UNITE HERE! Local 2 v. Tastes on the Fly, Inc.

Background

UNITE HERE! Local 2, a labor organization representing hospitality and food-service employees, and Tastes on the Fly, Inc., a concessions contractor operating outlets at San Francisco International Airport, were parties to a multi-employer collective bargaining agreement. The agreement covered employees at the airport’s concession outlets, with stated exceptions for clerical employees and guards.

The agreement defined a grievance as a dispute involving the meaning, interpretation, application, or alleged violation of the agreement. It established a four-step process: an initial meeting, further grievance meetings, mediation, and arbitration. Arbitration was the final step, and an arbitrator’s decision would be final and binding.

The union filed the first grievance in December 2017. It alleged that Tastes on the Fly had violated seniority provisions when it laid off bargaining-unit employees at an airport concession outlet. The parties went through meetings and mediation but did not resolve the dispute, and the grievance was never arbitrated. Tastes on the Fly later offered affected employees positions at other airport outlets. The union maintained that this did not resolve disputes about the agreement or the employees’ lost wages and benefits.

The parties later pursued a second grievance involving the seniority-based recall rights of two laid-off bartenders. The union asserted that the parties agreed to address the second grievance before moving forward with the first. Tastes on the Fly disputed that any such agreement existed. The second grievance was settled in September 2020. The parties then discussed selecting an arbitrator for the first grievance, but Tastes on the Fly ultimately refused to proceed. The company argued that the first grievance was untimely because it had been filed more than three years earlier.

Court’s Analysis

The court held that the collective bargaining agreement created a duty to arbitrate the dispute raised by the first grievance. Both sides agreed that the underlying dispute fell within the agreement’s definition of a grievance, and the arbitration provision was broad.

The main issue was who should decide whether the grievance was timely: the court or the arbitrator. The court explained that procedural questions arising from a labor grievance, including timeliness, generally belong to the arbitrator once the court determines that the dispute is subject to arbitration. A rare exception may allow a court to decide a strictly procedural issue when no factual dispute exists and resolving the issue would eliminate the need for arbitration.

The court declined to apply that exception. It concluded that the timeliness question was tied to interpreting the agreement’s requirement that arbitration begin “as soon as practicable” after a demand. The parties also disputed whether they had agreed to postpone the first grievance while resolving the second. Because the issue involved both contract interpretation and disputed facts, it was not an isolated procedural question for the court to decide.

The court also rejected Tastes on the Fly’s argument that possible prejudice from litigating older events justified refusing arbitration. Once the court determined that the dispute was subject to arbitration, the remaining questions had to be left to the arbitrator.

Disposition

The court granted UNITE HERE! Local 2’s motion to compel arbitration. It ordered Tastes on the Fly to submit Grievance SFO(2)-2-18 to arbitration under the collective bargaining agreement. The court administratively closed the case pending completion of arbitration and ordered the parties to file a notice within two weeks after a final arbitration ruling.