Facts

Babcock & Wilcox Construction Co. entered into the National Industrial Maintenance Agreement (“NIMA”), a col- lective bargaining agreement, with the United Association of

1 Richard Adler & Jerry Ross, Seven and a Half Cents, in The Pajama Game (1954). 1308 U.A. LOCAL 342 v. BABCOCK & WILCOX CONSTRUCTION Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada (“U.A.”). Whenever local U.A. unions work on projects that fall within the scope of the NIMA, the terms of any local labor agreements to which the unions may also be parties apply only to the extent that the NIMA incorporates them.

One area in which the NIMA refers to local agreements is benefit fund contribution obligations. For example, the NIMA incorporates required apprentice training fund contributions:

Welfare Funds, Pension Funds, Apprentice Train- ing Funds and other monetary funds called for in the Local Union Labor Agreement shall be paid in accordance with the Local Union Labor Agreement ....

NIMA, art. IX ¶ 34. Industry promotion fund contributions, however, are not mandatory:

Industry Advancement or Promotion Funds called for in the Local Union Labor Agreement may be paid at the discretion of the Employer.

Art. IX ¶ 36.

The local agreement at issue here provides for a variety of fund contributions, including 75 cents per hour of work to the U.A. Local No. 342 apprentice training fund and 25 cents to industry promotion funds. It also requires employers who do not contribute to industry promotion funds to pay an equal amount into the apprentice training fund. See Master Labor Agreement Between Local Union 342 and Northern Califor- nia Mechanical Contractors Association (“local agreement”), art. X ¶ 81(E), (I), (J).

Babcock properly exercised its discretion under article IX ¶ 36 of the NIMA and declined to pay the 25 cents into the U.A. LOCAL 342 v. BABCOCK & WILCOX CONSTRUCTION 1309 industry promotion funds. However, it did not contribute an equal amount into the apprentice training fund, as required by the local agreement. The apprentice training fund sued. The district court granted the fund’s motion for summary judg- ment and referred the remaining matters, including damages, to a magistrate judge. The parties agreed to a stipulated judg- ment in conformity with the district court’s order. Babcock appeals.

Discussion

1. Stipulated judgments are usually not appealable. See Sla- ven v. Am. Trading Transp. Co., Inc., 146 F.3d 1066, 1070 (9th Cir. 1998). However, both parties agree that the purpose of the stipulated judgment was to set an amount of damages to facilitate Babcock’s appeal. We therefore have appellate jurisdiction because it is clear that Babcock “intended to pre- serve its right of appeal.” See Christian Sci. Reading Room Jointly Maintained v. City & County of S.F., 784 F.2d 1010, 1017 (9th Cir. 1986).

[1] 2. The text of the NIMA supports the fund’s position. The local agreement requires employers who do not pay a quarter into the industry promotion funds to turn that quarter over to the apprentice training fund. Babcock’s choice not to contribute to the industry promotion funds—a choice pro- tected by the NIMA, which makes such contributions discretionary—thus created a requirement under the local labor agreement to contribute to the apprentice training fund. That requirement is incorporated into the NIMA, which pro- vides that “Apprentice Training Funds . . . shall be paid in accordance with the Local Union Labor Agreement.” Art. IX ¶ 34.

[2] 3. Babcock suggests that we defer to the judgment of the NIMA Policy Committee, which considered this same question and concluded that requiring employers to pay into apprentice trust funds as an alternative to paying into industry 1310 U.A. LOCAL 342 v. BABCOCK & WILCOX CONSTRUCTION promotion funds would be “contrary to the spirit and intent” of the NIMA. This is not, strictly speaking, a statement that the NIMA does not require such contributions. However, even if we were to interpret it as such, the Policy Committee’s determination is not entitled to deference in this case. [3] One function of the Policy Committee is to adjudicate grievances between parties. Art. VI ¶ 28. We generally afford great deference to the decisions of arbitrators in disputes between parties to a collective bargaining agreement who, after all, agreed to the arbitrator’s authority. See, e.g., Gram- mer v. Artists Agency, 287 F.3d 886, 890-91 (9th Cir. 2002); Haw. Teamsters & Allied Workers Union, Local 996 v. UPS, 241 F.3d 1177, 1183 (9th Cir. 2001). But appellees, as non- parties to the agreement, have never agreed to submit to the decisions of the Policy Committee. [4] Even without their consent, appellees could nonetheless be required, as third-party beneficiaries of the NIMA, to go to arbitration, in which case the Policy Committee’s interpreta- tion of the contract would be binding on them. But an intent to subject third-party beneficiaries to arbitration is not pre- sumed; it must appear from “the language of the contract, or the circumstances under which it was executed.” See Schnei- der Moving & Storage Co. v. Robbins, 466 U.S. 364, 371 (1984). No such intent appears here: The NIMA does not give the Policy Committee authority to interpret the NIMA in the context of disputes with non-parties.2 We don’t doubt the benefits of delegating interpretive power over a complex collective bargaining agreement to an expert body in the way Babcock suggests, but the NIMA here didn’t actually grant the Policy Committee such power.

AFFIRMED.

2 We do not give any weight to the Policy Committee secretary’s state- ment that “[t]he Committee has exclusive authority to administer and interpret” the NIMA. This is a legal opinion about the interpretation of a contract, not a fact.