Byron White

“ Just as under the Huffman decision an amendment is not to be tested by whether it is within the existing contract, so a grievance settlement should not be tested by whether a court could agree with the parties' interpretation. If collective bargaining is to remain a flexible process, the power to amend by agreement and the power to interpret by agreement must be coequal. ”

“ We should not assume that doctrines evolved in other contexts will be equally well adapted to the collective bargaining process. Of course, we must protect the rights of the individual. It must not be forgotten, however, that many individual rights, such as the seniority rights involved in this case, in fact arise from the concerted exercise of the right to bargain collectively. Consequently, the understandable desire to protect the individual should not emasculate the right to bargain by placing undue restraints upon the contracting parties. ”

“ Seniority has become of overriding importance, and one of its major functions is to determine who gets or who keeps an available job. Here § 5 provided for resolving the seniority of not only those employees who are 'absorbed,' but all who were 'affected' by the absorption. Certainly the transaction 'affected' the E & L employees; and the seniority of these drivers, which the parties or the Joint Conference Committee could determine, was clearly seniority at Dealers, the company which had absorbed the E & L business. ”

“ No fraud is charged against the employer; but except for the improper action of the union, which is said to have dominated and brought about the decision, it is alleged that Dealers would have agreed to retain its own employees. The fair inference from the complaint is that the employer considered the dispute a matter for the union to decide. Moreover, the award had not been implemented at the time of the filing of the complaint, which put Dealers on notice that the union was charged with dishonesty and a breach of duty in procuring the decision of the Joint Committee. ”

“ The complete satisfaction of all who are represented is hardly to be expected. A wide range of reasonableness must be allowed a statutory bargaining representative in serving the unit it represents, subject always to complete good faith and honesty of purpose in the exercise of its discretion.' Id., 345 U.S. at 338, 73 S.Ct. at 686. Just as a union must be free to sift out wholly frivolous grievances which would only clog the grievance process, so it must be free to take a position on the not so frivolous disputes. ”

“ Part of the business of each of these companies was the transportation of new automobiles from the assembly plant of the Ford Motor Company in Louisville, Kentucky. In the face of declining business resulting from several factors, the two companies were informed by Ford that there was room for only one of them in the Louisville operation. ”

“ Following any of such events, the business of the one company will probably include the former business of the other; and the recurring question is whether it is the employees of the absorbed company or those of the acquiring company who are to have first call upon the available work at the latter concern. Jobs, as well as seniority, are at stake ”

“ The court below did not believe the rider dispositive, and we agree.↑ E.g., United Steelworkers of America v. American Manufacturing Co., 363 U.S. 564, 80 S.Ct. 1343, 4 L.Ed.2d 1403; United Steelworkers of America v. ”