Procedural Arbitrability Under Section 301 of the LMRA

Abstract

Interscience Publishers, party to a collective agreement covering forty employee members of District 65, Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, announced in June, 1961, its intention to merge the following October with John Wiley & Sons, a substantially larger publishing company which was not unionized. It also announced that Wiley, the surviving company, would refuse to recognize the union although it was willing to hire all employees of Interscience, who would then represent a minority of the workers of the new enterprise. Inasmuch as the agreement between Interscience and the Union did not contain a clause binding the company's successors, Wiley felt secure in terminating it. Dissatisfied with a termination of the collective agreement during its life, and with the prospect of losing already organized employees, District 65 protested before and after the merger both to Inter- science and to Wiley. When this proved unsuccessful, the Union brought suit against Wiley under the collective agreement, as provided in section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, in order to compel arbitration of the dispute.