Safeway Stores, Inc., discharged a journeyman meat cutter for disobeying an order and threatening a supervisor with physical harm. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 filed a grievance on behalf of the employee, and a few days later, representatives of the company and the union met to discuss the grievance. Unable to reach an informal resolution, the union submitted the grievance to arbitration.

The arbitrator found that the grievant was guilty of disobeying a direct order and that he had compounded his offense by threatening his supervisor with bodily harm. However, the arbitrator refused to sustain the discharge because he also found that the company had not fully disclosed to the union or the grievant all the reasons for the discharge. At the grievance meeting, the company had stated that the reason for the discharge was the incident of insubordination. But during the arbitration hearing, the personnel director testified that his decision to discharge the grievant was based not only on his acts of insubordination but also on his past disciplinary record and a newspaper clipping he had seen concerning the grievant’s conviction for assault and battery of his former girlfriend.

The company refused to abide by the arbitrator’s decision and sought to have it overturned in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

If you had been the federal judge sitting in this case, would you have affirmed or overturned the arbitrator’s award? See Safeway Stores, Inc. v.

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400

[621 F.Supp. 1233 (D.D.C. 1985)].