Association of Industrial Scientists v. Shell Development Company, a Division of Shell Oil Company, a Corporation

The Association of Industrial Scientists commenced this suit to compel Shell Development Company, a division of Shell Oil Company, to submit to arbitration a labor dispute pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement between the parties. The dispute arose when Shell decided to close its Fuels and Lubricants Department at Emeryville, California and transfer ten of the research scientists employed there to other laboratories in Illinois. Shell advised them that a refusal to go would result in their discharge. All ten are members of the Association which is their collective bargaining representative.

The District Court, concluding (1) from an “examination of the agreement in its entirety” that the dispute was not one within the arbitration provision of the agreement and (2) that, in any event, the grievance procedure provided by the agreement could be invoked only by the individual employees and was not available to the Association, granted Shell’s motion for summary judgment. This appeal followed.

“The duty to arbitrate being of contractual origin, a compulsory submission to arbitration cannot precede judicial determination that the collective bargaining agreement does in fact…