Pittsburgh Mailers Union Local 22 v. PG Publ'g Co.

Pittsburgh Mailers Union Local 22 v. PG Publ'g Co.

Opinion

 [*185]  OPINION OF THE COURT

ROTH, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal we are asked to determine whether an arbitration provision in a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) survives the expiration of the CBA and remains effective for an extended period during which the parties are attempting to negotiate a new CBA.

Pittsburgh Mailers Union Local 22, Pittsburgh Typographical Union No. 7, and Pressman/Paperhandler Local Union 29M/9N exclusively represent certain employees of PG Publishing, which prints the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Each union had its own CBA with PG Publishing. Among other provisions, the CBAs required PG Publishing to provide health insurance to the unions' employees.

In addition, a separate provision in each CBA governed dispute resolution. When a dispute arose under the [**2]  CBAs, those agreements contemplated a particular grievance procedure. The final step in that grievance procedure involved the union and PG Publishing participating in binding arbitration. The CBAs had durational clauses, but the arbitration provisions had no durational clauses of their own.

All three CBAs expired in March 2017. Two months before their expiration, PG Publishing sent letters to the unions. In all the letters, PG Publishing included these statements:

 [*186]  The current Agreement expires on March 31, 2017. At that time, all contractual obligations of the current agreement shall expire.

[PG Publishing] will continue to observe all established wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment as required by law, except those recognized by law as strictly contractual, after the Agreement expires. With respect to arbitration, the Company will decide its obligation to arbitrate grievances on a case-by-case basis.¹

While the parties continued to negotiate new CBAs, they operated under certain terms of the now-expired agreements. The unions claim that, during that negotiation period in 2019, PG Publishing violated the expired CBAs by failing to provide certain health-insurance benefits. [**3]  The unions filed grievances under the dispute-resolution provisions contained in the now-expired agreements. PG Publishing refused to arbitrate these grievances. Instead, PG Publishing sent letters to the unions saying that it "has expressly disavowed any obligation to arbitrate post-expiration grievances."² In these letters, PG Publishing noted the Supreme Court's decision in Litton Financial Printing Division v. NLRB,³ explaining that:

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