Lori A. Safrit v.  Cone Mills Corporation

PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
 LORI A. SAFRIT,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 99-2677 
CONE MILLS CORPORATION,
Defendant-Appellee. 
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Salisbury.
William L. Osteen, District Judge.
(CA-97-646-4)
Argued: December 7, 2000
Decided: April 27, 2001
Before WILKINSON, Chief Judge, TRAXLER, Circuit Judge,
and James C. CACHERIS, Senior United States District Judge
for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.
Affirmed by published per curiam opinion.
COUNSEL
ARGUED: Nancy Renee Gaines, Salisbury, North Carolina, for
Appellant. Donald Ross Hamilton, Jr., HAYNSWORTH, BALDWIN,
JOHNSON & GREAVES, L.L.C., Greensboro, North Carolina, for
Appellee. ON BRIEF: James M. Powell, HAYNSWORTH,
BALDWIN, JOHNSON & GREAVES, L.L.C., Greensboro, North
Carolina, for Appellee.

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OPINION
PER CURIAM:
The issue in this case is whether a plaintiff can proceed with a Title
VII claim in federal court in the face of a Collective Bargaining
Agreement which explicitly states that Title VII claims would be sub-
ject to binding arbitration. In accordance with our precedent and the
Supreme Court’s recent reaffirmation of the validity of arbitration for
employment disputes, we affirm the judgment of the district court that
plaintiff’s claim is subject to arbitration.
I.
Lori Safrit was employed at Cone Mills’ plant in Salisbury, North
Carolina since 1982. She was a member of the United Needletrades,
Industrial, and Textile Employees Union (UNITE) during her
employment. In November 1994, she became a fixer trainee. She was
the only female fixer in her class. The defendant allegedly failed to
train Safrit properly and denied her job opportunities available to
other trainees.
The Collective Bargaining Agreement gave the union, not the
employee, the exclusive option to proceed to arbitration. The CBA
provided a four-step grievance procedure. If the complaint was still
unresolved after the four steps, the CBA allowed for arbitration. Safrit
could not proceed at any level without the union. The union took her
case to the fourth step of the grievance process. At this point, Cone
Mills agreed to correct the earlier deficiencies in the training program.
This corrective measure caused the union to stop pursuing the griev-
ance.
Cone Mills allegedly continued to discriminate against Safrit after
the company reached the agreement with the union to correct the defi-
ciencies in the training program. Safrit returned to the union to seek
enforcement of the previous agreement and a remedy for the continu-
ing discrimination. The union advised Safrit to seek legal counsel to
pursue remedies outside the grievance process. The union did not file
a second grievance. Safrit then filed a charge of discrimination with
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the EEOC. Subsequently, she filed the present complaint, alleging
that Cone Mills violated Title VII by discriminating against her based
on her sex. At the time the complaint was filed, Safrit was still
employed at the plant. The plant has since closed.
Section XX of the CBA specifically stated that the company and
the union "agree that they will not discriminate against any employee
with regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin or disabil-
ity. . . . The parties further agreed [sic] that they will abide by all the
requirements of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964." Section
XX further noted, "Unresolved grievances arising under this Section
are the proper subjects for arbitration." Cone Mills urged the district
court to dismiss the case, arguing that the CBA clearly and unmistak-
ably permitted arbitration as the sole remedy for alleged violations of
Title VII.
II.
The district court granted summary judgment for Cone Mills. It
stated that the Fourth Circuit allows a Collective Bargaining Agree-
ment negotiated by a union on behalf of an employee to validly waive
an employee’s statutory rights to a federal forum. See Brown v. ABF
Freight Sys., Inc., 183 F.3d 319, 321 (4th Cir. 1999). The district
court also noted that the Supreme Court does not preclude a waiver
of the right to a federal forum in a collective bargaining agreement
if it is done in "clear and unmistakable" language. Wright v. Universal
Maritime Serv. Corp., 525 U.S. 70, 80 (1998).
The district court recognized that this court has previously held that
a "clear and unmistakable" waiver can occur in two ways. First, the
agreement can contain an explicit arbitration clause in which the par-
ties agree to submit to arbitration all federal causes of action arising
out of employment. See Carson v. Giant Food, Inc., 175 F.3d 325,
332 (4th Cir. 1999). Second, a general clause requiring arbitration
under the agreement can be coupled with a provision which makes
"unmistakably clear that the discrimination statutes at issue are part
of the agreement. . . ." Id.
Here, Section XX of the CBA indubitably provides such a clear
and unmistakable waiver. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a waiver that
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would be more definite or absolute. The parties agreed that they
would "abide by all the requirements of Title VII" and that
"[u]nresolved grievances arising under this Section are the proper
subjects for arbitration."
Safrit now argues that her good-faith compliance with the griev-
ance provisions of the governing CBA should preserve her right to
pursue claims in a federal forum, especially when the grievance pro-
cess was inadequate to remedy the discriminatory treatment and when
she herself had no control over the further processing of the com-
plaint. But Safrit runs flat against binding Fourth Circuit caselaw on
this point. We have already held, post-Wright, that a collectively bar-
gained agreement to arbitrate a statutory discrimination claim is
enforceable. See Brown, 183 F.3d at 321; Carson, 175 F.3d at 331.
And the Supreme Court itself has recently acknowledged the continu-
ing viability of arbitration claims in the employment context. See Cir-
cuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, No. 99-1379, 69 U.S.L.W. 4195 (U.S.
Mar. 21, 2001).
We are, of course, bound to apply our precedent on this point, and
to respect the Supreme Court’s most recent pronouncement on the
subject of arbitration. An agreement to arbitrate statutory claims is
part of the natural tradeoff that a union must make in exchange for
other benefits. As Judge Widener wrote for the court in Austin v.
Owens-Brockway Glass Container, Inc., a "union has the right and
duty to bargain for the terms and conditions of employment." Austin,
78 F.3d 875, 885 (4th Cir. 1996). And since the right to arbitrate is
a term or condition of employment, the union may bargain for this
right as well. See id. (citing Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U.S.
448 (1957)). The collective bargaining process permits unions to
waive the right to strike "and other rights protected under the National
Labor Relations Act." Id. (citing Metropolian Edison Co. v. NLRB,
460 U.S. 693, 705 (1983)). Indeed, no reason exists for distinguishing
between "a union bargaining away the right to strike and a union bar-
gaining for the right to arbitrate." Austin, 78 F.3d at 885. In both
cases, the union and its members decide that the price of giving up
the right to strike or the right to litigate is worth the benefits that they
will receive in return.
To redact one clause from the CBA would in effect alter the agree-
ment reached during the often-difficult collective bargaining process.
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And there is no claim that Safrit’s union failed to adequately represent
its members during the course of negotiations with Cone Mills or dur-
ing the grievance process.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.
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