Their positions at Temco were covered under a collective bargaining agreement that their union Local 32BJ had signed with the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations (RAB).
[8] Having previously agreed to the hiring of the licensed security guards, the union believed it could not "legitimately object to [the workers'] reassignments as discriminatory.
Per the agency's practice when its investigation does not substantiate a charge that has been made,[10] the EEOC issued each man a letter of Dismissal and Notice of Rights.
Their lawsuit claimed that the union had breached its duty of fair representation when it withdrew their age discrimination grievance charges.
Then, on September 23, 2004, the men filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania Building Company,14 Penn Plaza, LLC and Temco in District Court.
In his decision he wrote that "mandatory arbitration clauses in collective bargaining agreements are unenforceable to the extent that they waive the rights of covered workers to a judicial forum for federal statutory causes of action.
[18] The 14 Penn Plaza majority opinion discerned that Gardner-Denver was decided correctly "on the narrow ground… that the collective bargaining agreement did not cover statutory claims."
However, the majority strongly disputed Gardner-Denver and its descendant cases',[19] "broad dicta" ("Judicial dictum is an opinion by a court on a question that is not essential to its decision even though it may be directly involved.
"[23] The third misconception that the Court's opinion sought to refute was regarding the real or potential conflict of interest between a union as a whole and the individual members that make up its bargaining unit.
Nothing in the text of the ADEA, the majority wrote, would justify "singling out an arbitration provision for disfavored treatment" "simply because of an alleged conflict of interest between a union and its members."
It added "In any event, Congress has accounted for this conflict of interest" by allowing bargaining unit members to take legal action against their union with the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
[24] Lastly, the 14 Penn Plaza majority turned its attention to "respondents… series of arguments contending that the particular CBA at issue does not clearly and unmistakably require them to arbitrate their ADEA claims."
In Justice Souter's dissent, he disputes what he refers to as the majority's "bald assertion that "[n]othing in the law suggests a distinction between the status of arbitration agreements signed by an individual employee and those agreed to by a union representative."
"[30] The dissenting justices claim that the majority "misreads the case" of Gardner-Denver by concluding that its outcome hinged solely upon the scope, or specific language, of the collective bargaining agreement.
"[31] Quoting from the text of the ADEA, Justice Souter notes that "'Any person aggrieved' under the Act 'may bring a civil action in any court of competent jurisdiction for legal or equitable relief' 29 U.S.C.
"[32] The minority contends that "Congress itself has unsurprisingly understood Gardner-Denver the way we have repeatedly explained it and has operated on the assumption that a CBA cannot waive employees' rights to a judicial forum to enforce antidiscrimination statutes."
"[33] Finally, Justice Souter speculates that the majority opinion may have a limited effect because it "explicitly" leaves unanswered the question of whether or not "a CBA's waiver of judicial forum is enforceable when the union controls access to and presentation of employees' claims in arbitration.
The rule allowed for a class action suit "where a party with superior bargaining power was alleged to have cheated large numbers of consumers out of individually small sums of money.
"[40] The Supreme Court overruled this decision, holding that section 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act preempted the California rule.
In doing so, it upheld a West Virginia state law prohibiting pre-dispute agreements that mandate arbitration of personal-injury or wrongful-death claims against nursing homes.
1873 by Representative Henry "Hank" Johnson [D-GA] The bill, first introduced to Congress in 2007,[42] leaves arbitration provisions in collective bargaining agreements between employers and labor unions unaffected "except that no such arbitration provision shall have the effect of waiving the right of an employee to seek judicial enforcement of a [federal or state law, or federal or state Constitutional] right or related public policy.
"[48] The letter also questions the impartiality of "arbitrators who rely on major corporations for repeat business" as well as the relative lack of oversight and "limit[ed] … procedural protections and remedies otherwise available to individuals in a court of law."