holding that breach of contract claim brought by professor against University of the District of Columbia was preempted by CMPA-sanctioned collective bargaining agreement between university and its employees
How later courts described this case
- holding that breach of contract claim brought by professor against University of the District of Columbia was preempted by CMPA-sanctioned collective bargaining agreement between university and its employees
- “employee may be able to bypass administrative remedies under a collective bargaining agreement by showing that pursuit of these remedies would be futile”
- “Generally, a District employee, subject to the [CMPA], or to a CMPA-sanctioned collective bargaining agreement, may not maintain a common law action in court to remedy a grievance against the employer cognizable under CMPA, or under such an agreement, unless the employee has exhausted the administrative procedures provided in that agreement.”
- "[An] employee may be able to bypass administrative remedies under a collective bargaining agreement by showing that the pursuit of these remedies would be futile."
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment:
Time has not altered my view that District of Columbia v. Thompson, 593 A.2d 621 (D.C.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 942 , 112 S.Ct. 380 , 116 L.Ed.2d 331 (1991) (Thompson II), was incorrectly decided. See id. at 636-40 (Schwelb, J., dissenting). Thompson II and now Wilson v. District of Columbia, 608 A.2d 161 (D.C.1992) (per curiam) being with us, however, I cannot fault my colleagues’ view that, under the Master Agreement, Professor Myers cannot simply skip Level Four. The Agreement states that the union “may” commence an arbitration proceeding, but this does not mean that it can arbitrarily refuse to represent a member with a meritorious complaint. On the contrary, in the processing of a grievance,
*649 [t]he union need not, and may not, sacrifice the rights of the individual to what it deems to be in the interests of the union as a whole, as it often must do during contract negotiations.
Thomas v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 890 F.2d 909, 919 (7th Cir.1989) (emphasis added); see also Dement v. Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac R. Co., 845 F.2d 451, 457, 459-60 (4th Cir.1988).
An attempt by Professor Myers to compel the union to arbitrate his grievance would not necessarily have been futile. Given Thompson II and the Master Agreement, UDC had a right to expect that it could arbitrate with the union instead of litigating against Myers as an individual.