usually not our function in the first instance to construe collective-bargaining contracts and arbitration clauses, or to consider any other evidence that might unmistakably demonstrate that a particular grievance was not to be subject to arbitration.” Ante, at 651-652. Of course, we have on numerous occasions construed collective-bargaining agreements “in the first instance”; we did so, for example, in the three cases comprising the Steelworkers Trilogy. See also John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Livingston, 376 U. S. 543, 552-555 (1964); Packinghouse Workers v. Needham Packing Co., 376 U. S. 247, 249-253 (1964). Nonetheless, I agree with the Court that we should interpret a collective-bargaining agreement only where there is some special reason to do so. Thus, it is appropriate for this Court to construe a collective-bargaining agreement where — as in the Steelworkers Trilogy — our decision announces a new principle of law, since applying this principle may help to clarify our meaning. There is no such need, however, where — as here — we simply reaffirm established principles. Moreover, since the determination left for the Court of Appeals on remand is straightforward and will require little time or effort, concerns for efficient judicial administration do not require us to interpret the agreement. Finally, because the parties have submitted to us only fragmentary pieces of the bargaining history, we are not in a position properly to evaluate whether there is “the most forceful evidence” that the parties *656 did not intend for this dispute to be arbitrable. Therefore, I join the Court’s opinion and concur in the Court’s judgment remanding to the Court of Appeals.