128
Opinion of the Court
Warrior & Gulf, 363 U. S., at 582, that the parties did not intend that state-law claims be subject to arbitration, cf. Food Store Contract § 18.8 (direct wage claim not involving interpretation of agreement may be submitted "to any other tribunal or agency which is authorized and empowered" to enforce it), the Commissioner would still deny enforcement, on the stated basis that the collective-bargaining agreement nonetheless contained "an arbitration clause" and because the claim would, on her view, entail "interpretation," of the agreement's terms. Such an irrebuttable presumption is not easily described as the benefit of the parties' "bargain."
The Commissioner and amici finally suggest that denying enforcement to union-represented employees' claims under §§ 201 and 203 (and other Labor Code provisions) is meant to encourage parties to bargain collectively for their own rules about the payment of wages to discharged workers. But with this suggestion, the State's position simply slips any tether to California law. If California's goal really were to stimulate such freewheeling bargaining on these subjects, the enactment of Labor Code § 219, expressly and categorically prohibiting the modification of these Labor Code rules by "private agreement," would be a very odd way to pursue it.22 Cf. Cal. Lab. Code Ann. § 227.3 (West 1989) (allowing parties to collective-bargaining agreement to arrive at different rule for vacation pay). In short, the policy, the rationales, and the state law are not coherent.
2
Even at face value, however, neither the "hands off" labels nor the vague assertions that general labor law policies are thereby advanced much support the Commissioner's defense here. The former merely takes the position discussed and rejected earlier, that a distinction between claimants represented by unions and those who are not is "rational," the
22 The Commissioner avoids such complications simply by omitting any reference to Labor Code § 219.
Page: Index Previous 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007