Mail-Well Envelope v. International Ass'n of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, District 54

Although no collective-bargaining agreement was in effect when Parrish, Roginski and Stacho were discharged, and no obligation to arbitrate the discharges could have existed as of the time the discharges occurred, it was certainly within the power of the parties to enter into a new contract creating such an obligation retrospectively. The problem, as I see it, is that the parties never did so.

The new collective-bargaining agreement speaks as of July 13, 1988. It was executed on that date, according to Article XXV, and it expressly says that “[t]his agreement shall become effective the 13th…