Puerto Rico Labor Relations Board v. Heirs of Serrallés

94 P.R. 325
CourtSupreme Court of Puerto Rico
DecidedApril 24, 1967
DocketNo. JRT-66-7
StatusPublished

This text of 94 P.R. 325 (Puerto Rico Labor Relations Board v. Heirs of Serrallés) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Puerto Rico Labor Relations Board v. Heirs of Serrallés, 94 P.R. 325 (prsupreme 1967).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Santana Becerra

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Puerto Rico Labor Relations Board, on behalf and in representation of the Insular Labor’s Association, requested the court to enforce an arbitration award. It stated-that on June 3, 1963 the Union and defendant Heirs of J. Serrallés signed a collective bargaining agreement to regulate their relations from April 24, 1963 to April 24, 1966; that during the eifectiveness of said agreement the parties submitted to the consideration of an arbitrator the following submission agreement:

“To determine whether the employer is empowered under the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement in force to deliver, as it did deliver, the contribution for the Welfare Plan provided in Art. IX of the agreement, to the Board of Directors of Chapter No. 5 of the Insular Labor’s Association instead of sending it by mail to the known address of the Union certified by the Board as the contracting Union.”

[327]*327On May 5, 1966 the arbitrator rendered an award determining the following:

“The employer is bound to pay to the certified Union, Insular Labor’s Association, its obligations contracted in Art. IX of the agreement, Welfare Plan, and send it by registered mail to the known address of the latter.”

The Board informs, in representation of the Association, that although the Union has requested respondent to comply with the preceding award, the latter “has not paid to the Union the contribution for the Welfare Plan which it owes according to the provisions of said award”; and it prays that we enforce it and order Heirs of J. Serrallés to make the payment to Insular Labor’s Association accordingly.

We entered an order addressed to the employer requesting it to state the reasons why the award should not be enforced, and the latter has appeared impeaching the same because it is contrary to law and it implies an unjust enrichment.

In the collective bargaining agreement signed June 3, 1963, there appeared the employer, Heirs of Serrallés, and Insular Labor’s Association as the contracting Union. Its Art. IV stated that the following employees constituted, on the date the agreement was signed, the employer’s regular and permanent employees in the appropriate unit covered by the agreement: Catalino Avilés, Genaro Almodovar, Pedro Colón Figueroa, Bernardino Colón, Francisco Ortiz, Daniel Pabón, Juan Francisco Silva, Marcial Troche Plata, Domingo Vargas Santiago and Herminio Vázquez.

Article VII created the Grievance, Claims, and Adjustment Committee and it stated that the decision of the Committee by majority vote as well as the decision of an arbitrator should conform to law, and as to the facts, they would be final and unappealable for the worker as well as for the Union and the employer. Neither the committee nor the [328]*328arbitrator would have power to vary the provisions of the agreement, but only to interpret it.

Article IX, under “Welfare Plan”, provided that the employer would contribute $500 annually for said plan which the Union has established for the exclusive benefit of its employees. The agreement is signed, in representation of the Union, by Genaro Almodovar, Juan Francisco Silva and another signature which apparently reads Waldemiro Arroyo.

■ In the record there is a copy of a letter of February 19, 1963, written in the Insular Labor's Association official printed stationery addressed to Serrallés and signed by Waldemiro Arroyo, President, informing him to take official notice that the employer’s workers in the construction unit had elected, pursuant to the law, in a previously summoned meeting, the following Board of Directors of Chapter No. 5 of this Union, to which they are affiliated: President, Juan Francisco Silva; Vice-president, Francisco Ortiz; Secretary-Treasurer, Catalino Avilés; Marshal, Domingo Vargas; and Member, Genaro Almodovar. Arroyo, the President of the Union, informs that this Board of Directors represents the other coworkers in the unit and as such they would have to negotiate with the employer in any grievances or matters arising as a consequence of their employments, and prayed for the employer’s cooperation with these coworkers.

In the record there is copy of another letter dated April 19, 1965, addressed to Serrallés in which it is stated that the undersigned, workers and members of the Campo Constr. Union, Insular Labor’s Ass’n Chapter No. 5 request thereby, that, like the preceding year, payment of the $500 be delivered to Treasurer Catalino Avilés, and the latter, in turn, will deposit it in the bank to be used for leaves of absence, medicines, and medical services. This handwritten letter is signed by Juan Francisco Silva, President; Herminio Váz-quez, Bernardino Colón, Daniel Pabón, Francisco Ortiz, Genaro Almodovar, Catalino Avilés, Treasurer, Pedro Colón [329]*329Figueroa, and Domingo Vargas, the same persons, except one, who appear in the agreement. In the record there is a copy of a check dated April 29, 1964 drawn by Serrallés in favor of the “Treasurer of Campo Construction Union, Chapter No. 5 of the Insular Labor’s Association” for the amount of $500 and copy of a letter of May 1, 1964 from Treasurer Catalino Avilés acknowledging receipt of said check as requested by them pursuant to Art. IX of the collective bargaining agreement. There is a copy of another check of Serrallés dated April 30, 1965 for $500 and issued in the same manner as the preceding one, and a copy of Treasurer Avilés’ letter of April 30, 1965 acknowledging receipt thereof for the Welfare Plan.

The Board admits that the collective bargaining agreement provides that the Committee as well as the arbitrator shall decide according to law and that when this occurs the awards may be judicially reviewed for errors of law, but the Board understands that at the hearing for arbitration the employer waived this clause of the agreement. Cf. Labor Relations Board v. N.Y. & P.R. S/S Co., 69 P.R.R. 730 (1949); Labor Relations Board v. Orange Crush of P.R., 80 P.R.R. 281 (1958); Housing Authority v. Sup’r Ct.; Zequeira, Int., 82 P.R.R. 333, 345, 350 (1961); Labor Relations Board v. Valencia Baxt, 86 P.R.R. 267, 273 (1962); Labor Relations Board v. Executive House, Inc., 91 P.R.R. 775 (1965).

We have examined the transcript of the proceedings before the arbitrator and we cannot agree with the Board that the employer waived anything in that sense. It appears from the record that the arbitrator stated that there existed a limitation that the award should conform to law and he accepted said limitation with the warning that he was not an attorney. That the parties could expect him to make his award according to the basic principles of law and could not expect him to abide by a law unknown to him, and that [330]*330with that explanation he accepted the arbitration. To these statements Arroyo, on behalf of the Union, made others, and expressly waived said limitation of the agreement. The employer’s representative at the hearing did not make any statement and waived nothing, assuming he was invested with delegated powers to waive conditions stipulated in the collective bargaining agreement.

The record is rather inaccurate as to certain facts. We do not know in detail how the controversy arose before the Grievance Committee, or when.

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