Most labor agreements specify early on when the seniority clock begins ticking, the unit in which it is earned and over which it can be applied, how it is to be used and is gained, exceptions to seniority rules, and how seniority is lost. It is this last issue and the use to which contract language dealing with this subject has increasingly been put—namely, the evisceration of the “just cause” discipline requirements—that is raising the concern of some arbitrators.

 

 

The majority of labor contracts contain, in addition to a seniority clause, a requirement that discipline up to and including termination be predicated on just, proper, or good cause. The precise adjective the parties use to modify the term “cause” is of secondary importance to the meaning intended: that discipline be assessed only for good reason as set forth in the labor agreement and the company’s work rules and regulations (i.e., malun prohibitum), or misconduct widely recognized as unacceptable in itself (malum in se). Despite the protections afforded employees and the limitations placed upon employers by just cause provisions, contracts seldom concretely and unequivocally define just cause.